A Norwegian cabinet minister is worried about what one-year-old Norwegian girls are wearing to the beach:
OSLO (Reuters) - A Swedish bikini-style top for toddlers will be withdrawn from sale amid criticism from a Norwegian cabinet minister that bra-like clothing was inappropriate for small girls.
"It is remarkably daft to make bra-like bikinis for one-year-olds," Norwegian Minister of Children and Family Affairs Laila Daavoey was quoted as telling the Norwegian daily Verdens Gang Thursday.
"This is a terrible commercialization of childhood. Children are not women. Bikinis on small children are a way of linking children to sexuality. We must say 'No' to this," she said.
Not stated in the article is what *is* appropriate beachwear for small girls. Little bikinis are perfectly normal and unremarkable here in the U.S., as are little one-piece suits. To label one or the other as "daft" strikes me as, well, daft.
Or is Daavoey saying that baby girls should not wear tops at all? I don't know what the norm is in Norway, but at least in Italy, girls up to the age of puberty tend to go topless on the beach. Sadly, eighteen- to twenty-six-year-old girls don't.