Children grow up fast. As children, we don't notice how fast we grow up, and all we want to do is to grow up. But as adults we can see how short life is, we see how fast children actually grow up, and we wish we could have stayed young a little longer.
But it seems that today, children are urged to grow up even faster. Children face problems and issues that should be faced by older people. Today, elementary children carry cell phones, and seven is the new seventeen. Our children are loosing their virginity at a young age, an age that I didn't even know the word "sex" at. Pop culture is encouraging children to forget about childhood. Gone are the days where young girls go to the store and get cute little age-appropriate outfits. Now you walk through the children clothing isle and see low-cut skinny jeans and shirts you would think should be in the Teen section.
This week I heard a story on the news as I passed by a TV about Push-up bikini tops for girls as young as seven. Push-ups? Seriously? What do they have to "Push up" at that age at all? When I was that age I was in a one-piece, and I dreamed of growing up to be a Disney Princess or a Ballerina or something like that. How I looked was the last thing on my mind. Now girls that age wear push-up bikinis and wear make-up, wanting to be a Supermodel.
And what about this mom who gives her eight year old daughter botox and waxes her legs and special area, which isn't even growing hair yet! What on earth is next? Breast implants before the poor girl has a chance to even grow her own? The very idea that this girl's mother is doing this to her is disgusting.
And then there's Beauty pageants. Yes, Beauty pageants for children have been around for a wile, and may have been the start to all this. They wouldn't be so bad, if they didn't turn the little girls into miniature adults. The amount of makeup those girls have on isn't cute. to be honest, it makes them look like streetwalkers from Munchkin land. Beauty isn't everything. how you look won't guarantee you a good and easy or hard life. Yet these girls are taught that beauty is everything. So they'll grow up beautiful, what will happen to them when they find out that in real life nothing will be handed to them on a silver platter? Or what if they grow up to find out that their looks are not perfect? They gained a few pounds, their faces grow to not look like a super model's face and no longer looks like a doll? Don't you think that's cause some self-esteem issues, and all the depression that could come with it?
What happens to girls who grow up with a picture of a super model from a magazine taped on the corner of her mirror, only reminding her every time she looks at herself that she is not perfect? Eating disorders is a big one.
Why can't we just let kids be themselves? why can't we just let them be children? They should worry about who gets to go down the slide at recess first, not if their hair roots needs to be touched up.
Because this is wrong.
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