What do you do when the weather gets cold?
You cross you arms and rub them for warmth. You reach for a cardigan or a sweater.
Tops are so important to keep us warm. After all, you rarely see people reaching for leg warmers or sweats when they’re cold, do you?
So we instinctively see tops as providers of protection and warmth.
Protection and warmth. That sounds like receiving hugs! After all, hugs wrap around us just like tops do: on the top part of our bodies!
But what else is significant about hugs? They’re an expression of love. They tell us, “You may not have been the fastest runner on the track but I’m mighty proud of you, kid!”
Affirmations like this keep us going, they spur us on to be the best we can be. Just as tops keep us warm and protected so our heart can keep beating strong, and keep us going!
Without hugs and without love, we’d be emotionally bare…or to be more precise, emotionally naked. Just as without tops we’d be physically naked.
And when we’re naked, we’ll need to get some clothes! So we’ll do it the way girls know best. Shopping!
The reality is that us kids are shopping everyday. We go to school, we watch TV, we hang out at the shopping mall with our friends. And every moment presents us with the shopping decision: to buy or not to buy?
When we go to school and our Health Education teacher tells us, “Eat more vegetables!”, it is our choice to decide whether to buy what she says. Then we watch TV and Rihanna tells us that we can stand under her umbrella ella ella ella eh eh eh, and we decide whether it’s cool or not.
Let’s time travel back to 1999, when Britney Spears invaded our TV screens, teasing and pouting in a midriff-baring top. To many captivated kids (like me!), it was good entertainment. Until I tried twirling my pen restlessly the way she did in the first few seconds of that iconic music video, and singing in the shower to my shower head, to hit me baby one more time!
It wasn’t just good entertainment any more. I had bought into what Britney said and did. All those parents who were infuriated at Britney’s improper conduct were definitely on to something. They knew their kids, like me, were at the risk of being misguided.
They also knew that the people we really needed guidance from were our parents! When we go shopping we don’t have a large budget, just the little pocket money we got from you. So we can’t always buy clothes of good quality.
Just as, if we look for love in other places, we don’t have enough ability to discern what’s right for us, just the little judgment (like pocket money) we got from you. So we can’t always buy into love that’s of good quality nor the love that’s right for us.
Parents can help us to shop with discretion, and condition us to listen and discern what is right for ourselves.
Why all this talk on tops and needing you, our parents, to clothe us as an expression of love and care?
Think back to the last person you met. What did he or she wear?
The answer that first comes to mind is more often than not, the top he or she was wearing.
Tops.
The garment closest to the face in conversations. The garment most visible when standing or on the go. The garment most observed when seated across someone at your desk, restaurant table, or even across the aisle on the plane! The garment always captured in pictures- and these pictures, like impressions and memories, stay with you for life.
What we wear on top determines what people think of us off the top of their head. Just as, off the top of your head, the first thing you remembered about what someone wore was the top.
It’s not that a conservative top makes you a boring person- that’s an over-the-top interpretation of the tops message! For all you know, it could be your chick’s[1] dazzling smile, orange nails or harmonica skills that people first think of when you come to mind.
The point is that clothes say so much about a person that people automatically judge us by what we wear. Tops, being the most observable and most memorable garments, play a huge factor in how we are judged. So we need our parents to help us deal with a judgmental world.
Give a girl a pair of jeans and the choice between two tops: the first, a too-skimpy, bareback halter with a plunging neckline; the second, a turquoise tank top with flower appliqués lacing the neckline.
Next, put her at a career fair.
Choosing the first top would indicate to headhunters that she can’t conduct herself appropriately. She looks like she’s headed to the nightclub, not the career fair. Yet for something as seemingly trivial as this, it immediately calls into question her professionalism. Would she dress similarly when meeting business partners?
Because how you do anything is how you do everything.
Choosing the second top might catch the attention of headhunters taken by her flair for style. Her unique top might suggest equal panache in her work- perhaps PowerPoint presentations with bold, attractive designs.
