Teaching Modesty

[ModestMom]

I have a beautiful athletic daughter who plays sports, but she loves to wear the short running shorts and spandex workout pants all the time, I try to express that this is immodest but she just gets frustrated and says that its comfortable. My daughter is a wonderful young woman who loves the gospel but I feel she truly doesn't understand the importance of modesty. She doesn't like knee length shorts or dresses/skirts that come to the knee, they either must be above the knee or to the floor. She is very thin and well built and the more I try to help her understand the need for modesty the more she gets frustrated with me, she loves the tight workout clothes and the sheer tops, how do I help her understand and gain a testimony of modesty? All her friends and many of which are LDS as well, dress similarly, which makes it even more difficult for me. She is now 18 and getting ready to go to college and will be in an area with a very small LDS population and I fear she will subcome to social pressure and abandon her already weak standards of modesty, please help me find a way to reach her that will not offend her.--Thank you all for your comments and thoughts, I don't want to teach my daughter that she should dress to help men control their thoughts, and I know she is an adult and has to gain her own testimony, but I also know that, it's not easy being modest in todays society, what I'm looking for are ways to help her better understand the importance of modesty so she can gain a testimony of it without sounding preachy. I am her step-mom and have been with her most of her life- she is gorgeous and could be a model - and I honestly believe she feels that there isn't anything wrong with how she dresses because everyone else is doing it, I know I have a great kid and I am grateful for that I just want to make sure she has a clear understanding before she goes off to college.

Edited June 28, 2016 by ModestMom
Reply to comments given.

[omegaseamaster75]

1. She is athletic, there is nothing immodest about wearing sport appropriate clothing. 

2. When it comes to regular clothing you are her Mother and provider of clothing. If she wore short skirts or shorts who bought them for her?

3. She is now 18 and going away to college, you have taught her right from wrong now she needs to make her own decisions about life and the gospel.  If she is committed to the gospel teachings she will over time develop her own testimony about the importance of modesty I wouldn't lose any sleep over it at all.

[LeSellers]

Does she understand why we are modest (or should be)?

An understanding of this fundamental concept must come before there can be a conversion to the principle. If she grasps the reason, then the Spirit will teach her what she is ignoring.

1 hour ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

1. She is athletic, there is nothing immodest about wearing sport appropriate clothing. 

Much of sport is immodest. We don't need to wear a burka to be modest in athletics, but the words " short running shorts and spandex workout pants" indicate that these are short/tight even by the immodest standard of the track and court.

Lehi

Edited June 17, 2016 by LeSellers

[NeedleinA]

39 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

Does she understand why we are modest (or should be)?

To piggyback on what Lehi said...

Does she understand why... our appearance matters at all? Right or wrong, our appearance is a strong non-verbal form of communication with others. Our appearance gives others a sense of who we are, what we stand for, what our intentions might be, an invitation, or a warning to stay away, etc. 

Everything we wear and how we look gives off signals. The question is, are those the signals we are trying to give off?
A woman or a man dressed in a burka is received /viewed differently by others than someone in their underwear. 

Perhaps a daughter dressed in immodest clothes enjoys the attention it brings to her, from both sexes. Her girlfriends tell her how cute/adorable she looks, and guys ask her out more frequently. If it was a need to have "athletic" clothes, there are plenty of athletic clothes that cover up a lot more than others. 

Sometimes we can do nothing more than teach true principles and then let others walk their own path. If I were in your shoes, I would clearly share with her and make sure she 100% clearly understands the "WHY". When she is away at college, as long as she has that knowledge of "why", like Lehi said, you both will need to lean on the Spirit more. 

At some point we all hope that this understanding/lesson of how "appearance" affects us for both good and bad is learned. Some folks don't care at all and never change, that is their right. Others find that job opportunities escape them, their dating pool of "good" people becomes smaller, or someone takes their signals the wrong way. The idea that people simply "just grow out of things" is misleading to me. People experience negative/positive events based on their behaviors that help them change their ways, not simply the passage of time as we get older. This is why you still find 60yr old ladies/men dressed like teenagers. 

