So what's new in this dogbitesman
story? Well, when all this was happening, my daughter was 10 years old & in the 4th grade.
Parents who remember their
own teenybopper infatuations w/David Cassidy or Donny Osmond might be inclined to shrug & say, "That's how it's always
been." But this is something altogether different.
Having already sprinted thru early
childhood, today's "tweens" (the marketers' term of choice for 8 to 12 yearolds, like Anna)
are also catapulting over the stage once called preadolescence. As tween styles, attitudes & alas, behavior increasingly mimic those of teenagers, childhood as we once defined it is evaporating before our eyes.
Indeed, tweens avoid even the suggestion that they're children,
instead cultivating an image of knowing maturity. According to marketing surveys of children's attitudes, by the time kids
are 12, they routinely use the adjectives flirtatious, sexy, trendy & cool to describe themselves.
Furthermore, notes Bruce Friend, senior vicepresident of Nickelodeon/MTV
networks' international research & planning, by age 11, many children in Nickelodeon's research groups say they don't
want to be called children at all.
"The biggest trend we've seen recently is teenlike preteen behavior,"
says Friend. "The 12 to 14 yearolds of yesterday are the 10 to 12 year olds of today."
This is a lesson the nation's toy makers have taken to heart.
Thirty years ago, according to the Toy Manufacturers of America, they targeted their products to children from infancy to
14 years; today, they don't expect to sell toys to anyone over the age of 10.
The signs of this precocity are everywhere, as clothing stores
such as the Wet Seal chain sprout up in malls across America & catalog companies such as Delia's market cool black minidresses
to tween girls.
Cosmetics companies have introduced tween lines, complete w/hair
mascara in "edgy" neon colors & body lotions w/names like Vanilla Vibe & Follow Me Boy. Sixth grade teachers complain
that the 11 yearold girls in their classes often come to school in full makeup, w/ streaked hair, platform shoes & midriffrevealing
shirts.
And this tween fashion scene is by no means limited to girls.
A steadily growing number of boys have traded in their baseball cards for hair mousse & baggy jeans. Starter jackets emblazoned
w/the logo of a favorite sports team & costing as much as $200 are all but obligatory in many fourth & fifth grades;
in others, $40 Abercrombie & Fitch Tshirts are the newest status symbol.
Barbara Canham, a mother of two from Denver, was shocked when
her 8 yearold son began affecting a street style, wearing baggy pants, turning his baseball cap backward, using hiphop lingo
& disappearing into his bedroom for hours to listen to 'N Sync CD's.
The slick pseudosophistication of tween movies is
another index of the erosion of childhood. Tweens snub youthful fare (Anna rejects any film rated G or PG because "that means
it's for babies") & flock to such teen sex comedies as Can't Hardly Wait (PG13).
Scream, the Rrated horror film about a serial
killer who stalks young women, is a favorite on the tweens slumberparty circuit—although, as Beth Schrooten, of Katy,
Texas, discovered after her 10 year old daughter saw it at a friend's house, the film's graphic sadism may bring out a child's
true age.
"She wanted to watch because other kids said it was
cool," says Schrooten. "But then she couldn't sleep the next night." This past summer's megahit Austin Powers: The Spy
Who Shagged Me (PG13) had 9 & 10 year olds around the country quoting smirky double entendres.
Cultural Conspiracy
If the tween phenomenon were merely a matter of fashions &
fads, it might not be cause for much alarm. But there is disturbing evidence that tweens are shedding not only the goody goody
image of childhood but its substance as well.
Eating disorders, depression, acts of malice & violence
& suicide (which has doubled for the 10 to 14 year age group since 1980) are all growing among early adolescents &
preadolescents.
Tellingly, many of the copycat threats that followed in the
wake of the Littleton, Colorado, massacre occurred not in high schools but in middle schools.