Because how you do anything is how you do everything.
These are the first impressions that determine whether you get the job, which opens the door to a future with many more opportunities. First impressions are that crucial, because…
First impressions count. They help you put one foot in the door.
First impressions last. It’s so hard to be taken seriously when people see you as frivolous, or not cut out for the job.
First impressions are the reminder that we need our parents to help us deal with a judgmental world. A judgmental world that is the result of a media-infested world that bombards how we think. My dad calls the media the “terrorists of our generation”, stripping parents of their influence over their children, and imbuing children with often-misguided values. Our parents need to fight where their children get their influences from, because children are often too young to know better.
So when girls feel the need to clothe themselves, and go shopping on their own, what do they buy?
The revealing top mentioned earlier is often worn in the hopes of bartering flesh for love and acceptance. It’s skimpy, it’s provocative, and most of all, attention grabbing. We can’t doubt that sex sells[2]. You always get more attention when you misbehave than when you behave.
And some people are happy to receive attention even if it’s negative.
Like being gossiped about.
Like being notorious.
Like being seen as easy.
Like being lusted after.
But lust isn’t love.
Love is fulfilling. You end up falling in love with yourself as a result. I have a neighbor, who has a great figure[3], but more importantly, she loved herself. She could pull off low necklines, and even show off some cleavage but it was always very tasteful. Her confidence and poise regulated her behavior and therefore how people saw her.
People never gossiped about her, she wasn’t notorious nor seen as easy, and she wasn’t lusted after. People said she was “hot and elegant”, which doesn’t connote skanky. It’s interesting that another person could wear exactly the same thing and have the same body as hers, but yet could come across as skanky rather than sexy. The difference was that she loved herself, and didn’t seek lust to fulfill any void.
Then there are the girls with the tops that are too loud and too proud- the over-the-top, in-your-face tops! Like a top with the Dior logo printed on every inch. It’s not just the designer namedropping they do with their t-shirts. These people also literally namedrop to flaunt connections with the who’s who. These are the types who drive Ferraris, which are actually on loan. They scream for attention to make sure they are seen, and often the girls wearing them talk just as loudly to be heard.
Once at a club, I saw a girl talking really loudly in a farcical American accent to an American. About an hour later, she was with her friends, and with the American nowhere in sight, the American twang too was nowhere to be heard. Instead, she was talking really loudly in Singlish. Then came the golden moment to top it all off: the same American turned up in front of her, observed her true mannerisms, and left right under her nose.
Sure, there was no mention of the top she wore that night. But tops are what people remember you by. Building on this symbolism, that girl will be remembered as a complete farce by the American and those who observed her (like me!)
These are the girls who act like they’re all that. Deep down inside, they crave acceptance, so they want to look like they are accepted, and like they have it all.
To gain acceptance, they feel the need to prove their worth- like when the girl faked an American accent just to develop rapport with her new friend, or when I saw this lady in Orchard Road decked out in designer garb…and how did I know that? Every item she wore or carried had huge designer logos sprawling everywhere.
On the topic of seeking acceptance, I have a friend, Anita, who isn’t very tall and isn’t very skinny. Basically, she isn’t of model proportions. But she wears the craziest outfits! Hot pink tights, check. Fingerless gloves, check. She even wore furry bedroom slippers to class because she thought they were cute! The verdict? Everyone describes her style in one word: “Fun!” Bad hair day, a random breakout, or putting on weight over the winter? Stuff like this never fazes her because she knows it doesn’t change who she is. And because she’s okay with who she is, then all those things are just life’s way of spicing things up!
Anita’s style can be over-the-top, but her confidence and personality tell you that it’s not a cry for attention. She just likes to have fun dressing up! Most importantly, she embraces that part of herself because she loves herself.
Are we contradicting ourselves? So it’s about loving yourself now, and not the clothes?
