When I wrote about parents who dress their children up in sexy makeup and clothing to treat them like dolls in pageants, I had plenty of friends tell me how horrified they were. Some had choice words to say about the parents themselves, and what they would do if they ran into said parents in a dark alley. I’m not one to condone violence, but I understand the outrage. Kids are kids; they are not pinup models.

However, this disgusting trend of treating children like they’re sex objects is projected under a much wider scope than the pageant circuit. A new study suggests that up to 30% of clothing marketed for young female children is sexualized, meant to make them look older—and more “sexy”—than they are at six.

Because, you know, six-year-olds need all the help they can get. With that whole lack of puberty thing, and the fact that most of them don’t even wear makeup or straighten their hair or bleach their teeth yet, they should be thanking the whole fashion industry for helping them out with their looks!

Um, no.

The study says that clothing for kids’ sizes six to fourteen were found to be the most sexualized, and to qualify, each piece of clothing had to reveal or attempt to enhance a sexualized body part, or contain sexually suggestive language. Most of these pieces of clothing were discovered from stores as wide-ranging as Target and K-Mart to Abercrombie Kids and Nieman Marcus. Whether they’re Fifth Avenue or on the farm, folks, we must enhance their bust!

Yeah, no again.

How many times do we have to go through this? Children are children, not pinups, not sex objects, not mini male fantasy embodiments. The only time they need to wear makeup is on Halloween—and even then you might want to skip it due to its potential harmful effects or allergic reactions. The only time they need to wear sexualized clothes is—oh yeah, NEVER!

I’m so contemptuous of the whole kids’ clothing market that I refuse to buy anything new, and I haven’t since my daughter was three, with the exception of uniforms for classes that required them. (Even then, I bought most of them used, too.) The more they want to treat my kid as an object to sell—which already literally happens enough in the world through child trafficking that you would think people would be more careful about not pushing that line of thought and marketing in the first place—the more I want to keep my dollars in my wallet, thanks.

Clothing designers, retailers, you should be ashamed of yourselves—but so should you, parents, who buy pop star clothing and shorts with “JUICY” on the butt of them for your daughters, for you are the reason they can successfully continue to sell it all in the first place. If Judy and Susie want to express themselves, buy them a cheap pair of jeans and some plain t-shirts and let them tie-dye, puff paint, and iron on to their hearts’ content. That’s much more unique and personal than the cookie cutter sex objectification that they see at the store.

Don’t buy it, folks, please, just don’t buy it.

I sure don’t.