Sexual activity is also on the rise. Between 1988 & 1995,
the proportion of girls who reported having sex before 15 rose from 11% to 19%. (For boys, the number remained stable, at
21%.) This statistic means that approximately 1 in 5 middleschool kids is sexually active & it doesn't even include the
much talked about predilection among middle schoolers for oral sex.
To some extent, this desire to adopt the customs of the next
age group up is nothing new. Young kids have always emulated their teenage babysitters & highschool sports stars. But
what's different about today is that the entire society seems to be a coconspirator.
In the past, our culture revered childhood & grownups collectively
endeavored to preserve it as a time of innocence. Today, it seems as if everyone is saying, "Go aheadrace thru childhood.
And the faster the better."
Left to Their Own Devices
The most obvious culprit, of course, is the media. Thanks to
round the clock television programming, videos, movies, video & computer games & the Internet, children are exposed
to ever more adult material at ever younger ages.
Even "family TV shows" feature countless examples of tart-tongued,
world weary youngsters who are in fact much too smart to be kids (& who are invariably smarter than the dimwitted adults
around them)from Rugrats' 3 year old Angelica to The Simpsons' 10 year old Bart.
But we parents
also play a big role in our children's diminishing childhoods, mainly by not playing a big enough role in their lives. A fact
usually overlooked in the furor over child care is that, regardless of the solution arrived at, younger kids have continuous
adult attention, whether in the form of sitters, teachers, or daycare workers.
But at around age 8 or
9, as they exhibit growing competence, kids are often left alone for several hours a day. "This is exactly the age
when more kids are left to their own devices," agrees Ron Taffel, Ph.D., a Parents contributing editor & author
of Nurturing Good Children Now (St. Martin's Press, 1999).
"Parents who’ve
been at home find this a good time to go back to work." And longtime working parents, after years of juggling schedules
& panicking over lastminute sore throats, sigh in relief as they post a list of emergency numbers on the refrigerator & hand over the house keys.
As Dr. Taffel puts it,
"Practical necessity supports the philosophy that 'this is good for my child.’”
The problem is that, as many
teachers attest, kids are lonely. One New York City middle school principal told me that she frequently has to shoo kids out
of the building when after school activities end, at 6:00 p.m.
"They
don't want to go home," she says. "There's no one there."
What this parental absence
means is that peer influence moves in to fill the void. Educators report that cliques are taking firm hold earlier
than ever. Unlike ordinary friendships, cliques are often harsh & powerful mechanisms for making kids conform to codes of dress & behavior that have been absorbed from the media.
Patricia A. Adler,
the author, w/Peter Adler, of Peer Power: Preadolescent Culture & Identity (Rutgers
University Press, 1998), found that by late elementary school, boys' popularity depends on "macho coolness & toughness."
Girls are popular,
says Adler, if they're pretty, "have cool clothes & cool possessions; the fancy car, the big house." And, adds Adler,
popularity increases in direct proportion to a child's detachment from adults.
To make matters worse,
parents are often reluctant to take a stand against these trends. Unsure about what other kids are up to or what is really
going on at school, many parents end up accepting their children's judgment.
Others are unwilling to squander
what little time they have with their kids on battles about clothing or movies. "When you're working a lot, there's less time
to form a close relationship, so you do whatever you can to make it work," says Jennifer Hammerstein, of South Salem, New York.
"You worry that your
child won't like you. You give in a lot." And let's face it: Stressed out parents often welcome signs that their kids are maturing, even when those signs take the form of PG13 movies & metallic lip gloss.
It's a vicious circle. Rather
than having any single cause, this widespread curtailment of youthful innocence can be attributed
to a whole host of them, each reinforcing the other. With less time for family life, 8 to 12 year olds look to their peers
for companionship & behavioral cues.
The peer group
in turn looks to the media. And the media spy a robust new market group that revels in being treated as savvy, independent from - adults consumers.
In the meantime, parents,
disinclined to fight either of these forces, watch helplessly as their kids gallop thru what, once upon a time, were the prime years of childhood.
©1999 Parents
About Kay Hymowitz: articles, bio, and
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