Let Girls be Girls

For generations, young girls have been expected to grow up faster than young boys, the social expectations of our society being forced on them from a much earlier age. However, I feel as if it has been mostly limited to behavioral expectations until recently. Previously, media, music, and products were more tailored to each age bracket. Now, it seems like there is a major jump from content tailored to younger children to those advertised for high school and college-aged girls and completely skipping over the adolescent, middle school age bracket.

Although this may not seem like a big deal to some, having a sister who just started middle school has brought this topic close to home making the dangers or risk areas that could be associated with this evolution stick out much more. One of the issues that come from children “growing up too fast” is that they aren’t allowed to be kids anymore. They no longer have the luxury of experiencing awkward and lighthearted years, during which they can begin to dabble in the elements of being a young adult with much less pressure to be perfect. That essential time to experiment, explore, and mess up is ultimately being stolen from them.

This issue stood out to me in particular because within one year my sister, 13 years younger than me, went from watching children’s shows, coloring, and playing games to listening to the same music and using or buying the same products and clothing brands as I do. She is 12 and I’m 25, two-years out of college, with a full-time job in New York and she is telling me about the skincare routines of the other girls in school. Meanwhile, I am just starting to use actual face wash instead of regular soap. She told me how one of her friends got a Dyson Hair dryer and another got new Summer Friday lip-glosses when WOMEN my age are literally saving up in order to buy these things. Just a bit ago Lipsmackers, Baby Lips, or EOS from CVS were THE things to have.

I remember being in middle school shopping at stores like Limited-Too, Justice, Forever 21, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Pac Sun; and listening to Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and One Direction. I only branched out to online boutiques when I got to college. Now, my sister is showing me her new things from White Fox Boutique, Athleta, and Princess Polly and telling me how the popular singer they are all listening to is Taylor Swift… isn’t she like a grown woman? What experiences is she singing about that they can relate to? And if they can, is that concerning? Her “Romeo & Juliet,” “You Belong with Me” era was when I was in middle school. We had Justin Bieber giving us, “LUDAA – When I was 13, I had my first love ... She woke me up daily, don’t need no Starbucks. She makes my heart pound, skip a beat when I see her in the street. And at school on the playgroundddd, but I really wanna see her on the weekend!” and so on. These are clearly lyrics geared toward adolescence, which isn’t something I’m currently seeing in the music industry and it’s making me begin to worry.

Young girls missing out on an essential step in their formation of identity and sense of self that is a part of the growing up process, is not the only problem that stems from young girls looking and acting older. Sadly, there is a much more sinister issue that lies underneath.

Going to college in Arizona, I was exposed to a whole new way of life, which comes with a whole new list of dangers. And something I wasn’t ready for was the topic of human trafficking and how prevalent it is in our society and country with some areas being worse than others. As I wasn’t ever faced with those concerns back on the East Coast, boy was I naive. Now living back East, I am determined to share some of the knowledge I acquired over the past few years with anyone who will listen here as it is becoming an increasing problem, especially concerning children and God forbid we aren’t ready.

Now that I’ve effectively scared the sh*t out of everyone – unintentionally – how do, or can, these two topics correlate? I’m not sure if anyone has ever heard some of the theories behind the premise of Alice in Wonderland, but if you’ve felt creeped out while watching the film or reading the story, it might have been for good reason. One theory, controversial due to people’s reluctance to accept what is thought to be an unbearable thought, takes a deeper look at the writer, known by his pen name, Lewis Carrol. It is said that Carrol, real name Charles Dodgeson, had a propensity for young girls, meeting young Alice Liddel when was hired to photograph her family. It is thought that he became particularly fond of Alice over time and, ultimately, made her the inspiration behind the story. With this backstory in mind, some critics theorize that the underlying idea of the loss of innocence, paired with the extravagance of the new place Alice finds herself, could be a metaphor for the normalizing of the adult world for a child and the use of love bombing. Both are common tactics used in the grooming process to make a child feel more comfortable and intrigued and increasingly easier to manipulate.

My experiences in Arizona, and the background knowledge of this theory, have enabled me to begin connecting the dots between the gap in age-appropriate media, advertising, and products for young adolescent girls and the larger, much scarier issues going on in the world. We just need to let girls be girls again. They should not have to worry about having to buy name brands, always being on trends dictated by social media, or thinking about relationships in a serious way before they are ready to handle all that pressure.

Forget the terms lets boys be boys and let’s give rise to…

Letting girls be girls!