Teaching our daughters not to reveal what should remain hidden.
Editor’s Note: This post was removed for a time and has been republished with some of it’s original content omitted. It has been linked by an atheist feminist discussion board where many of the comments misrepresented its content and my intention in writing the post. Accordingly, I have removed the parts that were most prone to be misconstrued. The site claims to ban “hateful or disrespectful commentary” but otherwise be “against most censorship.” However, only the comments that supported my viewpoint, my right to hold it, or our right to raise our daughter according to our values were suppressed. Yet, all of the comments that were hateful or disrespectful toward me remained visible. Interesting.
I’m keeping the edited version of this post at the original link, because I also received a lot of positive feedback on it. I believe it sends a necessary message of support and encouragement to fathers who are struggling against the culture to raise their daughters with a sense of values. Don’t give up; don’t give in. Set appropriate boundaries and stick to them; she’s worth the effort. Most of all, love your daughter and do your best to instill in her a profound sense of her own dignity. Her relationships with men and with God will be impacted by her relationship with you, so don’t let her down! For more, read Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker, M.D.
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Lucy is growing up. I know she’s only almost-4, but the difference between her first day of preschool and her last one is striking. No longer a toddler, she’s a bright, energetic, free-spirited little girl with a burgeoning independent streak. She wants to do what she wants to do.
Getting her dressed in the morning is often a battle. Quite simply, she doesn’t want to.
Me: “C’mon Lucy Goose, let’s go upstairs and get you dressed.”
Lucy: “No, I don’t want to.”
Me: “You need to get ready for preschool.”
Lucy: “I want to wear … JAMMIES!”
Me: “Sweetheart, you need to wear your play clothes.”
Lucy: “No, I don’t WANT to get dressed!”
I’m no fool (or so I think); I can see where this is going. The conflict isn’t over modesty, yet. It’s more generally about what attire is appropriate for what she’s doing and where she’s going, but I can see the modesty discussions coming. Lisa wrote about this recently.
I am my daughter’s protector. Right now, my job as her father is to help her understand that what she wears has to be grounded in reality. For example, she has learned “the hard way” that she needs to wear pants to protect the skin on her knees when she slides across our hardwood floor.
However, the stakes will increase exponentially in the coming years, and I’d rather she not learn the importance of modesty “the hard way.” From the Catechism:
… Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity … (CCC 2521-2523)
Again, as a father, I am my daughter’s protector – of both her exterior and her interior.
I ran across a post from Michael Hyatt recently: Whatever Happened to Modesty? In it, he shares the “Four Guidelines for Modesty” he gave his daughters when they were growing up:
- If you have trouble getting into it or out of it, it is probably not modest.
- If you have to be careful when you sit down or bend over, it is probably not modest.
- If people look at any part of your body before looking at your face, it is probably not modest.
- If you can see your most private body parts or an outline of those parts under the fabric, it is probably not modest.
I think these are a helpful starting point. The criteria are rather objective but largely focused on her experience – what can be seen, how others might interact with her, and how she might feel. It goes straight to the core of what happens when you “unveil what should remain hidden.”
Modesty is the fence around the garden of chastity. Its cornerposts are anchored by self-respect.
Question: How can we help instill modesty, self-respect, and dignity in our daughters? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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July 19th, 2012 
Hi Joel and fam. Quite some time ago I was deacon at Mass and distributing Holy Communion. A young woman came to me and just before bowing to reverence the Eucharist she folded her arms to protect her modesty when bending. I’ve told this often because she was a woman who recognized her role in “custody of the eyes.” Leading me to use a modification of an earlier slogan: What would BV Mary do?
Hi Deacon Tom! Great to hear from you, and thanks for commenting. That is precisely the point of the post. The women & girls we love and cherish bear some share – not all – of the responsibility for how they are viewed by how they present themselves. Clothing choice is part of that. Indeed, men & boys have the exact same responsibility to not flaunt our bodies. This should be obvious.
I’ve been criticized for not discussing the responsibility of fathers to teach their sons “custody of the eyes” and to practice it themselves. Indeed, no matter how a woman or girl dresses, men & boys bear the first and foremost responsibility not to ogle her. This should also be obvious.
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by talking about it at their level as often as is needed
Agreed. If parents don’t maintain an open dialog, our daughters will take their cues from the culture.
I disagree. The females bear the entire share of the blame any time their dress or actions stomp on the libidos of men and boys. If the females are doing that out of ignorance then their parents – especially their mothers – bear an additional heaping helping of blame for that entirely separate moral failing.
Indeed. Get back to us, Mr. Schmidt, when codpieces come back into fashion again. Or when men are parading around in SlutWalks of their own. Until then, you’re taking your attention off the real problem by slipping in those P.C. “but boys do it too!” assertions of false moral equivalence.
By the way folks, ever notice that the more men and boys are fettered by so-called “anti-sexual harassment” codes of behavior, the more desperately and aggressively females of all ages dress and act in their efforts to grab and steal “custody of the eyes” away from those of their target sex?
Hi Micha; thanks for stopping by and commenting. As you noted, there are some very disturbing cultural trends toward female immodesty. As you also suggested, the practical implications of men’s and women’s respective failings in this area are not the same. However, the notion that women bear ALL the responsibility reduces men to merely bundles of animal instincts and urges. This is not so; we can think for ourselves and make our own decisions about how we view and treat women.
This is not the fiction of political correctness (of which I am seldom accused) but rather revealed Truth. I think Genesis 3, Expulsion from Eden is instructive here. God admonishes Adam for allowing himself to be led astray by Eve’s disobedience and then expels both of them from the garden. Men and women have the same fundamental moral responsibility to uphold all of human dignity, including their own.
@Micha: So you’ve never seen men jogging shirtless, or showing off their bodies at the gym by wearing wife beaters with the armholes slit almost to the waist? You’ve never seen teenage boys with their jeans belted at crotch level, allowing their boxers to show? I’ve seen all these things. It’s true that women are more commonly encouraged to show off their bodies, but yes, “men do it too.”
Most “females,” as you so charmingly call us, are not maliciously trolling for lawsuits when we choose our attire. The slutwalkers are a special category, but most teenage girls who wear skimpy clothes are either oblivious to the effect they have on men/boys, or they are acting from a misguided but not exactly malicious desire to please. Or are you really saying that men are pure victims of evil conniving wimmin, and that GQ, Maxim, Sports Illustrated, the porn industry, etc. are secretly controlled by teenage girls?
…steal “custody of the eyes”…
(corrected link)
For some reason it seems that the contemporary society at large wants to define the person by wherever they choose to place their sexual organs. Instead of becoming even more explicit and graphic and rather to attempt to answer your question, I suggest that we start by explaining to our daughters that they, like anybody else, are made in the image and likeness of God. There is much more to God (for Christians, think of the Trinity) than just a body. The body does not by itself define who we are. In fact, it defines very little. When two men who wish to get to know each other strictly for the benefit of friendship, they care little if at all what each others’ bodies look like. They know that the essence of the other is contained within. For a woman to show off parts of her body in an attempt to lure men to her is both a sad statement about (1) her self esteem and (2) the man who actually lusts for her just because of her body, thereby treating her as an object. She does both herself and men a favor by dressing appropriately in that assuming she is dressed modestly, she is compelled to act accordingly and that men who are seeking the superficialities of the woman are turned away.
Curious… how is ‘modesty’ (defining here as lack of nudity, for the sake of argument… I’m curious as to how you’d even define that term presently) beneficial to the individual, or to society?
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