To celebrate the 9th Birthday of the RoL Blog, I am posting flashback posts from the first year of blogging. This was originally posted on June 6, 2003. I thought it was appropriate since we were discussing modesty on Tuesday’s Book Discussion of Style, Sex, and Substance. (I updated some of the clothes links.)

I was browsing Two Sleepy Mommies blog and Pansy had an interesting commentary on Zoe Romanov’s blog about Modesty in dress. The topic of swimwear was discussed and how some kids aren’t allowed to swim at all because of lack of modest swimwear. I was thinking about this last week when I had to buy a bathing suit for Bella. I was disgusted. I went to the Kids r Us store and was offended by some of them that seemed more suitable for a Vegas showgirl. However I did find one that was decent looking that even came with a little bathing skirt to attach to it.


However, I think Pansy’s little girl was older and didn’t fit into her old modest suit. She was looking for non “Laura Ingalls” suits and posted a link for Wholesome Wear Suits and she said she liked the convenience of them (kids jumping in and out of the pool/lake/ocean) as well as the modesty of them.


Personally, I would not buy them but I found some modest swimwear (in my opinion) for girls at Land’s End. They usually sell a bathing suit for girls with a built in skirt that is not too low cut.



You could also pair swim shorts like these



with a tankini top like this

or a rash guard/ water shirt.

Or you can forgo the bathing suit all together and get a hip looking surfboard suit (although maybe that’s more normal here in California)

All this talk reminded me of growing up at both ends of the spectrum. When I was younger my parents were not practicing Catholics at the time so modesty was not much of an issue. After their conversion there was a period of “only skirts” type of thinking. Finally we found a happy medium of modesty without being too “extreme”.


I think a lot also has to do with attitude. I know a number of home schooling families and one in particular dressed their girls in prairie skirts/dresses but the girls were really flirtatious and boy crazy. They tried to act “hot” regardless of what they were wearing. On the other hand, I see my younger sister who was homeschooled and who’s a sweet, wholesome girl in college. She and her friends dress in today’s fashions but they always look modest and wholesome without standing out like a sore thumb. Even beyond their clothes you can see their wholesomeness in their demeanor and attitude. They demand respect because they respect themselves.


It reminds me a lot of the interview I did with chastity speaker Crystalina Padilla a couple months ago. She talked about woman respecting themselves before expecting a man to. Hey, on a side note, did you know that she married Jason Evert of Catholic Answers on Saturday!! What an awesome couple! But I digress. Anyway, those are just some thoughts I had about the topic.