Adultifying young kids why are people doing it?!

[SurpriseOzzy]

I just need to stop following these friends who are letting their pre-teens wear body con dresses, acrylic nails, teensy bikinis, tonnes of make up, pouting and pulling backward V signs like it’s cool!!! Wtaf is wrong with people sexualising their young daughters and sticking it on insta? Do they not realise the perverted idiots out there who will be getting off on these pics!!

Just let kids be kids.

I say that as someone was sexually abused as a pre-teen!!!

You have some strong opinions of how your friends are raising their children yet you continue to follow them and despite your statements on this thread, you don't say a word?

Considering their was an ad on MN recently about "your baby's skin care routine" (iirc), we've got a long way to go to get rid of it, sadly.

Two parents told me in all seriousness that their year five children had been ‘in a relationship’ but had now decided to split. When I laughed, thinking they were tongue in cheek, they glared at me. I have
no clue why the parents of 10/11 year olds would want to validate this sort of ‘relationship’. The fall out was one of the kids threatening self harm on social media.

I unfollow anyone who posts pictures of their little girls and refer to them as “sassy”.

What do you expect when adults are so sexualized? I saw three thonged bums council pool, one a male

Because it's real life?

They’re at school with 18 year olds. The child that starts in yr 7 is long gone by the start of year 8.

Theyre just doing exactly as we all did and trying to grow up early, and like us they’ll be ‘old’ one day and wonder why the kids are trying to act older.

my DDs dad took her to the hairdressers and had the front section of her hair died purple. She's 10

and?

What does dyeing (not died) your hair signify? Please tell me

Totally agree that a lot of this is horrifying and sad.

If a girl is genuinely interested in fashion, hair, make up, computing, dance or anything else mentioned here then I don't think that's bad in any way. Children should be free to follow their own hobbies and preferences. But there are age appropriate ways of doing it and social media, sexualised appearance and gestures are not right for pre teens and young teens.

I didn't know what a bodycon was so googled and found this:
A bodycon, short for “body-conscious” or “body-confidence,” is a popular style of dress characterized for its figure-hugging fabric and seductive style designed to show off a woman's curves
That definition alone makes it clear that it's not clothing for pre pubescent girls - no curves to hug! I don't know if it would be inappropriate or not though, I guess not if it's hanging loosely on a young girl. But seems a bit pointless.

What's wrong with crop tops?! I can't get my head around why people get so uptight about kids wearing them?!

They don't put their little boys in them though, do they.

Very hard this ‘othering’ of girls. In this day and age.

Oh gosh don’t get me started on this!!! A friend’s 12 year old daughter was sent a dick pic by a 15 year old lad!!!!!

Both of those things definitely happened.

Oh gosh don’t get me started on this!!! A friend’s 12 year old daughter was sent a dick pic by a 15 year old lad!!!!!

this isn’t lol. This is illegal. Don’t laugh about it report it to police.

Not my place to is it really? I don’t spend time with these ‘friends’ they are like school mums etc, maybe best to call them acquaintances.

I find a lot of my DD’s friends are very much young girls (they are 8/9), but the ones with older siblings seem more mature in their outlook and interests. I guess because while they don’t have tiktok or social media themselves, their older siblings show them stuff so they are exposed to it. They also learn the trends sooner, these girls have skincare routines and stuff.

My kids used to go to an international school in a Western European country where school starts aged four. My twins started with a little girl from elsewhere, who had what felt like every five minutes of her life choreographed and micromanaged. The teacher had tried talking to her about it, because school at four is about learning to socialize, play nicely, hold a pencil and do up your own shoelaces, etc…. This poor kid was TIRED and falling asleep in class. The mum was disgusted that the curriculum wasn’t pushing her “gifted” kid enough and immediately hired language tutors and wanted me to be her “exclusive” music tutor (she had researched every parent on Linkdin) because “My little X is going to be a Staaaaaar!”…. (Obviously I was also expected to be extremely grateful for the opportunity, jump at the chance and not expect payment, but that was a whole other level of delulu…) I wound up that conversation very quickly with “Not if she’s burnt out before she goes into puberty… no thank you.”

