Quick Query #9: Does it "Take a Village?"

Today, we went to the mall, so I could get a new eyeglass prescription (my eyes have gotten worse over the last year, as they have with each additional pregnancy). And yes, I went to a mall optometrist.

Anyway, while looking around the food court, I noticed two VERY underdressed teenage girls. SO over-the-top (or should I say, SO under-the-behind) that I almost said something. I really had to restrain myself.

Here's something along the lines of what I might have said: "Hi ladies; I just wanted to ask you if you had ever considered that the clothes you're wearing not only entice the 17- and 19-year-old guys you're interested in, but that your clothes and bodies on display also entice 57-year-old men, like that one sitting right over there watching everyone walk past (while pointing to an unattractive, slothful but observant old man)? It's something to consider the next time you get dressed to come to the mall."

With the way today's world works, there aren't the same built-in societal restraints that we had when we were kids. For one thing, my parents weren't dropping me off at the mall to walk around by myself. For another, I could never have worn cut-just-under-the-tush shorts. For another, even if I COULD have somehow snuck around to buy them and get them to the mall, I would have never had the guts to actually put them on, for fear that I'd run into someone who knew me. I feared running into an adult from church, or one of my old school teachers. I knew that dressing like a tramp would make people see me as one, and I had enough sense (and an overall fear of people finding out) that kept me from underdressing.

SO, in light of all this, my question for you today is this:

DOES it "take a village" to help raise a child (as Ms. Clinton once suggested)? Should I have said something? Do we have the right (or even the obligation) to say something in situations like these? To remind young people that there are societal standards?


No multiple options for this "quick query" ... I just want to hear from you!