mommy vs the bikini

I have ruined her life. Absolutely none of her friends will be dressed like her. Why does she have to be different? All this drama for the mama because I won't buy my nine year old a bikini. Truly I must be from ancient times and have a heart carved out of ice. Nevermind that I have purchased two piece bathing suits for her as recently as last summer. I just happen to have drawn the line at triangle shaped scraps of material for preteens.

To her I'm just all that stands in the way between her and the slumber party of the year. I actually feel her pain and remember when I thought my mom was so unfair. I'd like to take her aside and explain to her that her mommy did indeed wear a bikini as a teen but that she in fact isn't even past the age for requiring children's tylenol. However I won't. She will try my patience again and again over this with heart wrenching sobs and equally ear splitting shrieks of indignation and misery. However I think I will have to be Mt. Kilmanjaro or Everest. I am there to be climbed but immovable. Time will march on and she will also turn into a teen with a bikini much to her daddy's horror. Yet it won't be me, it will be time that has passed and I'm sure another line to draw in the sand.

In weak moments I actually wonder if I am just somehow out of touch and should just get with it. Is this a case of changing fashions or changing standards? I guess a little bit of both, ok alot of both. I dig in my spurs a bit when I think since when does a twelve year old without a job need to have a cell phone to call his own? Is the whole school really IMing each other? I'd prefer that my kids could actually spell accurately 90% of the time before they start texting and cranking out IM's to their bff's or bf's or whoever, whatever as they might say. When did it become desirable for kids to be miniaturized adults? Ralph Lauren ads? What does it say about us as adults when we fail to provide lines of demarcation on the path from childhood to adulthood? If they jump through all the hoops by age 7 what's left for them to strive towards? A job? Kids of their own to hurry along?

Delayed gratification is a quaint beauty in our culture. I'm hoping my kids come to know its features well and in time even appreciate it. For now though preteen angst is the rule and mom is just so mean.