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This article appeared in Columbia magazine, July, 2001.

A Modesty Proposal
By Dorothy Fleming

At Sunday Mass recently I sat behind two girls in jeans shorts. Across the aisle was another girl wearing an embarrassingly short and tight skirt. Her dad must have noticed. Didn’t she care? When I spotted a teenage girl at a Catholic Grade School event wearing a totally backless top, my first thought was “Where’s her mother?’
 

Witnessing a strapless dress being worn at an eighth-grade confirmation was the last straw. Where will it end?

While the issue of immodest dress may be an old one, what’s different about it today is that more parents seem accepting of skimpy, so-called “sexy” clothes for their children. Is it our young women who are so starved for attention they will stop at nothing (literally!) to obtain it? Or, is it us parents who either want our daughters to attract attention any way they can or are simply too lazy or preoccupied to raise the issue?
 

Pay Plenty to Cover Very Little
 

G.K. Chesterton wondered the same thing – nearly 75 years ago! “Three-quarters of the current arguments against prudery or modesty in clothing leads ultimately and inevitable to wearing no clothes at all,” he wrote.

No clothes at all is exactly what some were wearing on a recently televised music awards show. The singers came on stage covered only in body paint with studs glued to their skin in strategic places.

I’ve shopped with my 16-year-old daughter, and I know all too well that if young girls are left to make decisions about what they wear, trendy shops will lure them into paying plenty to cover very little. Bottom line, teenagers may not need mom or dad to dress them, but they still need us to tell them what to wear.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines modesty as “an integral part of temperance.” Modesty “protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what is hidden” (2521). The Catechism also links modesty to respect for human life and urges parents to teach modesty to children and adolescents.

According to the Catechism, “Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing” (2522).

Still, there are parents who are tolerating immodesty, and some are even contributing to it. After all, many parents and teens alike are entertained by sleazy, award-winning films like American Beauty, which reveled in the adult characters’ infidelity and impurity, and condoned the teen characters’ sexual relations.
 

When a high school girl showed up at a school event in a strapless top and tight leather pants, one of the boys greeted her by asking, “Why do you dress like that?” Too bad that didn’t embarrass her enough to put on a sweatshirt or leave.

Someone needs to have the courage to tell our young daughters what isn’t polite; why tube tops with hip-huggers, and skirts and shorts that are too tight and short are not OK to wear in public. No child has ever died or lost a friend because she kept her clothes on. We established a “No Bikini” rule at our cabin, and it has never deterred anyone from spending a weekend with us.
 

Calvin, Abercrombie and Britney
 

Most teens, sadly, don’t have a clue about the beauty of modest dress or Christian purity. And too many have not developed a relationship with Jesus nor love for his Mother and ours to dress modestly to please them. Moms and dads have to explain to a child who does not understand, the difference between clothing that is suggestive and clothing that is not. Calvin Klein magazine ads and Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs are vulgar at best, yet the styles are imitated by nice girls and boys who think the virtue of modesty is quaint.

Many of today’s young women are being raised by mothers who argued for equality and have exhorted their children from preschool years on to “Expect respect.” How peculiar, then, that many powerful women style-makers in the fashion and entertainment industries promote sexy teen fashions and market pop culture icons who wear skimpy outfits and behave sleazily. Instead of being equal, instead of taking charge, instead of commanding respect, our daughters and younger sisters are being encouraged to sacrifice virtue for a moment’s stare from a baggy-panted boy. (Lest anyone accuse me of picking on the girls, the same principles hold true for those young men wearing the baggy pants that ride low around their waists to reveal the top of their underwear.)

When a mom dresses her 7-year-old child to look like Britney Spears in a handkerchief top and hip-hugging jeans, how does she think her daughter will dress when she’s 13, 16, or 18? How is she expecting her to behave? A “cute” but inappropriate look on a 7-year-old in just a few years becomes more than inappropriate. Ask the boy next door with the raging hormones.

Why is it that no one will admonish the girl in the short tight skirt who pretends to sit comfortable and perform at the band concert? I would think mom or dad would want to prevent their precious child from embarrassing herself in front of her peers, as well as the audience. Sometimes I’ve seen teachers step in and offer a sweater or coat, but quite frankly, it’s not their job.

Some parents recognize the reason for clothing restrictions and respect their children enough to say no.

“When I saw what my daughter bought at the mall,” one courageous father said, “I told her to march right back to the store and return it.”

My daughter Laura, married now 13 years, said she remembers that we talked about dressing modestly when she was in grade school. Now a mother of four, Laura believes, “some kids will do or wear anything to be trendy.” She knows being prim and pretty is not synonymous with showy and sexy and popular. “I think there’s just too much importance placed on clothes and how you look rather than on being good.”

“My first job after college, I dressed for attention,” a dear friend confessed. “I wore hip huggers and a halter top to work.”

“Did your mother know?” I caught myself asking.

“Sure she did,” she continued apologetically. “I dressed like that at home, too. No one ever told me anything about what it means to be modest or that how I dressed might be suggestive. When I look back on this I know it was awful what I was doing. I would never want my daughters to even see a picture of me in those clothes.”

Even if my daughters weren’t interested in what I might have to say about dressing modestly, they cared about their grandmother and her opinion. “If I wouldn’t wear it in front of my grandma,” Laura confirmed, “I wouldn’t wear it at all.”

Grandma’s influence lives on even though she died years ago. When Laura went shopping with her teen sister for “the” prom dress, there was never a question about choosing a dress that “Grandma wouldn’t like.” Simple and modest can be stunning and fashionable.
 

Raising Virtuous Children
 

“Simplicity and modesty are very rare and royal virtues,” Chesterton wrote back in 1907. It is that desire to be virtuous that we are longing to see in our children. WE must ell them daily: “You can be Christlike. You can be pure. You can be good. And you can look terrific and have a heck of a good time too.”

Dressing modestly is more significant than pleasing our loved ones, it is holy and pleasing to God. The fact that my mom’s influence lives on, communicates the significance of my role. How proud I would be to know that my granddaughters would want to please me by dressing modestly.

Taking the high road sometimes means extra hours shopping at the mall or some tense moments at home. The courage needed is there for the asking. Our daughters and granddaughters (and sons and grandsons) are worth the time and the trouble.