We approached the children’s department with a sense of misplaced optimism. Maybe, just maybe, they’d have swimsuits that would fit my newly 12 year old daughter and we’d be able to avoid the juniors section with it’s triangle bikini tops and high cut bottoms.
My daughter1, who was somewhat disgruntled to discover that the very cute one piece she’d gotten near the end of last summer was now a wedgie making machine, had a strong sense of what kind of suit she wanted. One of the things I like best about my daughter is that she has a strong sense of what she wants about most things, clothing in particular, and I think I’ve finally learned my lesson about trying to talk her into clothes that don’t fit her chosen vibe. She wanted a two piece, preferably a tankini style, she wanted something that is comfortable for long days at the pool or in a lake (a swimsuit for her needs to be cannonball, diving board, giant slide, and hours of bobbing in the deep end proof), and she wanted something colorful but “more sunset colors and not an ‘explosion at the highlighter factory colors’”.
In the kid’s section she quickly found five or six suits that had the style she wanted and colors or patterns she found agreeable (a fun watermelon print, some rainbow stripes, a tie dye vibe). I checked tags and saw that the largest size the store carried was a girl’s 14 and knew we were going to be out of luck. She can fit into a 14 but just barely. I had been hoping that there might be a size 16 or 18 on the racks but apparently those sizes are only available online, which is less than helpful when the pool opens in an hour.
I let her pick out two suits from the kid’s section to try but told her we needed to look in the junior’s and women’s section too, just to make sure we had some options in multiple sizes to try on. She wandered through the junior’s section, wondering out loud how people swim in crochet style string bikinis or why anyone would want a bathing suit made out of velour fabric. She looked at the sign the displayed the different cuts available for bikini bottoms and said “absolutely not” to anything with the word “cheeky” in it. She also quickly rejected the tops that, in her words, seemed designed to announce to the world “hey, here’s where my boobs are”, so we bypassed all the ones that seemed bra style, was padded, or had distinct cups or deep v cuts to show off cleavage she doesn’t yet have. We found a handful of solid color bottoms, one tankini style top, and an assortment of other tops that we hoped would fit her current body and give some room to grow over the summer. I also grabbed a few swimsuits for myself, since some of my own favorites from last year don’t fit me as well, post-breast reduction.
(My daughter: “Mom, now that your boobs are smaller, I wonder if you’re still going to be able to float at the pool? What if you’ve lost your personal floatation devices and now you’ll just have to tread like the rest of us???”)
As we headed to the fitting rooms, I realized I was starting to feel a mounting sense of anxiety. I knew the odds were good that most of the swimsuits we had in the cart weren’t going to work for my daughter. She’s tall for her age and muscular but also still very much a kid (with a preference for clothing designed for kids), even as her shape is starting to shift a bit. I knew she’d probably find the suits she liked best to be too small and the tops from the junior department to be too big. I tried to figure out if I should give her a “it is the job of clothes to fit your body, not your body’s job to fit into clothes” pep talk. I tried to gauge her mood (she’d generally rather pull out her own teeth than have a conversation about her feelings about her changing body… especially in public) but she seemed mostly just cheerful and eager to get to the pool. I tried to remember what it felt like to swimsuit shop when I was 12, but since I was a competitive swimmer who mostly wore whatever Speedo was available and on sale in a size 28, I couldn’t actually remember having swimsuit angst at her age.
After about 25 minutes in the fitting room, it turns out that my kid doesn’t really have any swimsuit angst either. I was right that most of the suits didn’t work but she never seemed to have an emotional response about that. She was slightly bummed that a particular one from the kid’s section wasn’t available in her size, but it was clear that she understood this as an issue of the store not carrying this size, not an issue of her needing a larger size. She ended up with one bottom and two top pieces that worked and affirmed again that she doesn’t want to shave her legs or underarms (yet? maybe ever? I’m totally following her lead on this one).
Sometimes I feel like if I’ve done one thing right as a parent2 it is that I have done what I can (or maybe just kept my own stuff in check well enough) to create conditions where my daughter is still so comfortable in her own skin. Sometimes I feel like I am holding my breath and waiting for the moment when diet culture and beauty culture and consumer culture finally cracks her. It feels like it might be too much to hope for that she could get to adulthood without having to fix or make peace with or recovery from body image shit. I don’t think I know any women my age who haven’t spent substantial time, money, and mental/emotional energy seeing their body as a problem to be solved. I like myself and my body just fine now but surely I have spent tens of thousands of dollars and wasted years of my life to get here.
What could my daughter do with all the time and money if she could just skip it entirely?
I want to believe we are getting better about all that stuff but then I spend 10 minutes on Instagram and see the obvious photo editing and people smooth ghosting their faces (and the faces of their children! please stop doing this!) with aggressive filters and I lose a little bit of hope.
But under the florescent fitting room lights of our nearby Target, watching my kid easily moving on from the tops that didn’t fit and then breaking into a grin as she finally found a sport red bikini top that fit almost perfectly, I felt a little more hopeful than usual that maybe this generation of girls might just be okay.
We at least have one more summer with no swimsuit anxiety to enjoy, so I will soak every moment of that in.
***
A few links to things I thought were interesting this week!
Yes, I would like to live under a windmill, actually.
I really enjoyed being in Abby Rasminsky’s “Abby’s Secret Summer School” poetry program last summer and sign up’s are now open for a different model this summer. I unfortunately (booooo!) can’t do it this year but totally recommend doing it if writing poetry is something you want more time for this summer.
Damn it, now I want some fudge. This is an interesting look at the history of Mackinac Island and why we associate fudge with vacations.
The New York Times is covering how scammy the coaching industry is… hmm… where have we heard that before? Oh, right! I wrote about this over a year ago (just saying…)
“At 45, He Vies With Women Half His Age, Seeking an Olympic First” I hope he makes it!
This house gives me “weekend home for a super villain while he prepares his space lasers” vibes.
As always, I got consent from her before sharing this part of her story, since it belongs to both of us. As I type this, she is literally watching over my shoulder… go read a book, Ev.
I’ve done more than one thing right, of course.
If you have lead time, Lands End tankinis can bridge the gap. If you don’t, Speedo one piece suits at Dick’s Sporting Goods can save the day. (Just a placeholder for next time, really.)