No. We’re still on the same track. Loving yourself makes you free to wear almost whatever you like. My neighbor and Anita don’t dress conventionally, but they’re comfortable in their own skin and they wear what they like because it makes them happy, not because they think it will please, impress, or attract someone else.
So what have we covered? Girls who reveal too much skin, or cover their real selves up by namedropping have one thing in common: they crave love and acceptance.
They go shopping for clothes that get them attention, but not real love. Because they’re not quite sure what real love is like.
A child needs to be loved love before giving it away. If she doesn’t have love, she could be giving other things away, which definitely isn’t love because she doesn’t have it. Often it appears that these girls give love away freely thinking…only so they will receive love freely in return—a “give to get” mentality, which isn’t very genuine!
“Love isn’t just what I feel; it is what I do…oftentimes in spite of what I feel” –Holly Wagner (GC, p.69)
Like Holly Wagner points out, love isn’t self-centered! But with the “give to get” mentality, love ultimately becomes self-centered.
Then there’s the other end of the tops spectrum: Sloppy tops[4]. The kind that girls hide under hoping to mask their existence. I like to call this the worm mentality.
These are the girls that feel ugly, and worry that attracting more attention to themselves will in turn attract criticism. So they don’t go shopping for love, don’t wear skimpy tops of flashy tops. In short, they don’t feel like they don’t deserve anything better.
The irony of it all is that baggy clothes attract more negative attention than other clothes because they are so ill fitted. They also reveal rather than conceal a deep insecurity, because these girls cannot take pride in who they are. They assume that this is what they are going to be forever more, and they can’t change it.
What a pity! These three potential pitfalls are reasons why parents need to teach their chick to love herself. More than that, however, parents need to communicate the love properly. In other words, it’s important that you love the child, but it’s more important that the child feels the love.
Let’s make a quick detour from the wardrobe analogy and consider a glass.
[picture/diagram]
For it to be filled, it needs water. Just as for us to be filled, we need love.
If the glass is only half-full (or half-empty!), then when water is taken away to fill other glasses, it would be at the risk of emptying out that glass.
We can’t give away love if we don’t have love.
So the question is, how can we be filled with love? Our parents need first to be full of love, and be our primary source of love. Sure, we get love from Aunt Martha, Uncle Keith, our friends and our pet dog, but you can’t control how much, or what kind of love we get from them.
When we are filled glasses, or filled with love, we have the capacity to fill others, and to love others too! And when you love others, the heartbeat and vibes you give out are those of composure, security and warmth.
Just like hugs. Just like love.
Because actions reflect what’s in the heart. And if the heart is full of love, then the actions are full of love.
You are enabled to love. You are love-able. You are loveable[5].
Even your pet dog proves this to be true. When you feed it, take care of it, clean it, it loves you back, it snuggles against your leg and greets you excitedly when you get home. But if you don’t, you’re as good as a stranger your dog passed by on the street the other day. Guess what? This principle of being loveable (or love-able) applies to human beings too! Little things like lending your classmate a stapler even though she didn’t ask for it, to bigger things like spending the week wheeling your friend around in her wheelchair after she broke her leg, are enough to be loveable. Isn’t that lovely? Pun not intended!
But if you’re hardly full from love, then whatever love you try to give away ends up forced or false- because you can’t give away what you don’t have.
To kids: how do you wish parents showed their love for you? [ask different opinions]
To parents: how did you show your kid love?
[show the gap in responses]
Even if your child is a grown teenager, it isn’t too late to be a better parent if your thoughts have been provoked by this chapter. Take note, however, that a step in a different direction does not immediately negate the direction you used to take. Our memory banks have been filled with your parenting style all these years. So keep walking your talk and keep trying- these are the things that matter to us. Ask for help when you need, apologize just as you expect us to apologize- because breaking down pride breaks down walls between us. Change will not take place over night, but over time.
- Tops easier to buy for others but not pants.
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