Well my shoe size is nine, like my daughter Kai whose friends believe nine is the new twenty five. Yes thanks to cell phones, ABC Family television programming, MTV reality TV, and the internet our children are now aging at a rate that will sadly put them in a nursing home before we are ready to retire! I am seriously considering plugging to get a documentary made “Death of Childhood in America”. And we only have ourselves to blame.
Yes a deep topic from the Geek in Four Inch Heelz, but I had a nice slap of reality when I overheard a conversation between two of my daughter’s friends. It was a conversation that I was pretty sure I didn’t have with my friends until I was at least a freshman in high school! Yes times have changed but the changes weren’t for the better when girls who haven’t started puberty yet are talking about sex!
When I was nine I was playing Barbie’s, thought boys had cooties, walked to see my friends when I wanted to talk to them, I didn’t worry about fitting into skinny jeans, I chewed my nails I didn’t get acrylics and I was lucky if I could brush my hair let alone have it salon highlighted! A ten year old in our neighborhood has a standing appointment to have her fake nails filled and her highlights touched up so she can maintain her “look”. She is in fifth grade she should look ten, not like something straight from the Jersey Shore!
There was a time when tween meant arguing about bedtimes, not wanting to wear pigtails in your hair, and wanting to wear lip gloss to school. Now it is arguing about curfews, talking to boys on the phone(and meeting them in secreet) and catching your daughters with a full tramp wardrobe in her back pack that she is changing into when she gets to school. Luckily I haven’t had to deal with any of this yet but looking at her friends and their parents are dealing with, I know it is coming.
I have been driven to tears by the fact that I am sending my girls into a world where childhood is so short. I want to go back to the days where I had to tell them they couldn’t wear their princess dresses to the dinner table. I want to go back to pigtails and rosy cheeks. I want to hold on to seeing them giggle over things children giggle over. I want to watch them grow up not have it happen over night because today’s society says so. Keep your girls princesses with pigtails as long as they will let you. The time goes by so fast.
I know they will grow up one day but it can’t be tomorrow, this mama isn’t ready!