What Are We Teaching Our Daughters?

I have a niece who is fifteen years old, and tries to dress like she's twenty. She's been doing this since at least the age of thirteen. My other niece just turned twelve. For most of her life she's been influenced by the likes of Barbie, Hannah Montana, and others. So far i've seen her only dress in jeans. 
  In my area if you do not have cable, dsl, or a converter box, you do not have television. We choose to keep it that way in our home. We borrow dvds and we have netflix so I depend a lot on the internet for news. One of the first things I saw this morning was a clip from ABC news;
   *** Ok, there was supposed to be a video here, but all i got was a mess. I'm still learning about how to blog, so be patient with me, please. Unless it comes from You Tube I'm sort of clueless now how to post them here. 
Push up bras being designed for girls of about fifteen years. It promises to add 2 cup sizes to the wearer. Do fifteen year olds really need this? Is this the way we want to raise our daughters' self esteem? Or is it teaching that society only sees them as sex objects and if you are not a certain cup size or don't wear the right clothes or arent the right height or size, you are worth nothing? 
  Parents are the first line of defense here. We need to be teaching them that their self worth need not be tied to sexiness. How one looks may get attention we want, but it also may bring unwanted attention or something the girls are not ready emotionally to handle. Teach our girls that they have talents, such as sports or creativity. Encourage them to continue to study. Talk to them about what their favorite movie star or singer is wearing and weather or not it is appropriate for girls. They needn't show off a lot of skin to be popular or have high self esteem. I will be back to talk more on this later.

I have a niece who is fifteen years old, and tries to dress like she's twenty. She's been doing this since at least the age of thirteen. My other niece just turned twelve. For most of her life she's been influenced by the likes of Barbie, Hannah Montana, and others. So far i've seen her only dress in jeans. 
  In my area if you do not have cable, dsl, or a converter box, you do not have television. We choose to keep it that way in our home. We borrow dvds and we have netflix so I depend a lot on the internet for news. One of the first things I saw this morning was a clip from ABC news;
   *** Ok, there was supposed to be a video here, but all i got was a mess. I'm still learning about how to blog, so be patient with me, please. Unless it comes from You Tube I'm sort of clueless now how to post them here. 
Push up bras being designed for girls of about fifteen years. It promises to add 2 cup sizes to the wearer. Do fifteen year olds really need this? Is this the way we want to raise our daughters' self esteem? Or is it teaching that society only sees them as sex objects and if you are not a certain cup size or don't wear the right clothes or arent the right height or size, you are worth nothing? 
  Parents are the first line of defense here. We need to be teaching them that their self worth need not be tied to sexiness. How one looks may get attention we want, but it also may bring unwanted attention or something the girls are not ready emotionally to handle. Teach our girls that they have talents, such as sports or creativity. Encourage them to continue to study. Talk to them about what their favorite movie star or singer is wearing and weather or not it is appropriate for girls. They needn't show off a lot of skin to be popular or have high self esteem. I will be back to talk more on this later.