One day I logged in to my Facebook account and, to my horror, my timeline was bombed with what appears to have been a hot new trend in kids’ fashion, but one which I’m so glad was nipped in the bud and died out very soon after its apparent advent. Of course I’m talking about the trend of dressing children like they’re adults. It seemed so wrong just looking at the kiddies posing in outfits that look like they’re rather limiting to their natural instincts and my first thought when I saw the second pic in the series and realised that it was some kind of trend, was “no!”

This was Facebook, for goodness’ sake – not Instagram or Pinterest where posters really go crazy with their images!

Special occasions only

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not totally against children dressing up and looking good, but this should only be limited to extra special occasions. I mean I’m sure your little man looks super adorable in his little tux, tailored and all, but there’s a reason why such moments induce the desire to be captured as special lasting memories.

The problem isn’t even that the kids are dressed up really, but rather the fact that their minds are being trained to place value on material possessions a bit too early on in their lives – pun intended…

Creating little monsters

I really wish I could share some of these pics with you so that you can get the full impact of just how wrong they are, but they disgusted me so much that I couldn’t bring myself to keep any of them. I mean you can’t have a toddler dressed in a super-tight skirt which suggest that were it for an adult its intended purpose would be to show off the body shape!

As mentioned, a tux is fine for a wedding in the case of the little boys, but this particular trend had them looking like they’ve power-dressed for some gruelling session in the boardroom. I mean we’re talking here cuff-links, pocket squares and tailored trousers to go with blazers that fit just right – that’s not right by any stretch of the imagination!

What this does is it creates little monsters who are self-conscious about how they look, inevitably assigning that appearance to money and that can only lead to disaster.

Comfort should be the order of the day

Children should be left to enjoy their childhood for as long as they can, with their innocence intact. Teaching their very impressionable minds about self-worth that’s attainable through the way they look is somewhat inevitable, but it’s perhaps something which should be left to discovery as opposed to it being taught. Children should be comfortable in the clothes they wear and I’m talking about physical comfort here in that they shouldn’t have to give a second thought to what they’ve got on.

Their clothes shouldn’t bother them at all and they should be free to do what children do, such as climbing trees and running around to get rid of all the energy they have.