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Mirror, Mirror: A padded push-up bikini top for a little child? No, no, no

When we were growing up, my sister and I lived with a few indisputable rules: Little girls didn't wear black, ever; absolutely no makeup until we turned 16; and a bikini? No way.

Abercrombie was marketing a padded bikini top like this for girls as young as age 7. (Photo / Abercrombie & Fitch)
Abercrombie was marketing a padded bikini top like this for girls as young as age 7. (Photo / Abercrombie & Fitch)Read more

When we were growing up, my sister and I lived with a few indisputable rules: Little girls didn't wear black, ever; absolutely no makeup until we turned 16; and a bikini? No way.

These were things reserved for grown women, not 7-year-olds.

Today that clear line between childhood and adulthood is blurry and pink in a Hello Kitty kind of way. Technology is a major culprit (parents are friends with their kids on Facebook); however, fashion - with her sequins, skinny jeans, and pouting glossy lips - is the top offender.

This mini-me phenomenon of parents dressing children in their image took a spill on the runway last week when Abercrombie Kids was selling a padded bikini top called the Ashley that was marketed as a push-up (push-up what?) in sizes as small as a 4.

"There is a line that you don't want to cross and a push-up bra incident was 5,000 miles past that," said blogger Hollee Actman-Becker of Gladwyne. Actman-Becker is the mother of an 8-year-old daughter whom she admits to dressing in Juicy Couture.

Understandably, the cleavage-promoting top sent parents into a hissy. Bloggers raised holy heck. The story made the morning-show circuit. Commentators, many of them male, lambasted pop culture. What was fashion doing to our innocent little girls?

A 75-year-old woman in a wheelchair was cited for trespassing as she protested the faux pas in front of Abercrombie's Costa Mesa, Calif., store. Her sign read: "Abercrombie: pedophiles sexualizing little girls through clothing."

Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch removed the Ashley from its website last week (although it still sells other padded triangle bikini tops) and said in an e-mail that it "will not be issuing a formal statement regarding the kid's bikini issue." The e-mail, which was sent in response to my query, went on, "The bikini was not intended for, or, best suited for those under the age of 12."

But the damage had been done. A push-up's sole purpose is to boost cleavage for the sake of attracting attention - usually sexual. Making this top available to a kid is skeevy.

Actually, allowing little girls to copy much of Mommy's fashion borders on inappropriate.

"By having girls dress and act like much older people, we are supporting that idea and erasing the hierarchy in the family," said Mary Rourke, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Widener University who specializes in children and families.

When modern-day fashions like ultra-lowriders are worn by a 10-year-old and her mother, it makes it hard for parents to pull rank and maintain respect, Rourke said.

"Sometimes that hierarchy can be too rigid, but a collapsed one isn't good either, because kids don't have the safety and security they need," and if they're already dressing in a grown-up role, they are never "learners."

How did it get to this?

Little girls have been playing dress-up since the beginning of time, but I don't think the problem is about emulating Mom. Even my mother would make herself an Easter dress and matching ones for me and my sister. But we were clear that it was for a special occasion, and our looks, to borrow a favorite phrase of hers, were "age-appropriate."

The real blurring started in earnest in the late 1990s with a convergence of pop-culture moments: The teenage Britney Spears became popular with her lowriders; marketers, happy to seal brand loyalty at ever younger ages, targeted 8- to 12-year-old "tweens," and Gen X moms, eager to be hip, started dressing like teenagers.

Most mothers don't go to the extremes of Katie Holmes, who has let her four-year-old daughter, Suri, wear dark lipstick and don high-heeled shoes. And many of us believe the recent trend of girls as young as 16 getting breast enhancements is icky.

But parents have indulged their children with Uggs and Citizens of Humanity, high prices and all. And not only are kids and parents wearing the same styles, some parents are shopping the XL racks in kids' stores.

"Abercrombie is a major corporation, and they do tons of research and they know what products sell," said Tina Wells, owner of Philadelphia-based Buzz Marketing Group. "How many booty shorts? Or miniskirts? How many other things have come out that are OK?"

(In the meantime, Abercrombie's stocks hit a 33-month high Tuesday when shares reached $65.17.)

The trick to conforming to trends while instituting boundaries, said Linda Berman, owner of Center City's Children's Boutique, is to be tasteful. Her target market is infants to about age 10.

For example, Berman has been known to send back to manufacturers T-shirts that are cut too low, and she won't sell items bearing suggestive language. She also tries to limit the amount of black clothing she sells, and she's no fan of little-girl lowriders or too many cut-off shirts.

She says a two-piece bathing suit can be OK - as long as it doesn't aim to enhance a little girl's figure.

"Children shouldn't be exposed," Berman said. "But they don't just want to wear the Peter Pan collar anymore because there is a lot of fun fashion out there. . . . There just needs to be a balance."