To hate the vacuousness of some young girls nowadays?

At 12 years old I could send anyone to sleep by endlessly taking about how much I loved Spandau Ballet and how I was going to marry Tony Hadley. Make up came later as I wasn't allowed if at 12.

I don't think any of us were particularly interesting at 12 years old.

My DD wasn't allowed fake tan at 12 but it didn't stop her using her pocket money to buy some and turning herself orange overnight. She was so angry with me for not pointing out how orange she was before she left for school. She never went near the stuff again after the day of ridicule she endured.

YANBU, although most 12 year olds weren't exactly highbrow in the 80s either. Vast amounts of hairspray and very short school skirts were definitely a thing. Tiktok obviously wasn't, but we had TOTP and some pretty unedifying teen magazines. I was nerdier and more bookish than most, but we all shrugged when our teacher wheeled in the huge wood-veneered TV and showed us the previous night's newsreel footage of the Berlin Wall falling. So a wall got demolished, big deal! 😂

And who are you angry at for this? The teenagers??

My DD is 12 and watches You Tube videos about how to apply make up. Interested in beauty brands but not obsessed. Isnt allowed snapchat or tik tok.
She is top set in all subjects ast school, sings in the school choir, is a highly competent horse rider, obsessed with classics + history and volunteers for the local Youth Council.
Stop judging on 1 very small snapshot.

When I was her age I rolled my skirt up much higher than she does and was obsessed with music magazines, shit make up etc. I now have a PhD.

Brands are interesting. Young women, teens etc can dress in primark/shein, but the boys are kitted out in brands, nike, under armour, hugo boss etc. Girls put brands on their face. It's clever advertising that adults get sucked in by, so of course children are also going to want them. As said vacuous etc is always used towards women who like makeup etc. There is a very sexist slant on the use of language, it's aim is to reinforce the idea of silliness etc. Not like men and their important hobbies and spending habbits. In the COL crisis the betting shops and the rough arse pubs aren't going out of business.

I couldn’t disagree with you more,

Every generation of girls and women since the beginning of recorded time has had some version of this.

The way in which girls bond is always denigrated. Yet we create deep, lasting, life long connections.

The way girls speak is criticised despite us being powerful and nuanced communicators.

Girls’ concerns are always dismissed as less than. Yet in the last two centuries, in the west, we have seen profound social change on the back of women’s issues.

Right now it’s skin care and TikTok, but that’s just the surface. The nuance of relationships and connection runs so much deeper. As early teens there’s a deep dive into group identity, and from that giddy wave will emerge another powerful generation of women.

If you think it’s about the length of a skirt, or a skincare trend you’re profoundly missing what’s happening.

Ah in my day is was Anais Anais and shimmer lipstick from the market - we had no social media but still had trends - Kicker Shoes and Lacost jumpers especially!

I have 3 girls - once is like me and doesn't do make up

2 are very into it - my eldest DD would fit your 'vacuous' label - never leaves the house without full make up and fake tan - she's worked since she was 15 and is now at a RG Uni studying politics and aiming for the Foreign Office - she has acne and due to her anxiety can't have the treatment that might work - her make up and fake tan give her confidence and make her happy.

Her younger sister loves make up - watches videos, buys the products - it's an art for for her - she is 15 and looks amazing - she now gets sent products to try on Tik Tok as well as clothes and stuff - her care aim is social media/marketing so it's good work experience!

My middle child also looks amazing make up free with her tattoos and wolf cut!

I am sure she is lovely, but it is deeply depressing that she has been suckered in to believing she need "skin care". of course she doesn't, and I am saddened that any mothers caught in this trap themselves deem it appropriate to pass the oppression on to their daughters.

I think parents in general have so much more money than they did in the 80s/90s. Creates terrible pressure.
And it's not ok any more to say no, you can't.

Me, too ... over 50 years ago 😂 I think I stole my first eyeshadow aged 13. Actually, it's all flooding back - it was a Number 17 pearly blue from Boots in Birmingham!

Perfume had to be Kiku in the yellow plastic ball. I used Neutrogena skin cream, but my friends were slapping on the Elizabeth Arden. I blackmailed my mother to buy me some Mary Quant shoes; I also had the iconic Quant belt with a daisy buckle, a Quant skirt and a second-hand Quant dress with black and white quarters. As soon as Biba launched we were all obsessed with it, regularly skiving off school to go to the shop in London. All my makeup was Biba.

The social media was all on paper (magazines, newsletters) and phone calls (Other people want to use the phone, you know! Hang up and help your mother!) A gaggle of teenagers poring over a copy of Petticoat was not much different to a gaggle of teenagers glued to TikTok 😆

Haha I was going to use Benetton in my example above. Never could get my mum to buy me anything out that store. By the time I was working after school my style had changed.

Ah I forgot Lancôme juicy tubes. In various glitter shades. There definitely was ‘high end’ teen stuff then too.

Im still a devoted Carmex user from my teenage years. And Dr Haushka

Hope it makes you feel good to be judging children @CarryOnCharon - seeing and they are so vacuous and shallow, great you can introduce them to the time honoured tradition of women bitching about eachother behind their backs.

Sun-in!

I spent months looking like I needed Brasso for my hair instead of shampoo. Between that and blue and pink eyeshadow worn together I thought I was the bees knees.

I'm very relieved that camera phones and social media weren't available to record it all for posterity.

what is it that you are actually complaining about? The price of the products these young ladies are buying or the fact that they are using them to conform.

You’re correct in that we didn’t have the makeup brands available back then that they have today, but you can bet we’d have wanted them. Think about the clothes… jeans in particular I remember paying $100 US for a pair of jeans… ~$300 in today’s money.

Kids my age absolutely would have been the same as today’s kids.

I'm not sure this is something new. I'm 43. When I was in high school in the mid 1990s, there was a group of girls who were obsessed with make up, skincare and fashion brands, short skirts, fake tan (one of them would literally stain everything she touched). The only difference was there was no social media. They learned it from magazines and each other (and older sisters/mothers).

That said, my nearly 12 year old is into wild swimming and climbing and playing with the dog and did a 30 mile hike and camp last weekend instead of being stuck at home on a phone. She doesn't have tiktok or snapchat or any social media at all. So they definitely aren't all like that. It's down to parenting and modelling the sort of values you want your dc to have.

If those brands could have marketed directly to teens and made money off them, they would have. Blaming the teens for being easily persuaded/manipulated is misdirected.

so are you actually a teenager as you are referencing Tik Tok as something you had to comprehend?

Primark? All the teens here ( mine included) are head to toe Nike and other designer brands 🙈.

Yes and going back to 80s toners, shaders and harmony

I always loved the charts too