Back to school shopping and love games

Interesting article on back to school shopping for girls over on Slate. While there is no "fault" in a true free-market economy -- companies can manufacture and market whatever they want, and consumers can select and purchase whatever they want -- it is sad that the options mentioned in the article are viable for a large portion of the population. Obviously, there's a middle ground between dressing in head to toe "prairie wear" like Nikki Henrickson and auditioning to be the next Pussycat hooker, but impressionable teens and tweens get their cues from the pop culture media, and hopefully, from their parents.

Scan the headlines of any pop/gossip website and you'll see all you need to know about examples set by Lindsay, Britney, Paris and their ilk. And it probably doesn't help if mom makes those tarts all look like Elizabeth I. I'm sure some of these back to school shopping questions have arisen in suburbs all across the country, like this one, for example. However, it's probably hard to have any parental moral authority on the subject when mom's own "wardrobe" was frequently found wadded up the next morning on the floor of random apartments, trailers and backseats, ostensibly for business ("pay for play"), pleasure ("I'm sorry, your name was....?") or economic security (Two Step Financial Planning for college flunk outs: 1. Lie. 2. Open knees).

On a quasi-related note, too bad I didn't know there were "simulations" like this a couple of years ago. Hell, even the Sims would have been smarter than I was.