Do
you remember when Hannah Montana
was the ultimate Disney dream girl? She
was cute, girly, harmless and pretty much fulfilled the idyllic role of the
girl next door. The target audience for Hannah Montana was 5 to 13 year olds.
Suddenly one day I noticed Hannah disappeared and in came Miley Cyrus, this
happened approximately eight years later and these 5 year olds were now 13. It wasn’t really Miley I had a problem with, I
mean she was clearly growing up and had to make a more validated career choice
in accordance with her age, but Miley by then was a young adult and was
promoting sexual images of herself and music videos that by no means were apt
for a 13 year old. Her choices were sound as it gave her further marketing
exposure, but the filtering process from Hannah to Miley was nil and it made
the world see how vulnerable those 13 year olds suddenly were.
What I am getting at is the drastic
effect this had on girls in the real world. There was a sudden movement where
13 was the new 18 and somehow little girls were stretched out to embody the
mental and physical roles of 18 year olds. This again was not Miley’s fault, it
was the way media handled her shift and her old Hannah image was still
lingering in the form of rejected merchandise, and if you gifted a 13 year old
a Hannah Montana DVD, she would almost feel quite offended.
Another example I picked up in a
popular magazine called “Teen Vogue”. http://www.teenvogue.com/back-to-school/beauty/2014/07/budgeproof-makeup-tutorial/?slide=1
Their July 2014 issue covers an entire article
on “Back to school makeup” offering even a tutorial for their readers. I am not
against makeup, in fact I promote it fully as it can really add value to ones
face. However, girls as young as 11 are being targeted for this tutorial, so much so
that there are specific teen makeup brands on the market now. It defeats the
point of wanting to hold onto your childhood doesn’t it?
These are two examples of how media
is playing such an actively influential role on the childhood of our girls. Are
we shrinking down their childhood without even realising it or do we have a
choice in the matter?
The truth is, it has all become
about the girls lately. If we pay close attention to the rape laws in the
Emirates or the child marriage and sex slavery issues in many countries around
the world, they all are giving paramount importance to the girl and this indeed
is a wonderful change from the 90s. At the same time though issues like weight,
diet and being attractive are also part of the same struggle. Why is that? I
have a 6 year old who talks to me about not wanting to become fat, and she
thinks she also must exercise like me and not eat too many French fries in
order to not gain weight. It doesn’t worry me that she has taken a fondness to
exercise, but it does worry me that she associates weight gain with sacrificing
her fries at the age of 6. I wonder if sub consciously I myself am influencing
her thoughts. I admit I am careful with my food, but surely it must have been
something I said to a grown up that made her react in this way. My point is, am
I passing down my own fears about weight, fashion and so on to my own child,
without noticing that media is already doing enough damage?
What is happening is that girls as
young as 10 are not mentally or physically quite ready in their heads to
address issues that the media is so liberally targeting them with, and if not
targeting them directly, because of easier access to the Internet and channels
such as YouTube, kids are being prematurely exposed to content that is beyond
their levels of comprehension. Another example are music videos by pop singers.
The radio plays a song that becomes popular and harmlessly our kids are singing
lyrics like “Cause you know what to do with that big fat butt, wiggle wiggle..."
When the child goes one step further
to find this song on YouTube, she finds herself with an age inappropriate video
that accompanies the same song that she was simply enjoying in the car. If you
have an open relationship with your child, questions start to arise and as a
parent you often don’t know what to tell them. If they choose to hide from you
the discovery of the video, well that’s when Pandora’s box is officially open
and the answers will lie in the vivid imagination of this child. The truth is
they themselves have no idea what the song is implying and associate it with
having a bum that shakes. What comes from this is that they do suddenly start
to notice bums and the size of them and clearly this is not what we would have
hoped our 6 year olds to observe at such a young age.
Coming back to stigmas, girls are
not born hating their bodies or their lives for that matter. There is something
that is putting a damper on their spirits and self esteem. It is essential to
pick up on what issues are affecting your daughter, and most important to
detect the root of the problem. If Monster High dolls are being dressed with
clothes that even Pamela Anderson would find too revealing and Abercombie and
Fitch was retailing thongs for girls aged 10 plus (which later were rightly
removed), I do think this adds a pressure on our girls to feel like they also
need to “fit in”.
This automatically ages them before
time and it leaves us wondering why the entire fashion beauty industry is
banking so heavily on this new sexy clothing, miniature stilettos and make up
to pre hormonal girls.
What to do?
Unfortunately a teenager is a
dreamer and their brains are close to jelly at this stage. Anything can make
them angry, influence them, muddle them and even derail them towards choices
that may not be appropriate for them. A 10 year old is even more volatile; they
are completely unaware of the meaning of many of these concepts and process in
their minds what little they can comprehend. It’s paramount to allow teenagers
to find their skin, but also to talk to them and allow them to see the choices
that lie before them. For 10 year olds it’s all about idols isn’t it? Their idol
should ideally be their mother or father, who is willing to sit and listen to
their fantasy stories and know what they watch on TV, what goes on in the
playground and who is sitting in their heads feeding them information. If we do
this, we can gauge their growth and somewhat remedy this shrinking childhood.
I admit it’s hard, as a parent it
frightens me to think what awaits me. Nevertheless, a consciousness needs to be
created in the home. A teen or pre teen as we call them these days are like new-born
babies. Nurture them so they enter adulthood knowing what calculated choices
await them and let’s try to help these new millennium pre-teen kids.
I will end my article with a small
scenario that probably occurs in every home and what different outcomes can be
applied to handle the situation. A father is in the kitchen chopping vegetables
and listening to music that his pre teen daughter normally listens to. She
walks in, hears the music and states this is new age music and rather different
to what he used to listen to in his days.
a)
He
replies that he wasn’t really listening as it was just playing on the radio.
She then states that it’s pretty good isn’t it? He replies that it is not
really his type of music – father let’s go, even though daughter has invited
him to engage further into what could possibly be a longer conversation.
b)
He
replies that he actually likes to listen to all sorts of genres and this is
cool too. She smiles. He then engages in asking her who is the band and she
replies that she’s not too sure but it’s nice to dance to. He follows up by
making a joke and asks her to show him some of her moves. She laughs and calls
him an old man. – Light open conversation with open-ended questions.
c)
He
asks her if she likes this music, if she listens to it with her friends? She
confirms with her reply. He then asks what other music she enjoys and she
replies in a vague but engaged manner. He finally asks what movie did she go
and watch the previous night and with whom she went with? She openly tells him
he’s asking too many questions. – The father started off well by taking
interest in the music topic, then abruptly became personal and disengaged his
daughter.
I cannot tell you how frustrating it
can be to determine which is the right path to take. Clearly each teenager o
pre teen is different and the outcome can vary from child to child. The key is
to communicate and not give up.