Because when I started to wear sleeveless tops I felt exposed...... So as clothes get tighter and skimper it becomes the norm and nothing is of limits - as you see today

It is shocking I cannot understand any parent that does this its terrible watching the pageants in America little girls with full make up. The pressure the parents put on the little girls is disgusting.

So I was wondering why everyone was talking about White Fox as if it’s new when DD was wearing them 5 or 6 years ago. And it turns out it’s an Australian brand started by two sisters in their garage so good on them for having international success. DD still has the same hoodies she got back then - they are really good quality - but these days the popularity of them with young kids and (horrors) mums make them less desirable. Agree though that there’s actually nothing wrong with WF or crocs and when you’re as old as me you’ve seen crocs go in and out of fashion at least 3 or 4 times.

I do think we need to be careful about blurring the line between discussing what’s appropriate for young girls 8-13 to wear and do and just wholesale body shaming all girls and young women.

I think for millions of kids worldwide childhood hasn't happened.
No magic, no fairytales, no age appropriate fun.
More of my friends kids went much more often for babychinos in Costa than they ever went to play in the park.
Girls are more sexualised than ever before. I used to believe that it was people sexualising children and let them wear/do whatever, but in a world where minimum 1 in 30 men have sexual feelings towards children then having your kids in very minimal clothing splashed across the Internet is either utter ineptitude as a parent or you're using your dc for nefarious reasons to gain a following (wren Eleanor springs to mind).
Lots of the boys my sons play with have been allowed out without any adult supervision from early morning until late night from age 5 on bikes etc, like we used to in the 90s but we should know better than that now. It's too dangerous.
These kids at 5 didn't do activities like soft play, museums, beaches etc just playing out with older kids. No magic at Christmas etc, nothing to look back on other than playing out.
I just think playing out should be for older children to get some independence before secondaryschool, not just your little kids only activity. It's just so grown up when you're still so innocent and vulnerable.

Thinking back to my childhood, girls always wanted to be grown up more quickly than they should. Teenagers were always trying to wear makeup, nail varnish, earrings. I remember years of arguments about getting my ears pierced.

And parents have always boasted about their kids achievements. Is it an achievement if your kid looks grown up and has makeup skills and is popular because of those things? Idk because I am child free, but I can see how it could be something to be proud of. It’s also classless. Unlike boasting that your kid got into Eton, anyone can access social kudos through what are perceived as skills online.

The difference between my childhood 35 years ago and now is access to it. Back then you may reach ten people with whatever you want them to see throughout an average day outside of school, now we have the internet and it’s shared instantly with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.

Plus culture changes. It’s now an aim for stuff to go viral but in my day it was who was the best on the BMX or could complete all the levels on Sonic the quickest (admittedly in later years). There was always an element of who had the latest clothing fad and in my years those included ra-ra skirts that made kids look like cheerleaders and boob tubes.

It does make me raise an eyebrow from time to time, mostly re: pouting, but I mainly see it as a cultural fad. One that will be replaced with something else. Kids are too quick to want to be grown up, and probably have been since the end of wwii and the 60s when teens were finally allowed to have a voice.

If you search along the lines of 'parents monetise / monetize / kids / social media / mumfluencers' you can see a darker side. This sinister aspect shows the parents compensating for their own perceved personal failures.

Governments are waking up and the more enlightened ones are scrambling to legislate against it. Too little too late.

Timely essay here. 'We have laws to protect children from factory work. Why aren’t they protected from parents who monetise their lives online?' Exactly

Why Aren't Childred Protected from Monetising Parents?

So much judgement from these posts!
DD is 11 on Wednesday, has just started P7.
She plays football for her club 3 times a week, goes to Guides, reads voraciously and school have recommended that she run for school captain.
She is also into make up, skin care, Sephora, Nike Pros and White Fox. She saves pocket and present money to buy things.

Fashion has always been about girls trying to be more grown up. I absolutely acknowledge that social media has accelerated this, but it is how things are.
All we can do as parents is guide and protect as much as possible, and give our daughters the skills to understand that there is value in difference and commercialism isn't the be all and end all.