How young is too young for a crop top? It depends on who you ask. Walk into almost any store that carries kids clothing and you’ll find racks of midriff-baring sweatshirts and tees. The fashion industry has made its stance clear: Crops are all the rage — at any age. Parents however, are more divided.
Iowa mom Alyssa Preston went viral on TikTok after she posted footage from the girls’ section at a local Target.
“Dear Retailers,” Preston wrote. “There are still Moms out there that would like full-length shirts for our daughters.”
“I really hate this trend. And also the fact that my 5&7yr old would really still like the cute prints and themes that are only found in the toddler section,” one person replied in the comments.
- “Remember when it was okay for kids to be kids?”
- “Why are we making crop tops for literal children anyway?”
- “Well time to go to the boys section (that’s where I go).”
A similar post by Tiktok user Smami 93, also filmed at Target, amassed more than 2,000 reactions:
- “What’s so wrong about wearing a crop top young? stop sexualising children’s bodies or anyone’s.”
- I say no to crop tops! My second eldest daughter wants to buy ridiculously expensive skincare and crop tops. What ever happened to them wanting toys?
- Bro it’s a crop top and if you don’t want your child to wear it don’t buy it point blank
- should children NOT wear swimsuits? should they (the children), have to worry about what YOU’RE thinking about their clothes and body? or should we stop sexualizing children??”
”It shouldn’t be so hard to find non-cropped tops for my 6-year-old,” Preston tells TODAY.
Preston believes crop tops rob children of their childhoods, placing them in the same category as cell phones.
“I want to protect my daughter’s innocence for as long as I can,” she says. “She has plenty of time for crop tops.”
When Qoya Williams’s daughter was a tween, she was allowed to wear crop tops, but only with a tank top underneath.
“We found a compromise,” Williams says. “You know, it was a battle though, because she wanted to wear what her friends were wearing. There’s so much peer pressure.”
Once Williams’s daughter turned 14, she was permitted to show a “little bit of her belly.”
“I personally felt that once she was a teenager, it was OK. But at the same time, I still worried about how adult men might look at her,” Williams says. “That definitely made me uncomfortable.”
Brittnei Beauchamp, who lives in Oklahoma, says there is nothing sexual about a kid in a crop top. Her daughter started wearing them at age 10.
“She has created and cultivated her own style. Who am I to tell her she can’t wear something that makes her feel cute?” Beauchamp tells TODAY.
“It’s just a shirt, and I don’t see anything inappropriate about it,” Beauchamp says. “If a child chooses to put on a crop top, they aren’t overtly sexualizing themselves. It’s the adults that are projecting their views about the human body.”
Parenting and youth development expert Dr. Deborah Gilboa offered her perspective.
“The best way to look at this, is to not think about gender and ask yourself how you feel about kids showing belly buttons,” Gilboa explains. “It’s about belly buttons, not about girls or boys. I think a great litmus test to use about this, is to look at it as the skin and not the gender of the child inside the skin.”