I hope you as a mother will make sure she knows the "why" and then have faith enough to entrust her into Heavenly Father's care when she is away from you. Even our Father in Heaven allows agency to play out here on Earth, even when it is for the harm of the individual.  

 

Edited June 17, 2016 by NeedleinA

[zil]

And then there are all the teachings in scripture about why we have a body, which is a gift; about what we're (not) supposed to do with a body.  And perhaps most important: our bodies are temples.  That doesn't mean they just need to look nice.  That doesn't just mean we need to keep them clean.  That doesn't just mean they're important.  That means they are temples.  What is the purpose of a temple?  What do we do in temples?  Perhaps if she studied along those lines, she might come to understand that it's not about whether others are turned on by what she wears, it's not about what she or others think about her based on what she wears, it's not about maximum comfort/convenience, it's about the fact that she is a temple, and about the purpose for a mortal body.

[NightSG]

Personally, my favorite measure of physical beauty is how good a woman can look in reasonably modest clothing.  (By reasonably modest, I mean she doesn't have to dress like a Siberian Pentecostal in January, but something that would fit right in at a semi-formal Church activity.)  That doesn't mean I'll miss an opportunity to take her to a pool party, but I'm much more impressed by a woman who can keep me staring when she's fully dressed.

[anatess2]

Modesty is very difficult to teach in this day and age if you don't teach it since birth.  Modesty should be about IDENTITY not comfort.

For example, my boys wear A-shirts and boxer shorts underwear.  That's been part of their outfit since they were old enough to shed their onesies.  When they were little the A-shirts and boxer shorts was just something I put on them.  As they got older they started learning modesty and since they're used to modesty, it was just a meh... they became teen-agers and priesthood holders and then we started talking about preparing for missions and we talked about garments and I told them their A-shirts and boxer shorts are preparatory for their garments which have longer sleeves and longer leg covering.  No big deal for my kiddos.  So, they do sports and their shorts go to their knees.  They call them "board shorts" I think.  They have 21" inseam.  I bought them 16" inseams once for swimpants.  My 12-year-old boy wears them, my 14-year-old boy (they are both the same height) refuses to wear them.  My 12-year-old just says - Mommy bought them so I'll wear them.  My 14-year-old says - Mommy can return them to the store. 2 different personalities at play here.

In any case, modesty has to be an identity.  It doesn't matter what everyone else wears, including their best friend... my kids will not wear shorty shorts because they're uncomfortable baring their thighs even standing in the middle of spandex briefs wearing boys.

But yeah, they're comfortable going shirtless in the pool or the beach or even lounging around the house.  It's because their dad goes shirtless in those places too.  I threatened them once that if I see bare chested men walking around the house I'm going to take off my shirt... they just laughed at me - called my bluff.

[NightSG]

5 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Modesty is very difficult to teach in this day and age if you don't teach it since birth.

To an extent; growing up in the country, with a house a quarter mile off the road, and fair tree cover for most of that, the concepts are a bit different.  Modesty vs comfort becomes more a question of who can see you.  Skinnydipping in the creek is fine with certain people, but when someone hears an unexpected car turning in, everybody grabs pants and shirts.  Wandering around in public shirtless was never a thing for us.  Wandering around the house in whatever the weather dictates was.

To this day, I keep pants and a shirt by the window that looks out onto the driveway, because in summer, I may or may not get dressed after I get out of the shower until I actually plan to leave the house.  It's 93F outside, so anything I can do to take some strain off the air conditioner is helpful.  If someone knocks, I want to know who it is before I open the door and jiggle my furry, pasty whiteness at them to make them go away.

[Jane_Doe]

The dictionary definition of "modesty" is: freedom from conceit or vanity.

You speak very highly of your daughter and her athletic abilities.  Has she won some event?  Let's say hypothetically she had won the 100 meter track race.  Yes, she would rightly be proud of that achievement, but it would be silly vain for her to wear the trophy around as a hat 24/7.  Likewise is would be silly vain for her write it on her shirt she wore everywhere, or to bring it up first thing in every conversation.  Instead of vanity, she should be modest about her achievements: not hiding them, but neither using them vainly as a false sense of self esteem.  

