+
upworthy
More

A mom got fed up with short shorts for girls. So she started her own brand.

For mom Sharon Choksi, clothes shopping with her daughter had become a nightmare.

Her then 4-year-old daughter, Maya, had some pretty specific ideas about what she was comfortable wearing: nothing too frilly, nothing with bows, NO sparkles. Short shorts and tight fits were a big no-no, but the clothes couldn't be too baggy or boxy either.

Finding clothes that fit the bill was exhausting (most of the time they ended up buying from the boys' section) but it wasn't her daughter that Choksi was upset with. It was clothing retailers themselves.


Why did girls' clothes have to be so small and tight?

Choksi got the idea that maybe better choices were missing from the marketplace. But first she needed some data, and what she found shocked her.

She collected boys and girls clothes from 10 of the biggest retailers that were all meant for kids of around the same size and age and took some simple measurements.

She says the girls' shirts were one to three inches thinner. The sleeves were shorter. And the girls shorts were barely a third of the length.

Data according to measurements taken by Girls Will Be. Image used with permission.

Sure, there's the occasional pair of longer capris or Bermuda shorts in a small rack at the back of the store, but for the most part, the size difference was astounding.

"It has nothing to do with what girls' and boys' body size and shapes really are," she says, noting that girls between 8 and 12 are actually taller than boys on average. Yet their shorts are a fraction of the length.

"We live in a culture where girls and women face a lot of pressure to be thin and look a certain way," she says. "When the fit of girls clothing is so consistently smaller, it's just adding to that pressure."

So in 2013, Choksi launched Girls Will Be, a brand aimed mostly at making sure girls and their parents could find shorts featuring an "in-the-middle" fit.

Image by Girls Will Be used with permission

The reaction from other parents has been massive, she says.

"There are so many parents out there looking for this."

And Choksi isn't the only parent taking change into her own hands.

Courtney Hartman, the mom behind Free to Be Kids, decided to design a line of gender-neutral and stereotype-busting tees — ones that say "Tough Like Mommy" or "Kind Like Daddy" and don't prescribe pink or blue to either gender. Then there's Handsome in Pink and their genderless approach — a line of pink and purple boys' clothes and girls' clothes covered in firetrucks, tools, and guitars.

There are countless others.

These companies may seem small on the surface, but they're making a big difference.

"99% of America is out shopping at the Targets and Gaps," Choksi says. "But the mainstream retailers have started to change a little. They'll have a space shirt or a dinosaur shirt in the girls' section now."

The size disparity, she says, remains largely unaddressed. But as big retailers start to realize that not every little girl wants to be a princess, Choksi hopes they realize not every girl wants to wear tight shorts with a 3-inch inseam.

If and when that happens, it might put mom-trepreneurs like Choksi out of business. But she's OK with that.

"If we have enough impact and all the big brands start doing this, that would do so much for the self-esteem and confidence of girls," she says. "We would be thrilled."

Correction 5/30/2017: Sharon's last name, Choksi, has been corrected.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less

A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less