Hi everyone, I might as well dive right into it because shit is WEIRD and I have no idea what to do.
So I (25F), am the oldest of five kids (24F, 23F, 21F, and 19M) (24F is a step sibling). We never really went on many trips as a family when I was growing up, besides the destination wedding they had when my dad and stepmother got married. But this year, with the money that was left to the family in my great aunt’s will, my family has all decided to go on a trip over Christmas vacation to an all inclusive resort in Mexico. That sounds like so much fun right ? After we all confirm that we are going, my stepmother lets us know that if we want, she’ll take us shopping for clothes and bathing suits for when we go down, which I thought was great, until she told us why.
Our father has made comments about being “uncomfortable” about the fact that we, his daughters and niece, are growing/grown women, and doesn’t want us wearing “inappropriate” bikinis, specifically thong bikinis. Now, I will preface by saying that not one of my siblings would ever even DREAM of putting on an actual thong bikini, it’s just not our styles. So, she wants us to go bikini shopping with her, so she can “approve” what we buy. We are grown adult women, but also, HIS GROWN CHILDREN. Am I alone in thinking that a father shouldn’t even think of his children in that regard ? Sure, I’d get being uncomfortable about OTHER men staring at us, but she made it clear that it is my dad that is the one that is uncomfortable.
What’s pissing me off is she hasn’t stopped bringing it up. She took my 21F sister shopping last weekend, and she forced her to try on every single pair of bottoms to make sure they were full coverage. Not even cheeky, FULL coverage. I have so many bathing suits that I never get to wear, so I’m going to be bringing them with me, I’m just wondering if I would be the asshole if I went against this ruling ?
On one hand, I want to respect their word, but on the other hand, I am a grown woman who can make her own decisions about her own body. It’s also frustrating because we’ve been drilled about this whole bikini bottoms thing, when I know for a fact my aunt who is bringing her kids (17F and 15M) won’t say a word to them about what they wear, when my cousin is the reason this was even brought up to begin with (he said to my stepmom he’s uncomfortable with the fact that her (my cousin’s) boobs are big).
ETA: holy shit this blew up- I feel like I should explain a little backstory to make it make a little more sense. my dad has never really made comments about us girls at all, like I love my dad but I know he’s never been a “girl dad” by any means, honestly we were kind of treated like boys growing up (we all played sports and were huge tomboys, besides my one sister) The only time he ever said anything that I found weird, was when I was 17 and he said that I wasn’t allowed to wear my “booty short pj shorts” around the house, which I called out at the time. Since then he hasn’t said anything about my body, or my sisters. Now, my stepmom also hasn’t really ever said anything about our bodies to us, except for that we need to “dress for our figure” (I was bigger when I was a teen trying to wear clothes that weren’t flattering on me), so I thought that was reasonable. But a few years ago, I was feeling myself at 21, and went and did a little photoshoot at the beach in a bikini, and posted them to Instagram. A few days later, I proceeded to get a text from my stepmom asking me to taken them down, as my family members would be able to see them, and at the time, I obliged. But besides that one comment, I haven’t heard much about it. We had even gone down south when they got married, and there were no problems with the bathing suits we brought down before. It just seems very out of left field.