Likewise it is with our physical beauty: we don't have to hide it our beauty, but neither should we use it to vainly to generate a false sense of self-esteem by bragging.

[The Folk Prophet]

It's too bad more women can't see inside my head when I was a teenager. And I was a good Mormon boy! It's too bad more women can't see inside the heads of men in general. They (well...any but the true harlots) would, certainly, run shrieking from anything immodest ever again.

[zil]

4 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

It's too bad more women can't see inside my head when I was a teenager. And I was a good Mormon boy! It's too bad more women can't see inside the heads of men in general. They (well...any but the true harlots) would, certainly, run shrieking from anything immodest ever again.

Maybe it's also too bad men can't see inside women's heads.  (Just saying, modesty is not a one-way street, and what men are thinking is the worst reason I can think of to be modest.)

[The Folk Prophet]

2 minutes ago, zil said:

what men are thinking is the worst reason I can think of to be modest.

Explain?

[Guest MormonGator]

42 minutes ago, zil said:

Maybe it's also too bad men can't see inside women's heads.  (Just saying, modesty is not a one-way street, and what men are thinking is the worst reason I can think of to be modest.)

All true Zil. Men by nature are more drawn to the visual-that's why you see male-orientated commercials with beautiful woman in swimwear. That's also why porno-mags geared towards women are read 75% by gay men (Playgirl, etc) 

A man has to train himself to avoid lusting after a woman, it's just how we (men) are made. I'm sure women have to battle things in their nature too. 
 

[zil]

Sorry for the delay - had an appointment an hour ago.

1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Explain? [why what men are thinking is the worst reason I can think of to be modest.]

I completely and fully reject the notion that women should be modest for the express purpose of helping men control their thoughts.  (It is a happy benefit of female modesty, but not, IMO, the express purpose, and I have never been taught that in ~40 years in the church, and know of no scripture which teaches that.  Though I know people in our church and other churches have been taught this, I cannot think of a scripture which teaches this.)

Modesty alone will not prevent men from thinking bad thoughts (per a man I'm on the phone with right now, an extremely attractive woman, modestly dressed, can still lead a man to bad thoughts).

What one person is thinking has nothing to do with whether another person's body is a temple.

What one person is thinking has nothing to do with whether another person is or is not modest (one person's modesty or immodesty is a fact independent of another person's thoughts).

What one person is thinking has nothing to do with whether another person should or should not be modest (the rightness of modesty is independent of the rightness (or wrongness) of another's thoughts).

What one person is thinking has nothing to do with whether the human body is a gift from God.

What one person is thinking has nothing to do with the sacred purposes of procreation and intimacy between husband and wife.

What one person is thinking is only what they are thinking - it's about them.  Yes, I know full well the nature of the male brain and the challenges that presents in relation to what a man sees, but that is a challenge for men, and not a good reason for someone else's behavior*.  I do not believe that the reason God expects modesty of women is in order to help men control their thoughts.  I believe the reason God expects modesty (from men and women) is because our bodies are temples, gifts from God, and sacred; because the power to procreate, and the power and purpose of intimacy between a husband and wife are sacred, not to be shared with others.

I should be modest not because someone else might think nasty thoughts, but because it is right for me to be modest.

NOTE: modesty is not just a women's issue - men can be immodest too, and ought to be modest for all the same reasons women ought to be modest.

*This reasoning is flawed, IMO - if one person's (potential) thoughts (or inability to control their own thoughts and eyeballs) were a good reason to limit another person's behavior**, the world would be a hideous place to live indeed - in fact, it might be downright Satanic, certainly it would violate the principle of agency.

**Doesn't matter that in this case the desired behavior is righteous; the principle of limiting another's behavior because one cannot control their own thoughts is immoral.

PS: I don't know why you're asking this, we've done this before, on this forum, and I said all the same things... (in other words, probably).  And if it comes up again, I'll say all the same things.

