A mother learned the hard way that not every salesperson is well-trained in restraining one’s opinions. In a Dillard’s store in Wichita, Kansas, one young girl eagerly tried on dresses for a formal. Any mother will tell you this is already an excruciating experience, especially since teen girls have a notoriously poor sense of body image. From a very young age, media images feed into a sometimes unconscious but almost always unattainable standard. Rude comments from bystanders or salespeople don’t help matters.
Still, this bonding ritual between Megan Naramore Harris and her daughter went well. The teen found a gorgeous red dress, which was probably suited for an older woman attending, say, a gala. This isn’t the type of dress most teens would wear to a winter formal or a prom, but Lexi still loved the gown. She asked her mom to take a photo, but shortly thereafter, a saleslady waltzed in and told Lexi she needed to wear SPANX to pull off the dress.
Perhaps the employee was simply trying to suggestively tack on extra item, but this is not the suggested way to do so. Harris wrote an open letter to the saleslady, which detailed what happened next:
I told my daughter to go change. I told you that she was just fine without SPANX. You continued to argue with me. We left soon after. I wish I had told you how many girls suffer from poor self image and telling them they need something to make them perfect can be very damaging. Girls of all ages, shapes and sizes are perfect because that is how God made them. If they feel good in a dress, that is all that should matter. My daughter is tall, she swims, runs, dances and does yoga. She’s fit. She’s beautiful. She did not need you telling her that she is not perfect. I hope this is shared and gets back to you so that you should not say something like that to a girl ever again. You never know what negative or positive thoughts they are thinking about themselves.
The letter spread like wildfire with some people criticizing Harris’ choice to publicize this story. Harris insisted she did not embarrass her daughter, who seems to (hopefully) understand that rude people exist in this world, and there’s no way to avoid them. Harris posted another letter, which said her daughter gave full permission for the photo to be posted. No one wants the saleslady to be fired — only for her to think more before blurting out hurtful generalizations. This SPANX comment could echo in a teen’s mind forever, but let’s hope that’s not the case here.