Victoria's Secret and My 9-year-old Daughter

I never really figured that my daughter would grow up with anything other than perfect self esteem, perfect body image, graduate from high school and receive a full college scholarship to a fabulous university like Harvard or Stanford, find a marvelous husband who adored her, win the Nobel prize for Chemistry or Physics, and then be elected the first female President of the United States.  Every parent looks at their new born and young children and has every hope and dream for them to grow up and have a wonderful life.  Oh, I knew that there would be issues along the way, and with a daughter I had chosen to think that she would be a strong, confidant woman with super model looks with no questions or other bumps along the road.  Don't get me wrong, we have no major problems yet, but I made an observation the other day and it got me thinking just how much a young girl is bombarded with sexual images on a daily basis.

Valentine's Day was last week and the kids and I had gone shopping at the mall to get a present for Dana.  We actually went to Williams & Sonoma to get her a cookbook stand for the kitchen. Yes, after 13 years of marriage Valentine's presents are about practicality, not chocolate and lingerie.  We also decided to get an iTunes gift card from the Apple store which was right nearby.  At least something a little fun and spontaneous instead of staying with Mom's practical Valentine's shopping list.

When we came out of the Apple store, we were right across the mall from the Victoria's Secret store.  A quick aside, I have noticed this to be fairly common in more than one mall.  I have two theories for this common occurrence.  First, the retail store marketing experts from Victoria's Secret,  think that wives/girlfriends will go shopping for underwear and and bras and their husbands/boyfriends are more comfortable looking at computer gadgets instead of trying to be unobtrusive holding a shopping bag standing around in Victoria's Secret, or second, the retail store marketing experts from Apple think that tech geeks who would rather talk to their buddies about processor speeds and how much RAM in a computer than talk to a real, live girl can look at the windows and dream.  Of course, the third option is the stores conspired together.

However, I digress... when we came out of the Apple store, we were right across the mall from the Victoria's Secret store and their window display model was dressed like the photo you see here.  Delaney stopped for a good long moment and assessed what the model was wearing.  She did not say anything, but I noticed the pause, the look, and you could see the thoughts rolling around in her head.  So I attempted my best understanding Dad speak and asked. "Do you have underwear that looks like that?"

She looked down shyly and said, "No."  Then we walked towards our car for about 20 feet and she said, "I have never seen Mom wear underwear like that either.  Who wears underwear like that?"

I opened the door, and now was having second thoughts, but figured it was too late.  "Well, sometimes when you are older and you go on fancy dates you might want to wear fancy underwear."  This seemed to answer her question and a breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"Dad, how old do you have to be to wear fancy underwear?"

"25."  It is my standard response for questions about dating, boys, sex, etc.

"Does Mom wear her fancy underwear when you take her on a date?"

Why oh why did I start this conversation was running through my head, but was in for the duration.  I said, "Sometimes, but most of the time just her regular underwear."

Another pause and then, "Where do boys buy fancy underwear Dad?"

Now I was stumped.  "I don't know.  Mom buys me fancy underwear sometimes but she never tells me where she buys it at."

"She buys it at Old Navy.  I was with her at Christmas time.  But please don't tell her I told you."

"OK Delaney, your secret is safe with me."