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, zil said:

I completely and fully reject the notion that women should be modest for the express purpose of helping men control their thoughts.

You are exactly right. It's called self-discipline and every person (male or female but in this case we are talking about men) should learn it.  

[priesthoodpower]

 

 

[The Folk Prophet]

1 hour ago, zil said:

I completely and fully reject the notion that women should be modest for the express purpose of helping men control their thoughts.

Whoa...when did "express" come into the equation?

As to the rest of your comments. A. You do not understand the male mind or libido. You think you do. You say you do. But you don't...which is fine. But you don't.

But really, (B) you're missing the point -- which is not that women need to be responsible for men's thoughts and lusts. Not at all.

It's not about responsibility. It's about self-respect. Women who expose themselves -- even innocently -- get that sort of thoughts about them. Whether they should or not and who's responsible is beyond the point. What self-respecting women would wear something provocative and then say "who cares" knowing that some man is checkout her whatever while drooling?

And the whole it's the same for men thing is, imo, bogus. If a man wears a speedo all most women think is "gross". It is just not the same thing at all.

Of course men can be immodest too...and it has nothing to do with "sex". Men can be vain, wear costly apparel, etc., and this fits the bill. But women have that AND the sex thing. And the sex thing, sad-but-true, effects others in a GREAT way. A women who is non-sexually immodest is still immodest. And that has nothing to do with the sexually alluring side of things and the problems that exist related to it. Non-sexual immodestly isn't one of the primary contributors to the destruction of the family.

But whatever. Women can keep rejecting the reality that dressing provocatively leads to very, very bad things in the name of -- I'm not actually sure what they are getting out of the debate (or trying to get, that is). But it doesn't change the reality.

Edited June 21, 2016 by The Folk Prophet

[Guest MormonGator]

1 hour ago, priesthoodpower said:

 

 

I've been listening to Prager for years. Even a member of Pragertopia. His book "Happiness is a Serious Problem" is outstanding, so his is book of essays, "Think a Second Time." Can you believe he is the guy who found Larry Elder as well? Love him. 

Prager is right about sex and the power of the visual for men, and he's also right when talked about having young female interns who work for him. He correctly shuts down all types of sexual thoughts about them, which he should-and that's how it is done. 

Personally I don't care if a woman dresses immodestly or not. I've trained myself not to look. Sure, I'm not perfect but it's called being a gentlemen. In 2016 I've noticed many men agree with me-thank goodness. 

Another note-ever notice that the rude, classless guys are single? It's the mannerly and polite guys who have girlfriends or wives. I've met men (I have in my extended family, sadly) who have no manners at all then complain why they are single/unpopular. Think hard guys. Real hard. I've tried to tell them that acting a certain way will keep women (and men) away from them-but sadly, you can't win them all. So when they reach 40, 50-and are still single and complaining about it-I just sort of laugh. 

Edited June 21, 2016 by MormonGator

[seussreader]

19 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Personally I don't care if a woman dresses immodestly or not. I've trained myself not to look. Sure, I'm not perfect but it's called being a gentlemen. In 2016 I've noticed many men agree with me-thank goodness. 
 

I hope by saying "gentlemen", you don't mean only treating them with respect and being nice to them.  One can still be a outwardly respectful and internally still have immoral thoughts about that person.

[Guest MormonGator]

16 minutes ago, seussreader said:

I hope by saying "gentlemen", you don't mean only treating them with respect and being nice to them.  One can still be a outwardly respectful and internally still have immoral thoughts about that person.

I agree 100%. Of course you are absolutely right, for sure. 

 But since I only care about actions I don't think about it. Your intentions are between you and God because intentions and motives alone don't hurt others-only actions do. If you lust after a woman but treat her with respect outwardly that's between you and God. If you lust after a woman and catcall her or do something else offensive or obnoxious (and yes, catcalling is offensive and obnoxious. It's not cute, it's not funny, it's rude), that's between you and her.  

