Itsy, Bitsy, Teeny, Weeny Bikini

Summer is here once again, which is awesome. I'm a big fan of summertime. Here in our town of Mt. Pleasant, we are lucky to have the greatest municipal pool I've ever seen. It has a million features, including a 40-foot, tunneled, corkscrew water slide. All for less than $500 per family.

As you can imagine, we are at the pool as often as possible, which means running into the same families day after day. This can be great when the moms are interesting and the kids well-behaved. But when the kids are wild and the mom weird, well, it can be sucky.

There is this woman: We don't see her much during the school-year (thankfully we're in different school districts), but every time we're at the pool, we run into her and her brood. Because my children are close in age to two of hers (she has three kids and is pregnant with #4), we get to talking as moms do. She's perfectly nice, but let's just say that our politics and philosophies could not be more different, and for that reason she annoys me.

Mind you, it's not like we actually talk about politics or philosophy, but you can learn a lot about a person just by discussing kids and hobbies. I've written about this woman before: Once she made a crack about how she'd better start using sunscreen or else she'd "look 40" in no time (not realizing I was 41); another time, she offended me with the Pro-life bumper stickers on her mini-van.

Since our paths have started crossing again, I've been a bit wary of her. And sure enough, the other day Ms. Clueless did it again. We were sitting on the edge of the kiddie pool watching our kids and chatting. Her four-year-old daughter had on the cutest bathing suit: pink and green, flamingo-patterned, skirt bottom, short-sleeved top, matching headband. I complimented the mom on the suit, and she said, "Yeah, I think it's so cute but I couldn't get her to wear it at first. Then I was like, 'I paid $20 bucks for it, you're wearing it!' I don't know, I'm just not into bikinis for little girls." She crinkled up her nose. "There's no need to show that much skin when they're so young."

Not ten feet away, my three-year-old daughter was splashing around in her bikini. I wanted to smack the b*#ch.

Looking adorbs in her bikini

I happen to think bikinis on little girls are adorable. And they are also practical when you are trying to potty train your kid--getting a wet one-piece off an about-to-bust toddler is challenging, to say the least. My daughter has about five swimsuits, yet she almost always chooses the bikini, even though it's from last year and barely fits anymore.

I'm not about to argue with her about which swimsuit to wear. I mean, what is the BFD if your toddler wears a bikini? In Europe the little girls splash around topless, and no one cares. Why must Americans--especially those who are part of the religious right--be so uptight about this stuff?

They think they're protecting their kids but what they're really doing is giving them complexes. What's Ms. Clueless going to do when her precious little girl turns sixteen and starts rebelling against all the Puritanical dogma with micro-minis and piercings?

That I would like to see.

Tiny Dancers

Raising a 3-year-old girl is such a good time! I love the darling outfits and the pink shoes, and I have great fun styling her pretty, wavy, brown hair. But lately I've been wondering about something: When did ballerinas reach the #2 slot on the "Stuff Little Girls Love" list? (The #1 spot? Princesses, natch.)

I've known about the princess obsession for years, even before I had kids of my own (how could you not, they're everywhere). But this ballerina thing has really taken me by surprise.

When I was growing up, not every little girl took ballet lessons. But nowadays it's as if signing up at the local dance studio is a rite of passage that every girl must go through when she hits age three. I certainly understand the appeal; I've thought ballerinas were beautiful ever since I can remember.

But back then, girls didn't just dabble in ballet; if you wanted to dance, it was a major commitment that required hours of practice, hard-core dedication, and a major cash outlay. My best friend was a dedicated dancer. I fondly recall her tattered toe shoes and tight chignons. Watching her dance in the Boston Ballet's production of The Nutcracker was exhilarating, but also made me envious. I kinda wanted to do what she was doing up there on stage, but in those days it seemed like only the girls who aspired to be Principal Ballerina for the ABT took lessons.

Babygirl with two Tiny Ballerinas classmates

That's not the case in 2011, that's for sure. You can't go to the grocery store without spotting at least one little girl in a pink tutu. Our town's community center offers a Tiny Ballerinas class: eight sessions for only $72. Ballet for everyone!

Which is great...except it means one more thing for my little girl to obsess over: the ballet slippers, leotards, tutus, and tights--all of them the pinker the better. Sure, it's harmless now but ballet is not exactly an equal-opportunity activity, and if my darling girl wants to continue dancing, at some point she will most likely develop body-shape issues. (Well, she probably will even without the ballet, but dancing can only make it worse.) I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but do I really want to set her up for that?

So much in these little girls' world already centers around appearance--the princess dresses, jeweled tiaras, sparkly lelli kelly shoes, crazy hair accessories, pink everything--that it almost seems irresponsible for me to encourage something like ballet, the appeal of which is mostly the outfits. Yeah, yeah, I know...ballet is exercise, art, grace, discipline, and cooperation all in one. But that's not why the little girls love it.

It's all about the tutus.