(Ironically it was Dennis Prager who taught me to care more about actions, not motives. Motives are between you and God)

Edited June 21, 2016 by MormonGator

[Just_A_Guy]

2 hours ago, zil said:

Modesty alone will not prevent men from thinking bad thoughts (per a man I'm on the phone with right now, an extremely attractive woman, modestly dressed, can still lead a man to bad thoughts).

Perhaps; but those thoughts come much more quickly and powerfully if said woman is wearing--say--a bikini.

I get the "your inability to control your thoughts is not my problem" thing, to a point; but I think it's also fair to ask people to recognize that our appearance does send a signal about us that other people are intended to receive and process and draw conclusions from.  If it didn't, I could quit wearing suits to court; and I daresay most females would dispense with makeup entirely.

That said, I think it's best to take a much more holistic approach to modesty, treating it along @Jane_Doe's suggestions as a general concept of not drawing excessive attention to ourselves (including, but not limited to, sexual attention).  And I also agree with @anatess2 that these lessons need to come very, very early.  Eighteen is too late to be trying to teach the modesty lesson.  Heck, twelve or ten is probably too late.

To the OP, I would probably suggest that if she's eighteen, harping on this issue is only going to seem like another parental attempt to oppress/control her.  Don't let this become a wedge issue between her and the gospel--be content to lead by example on the modesty front; and try to focus on the liberty and joy and safety and stability that a strong testimony, obedience to the commandments, and a Christ-centered life inevitably create.  If she values her God, and values herself, and values the temple covenants she's seen you make and live . . . sooner or later, the modesty thing will fall into place.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Just_A_Guy

[BeccaKirstyn]

14 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

To the OP, I would probably suggest that if she's eighteen, harping on this issue is only going to seem like another parental attempt to oppress/control her.  Don't let this become a wedge issue between her and the gospel--be content to lead by example on the modesty front; and try to focus on the liberty and joy and safety and stability that a strong testimony, obedience to the commandments, and a Christ-centered life inevitably create.  If she values her God, and values herself, and values the temple covenants she's seen you make and live . . . sooner or later, the modesty thing will fall into place.

100% agree. 

[priesthoodpower]

On 6/17/2016 at 3:50 AM, ModestMom said:

I fear she will subcome to social pressure and abandon her already weak standards of modesty, please help me find a way to reach her that will not offend her.

In the case of your daughter I think its a cultural/generational thing. Your daughter is a young athlete and feels comfortable in her athletic clothing. As she gets older and out grows her sporting years she should mature and dress according to her age.

Her fashion of choice is also influenced by her environment in which you have little control over so dont beat yourself up over it, in fact I would be happy that she has friends that are also LDS. Like J.A.G said, at her age of 18 I think you need to start doing more loving and less judging. Let the Holy Spirit work on her you just continue to be an example.

[Guest]

On 6/17/2016 at 8:50 AM, ModestMom said:

I have a beautiful athletic daughter who plays sports, but she loves to wear the short running shorts and spandex workout pants all the time, 

If it makes you feel better, if your daughter is 18 and her biggest vices are a taste for short shorts and spandex workout pants, let's face it - she's doing pretty well!  

My daughter is still a toddler, but if she were 18 and started wearing too short shorts, I would probably tell her how I feel about it once, then let her make her own decisions on the matter.  I would have faith that she would figure it out, even if it takes some time.  I would probably be a little more assertive if her modesty problems were more severe, though (e.g., wearing a sports bra to the mall or something).  But ultimately, if it were something like short shorts or a sleeveless shirt, I would want her to make her own decision.

On a side note, I do cringe when I hear people say that women should be modest so men won't have impure thoughts.  That is essentially what the Taliban used to argue to force women into burkas.  Come on, bretheren... we are better than that.   

[David13]

Priesthoodpower

I am no Praeger fan.  I can't stand the guy.  He said something years ago that still rankles with me.

Anyway, I have to agree that he has said it true in that video.

Anatess2

If there is one thing that rankles me about modesty it is men with no shirt on anywhere where they can be seen by other humans.  I think it is lewd, obscene, immoral, offensive, and outrageous.  And should be avoided.

dc