Re: another generation in training

Oh,

I can tell you haven't been around little girls in a while! I noticed about 3-5 years ago that "8" is the new 13 and "13" is the new 18 as far as girls go. Even 5 and 6 year old girls are acting like the teenaged girls screaming at the stage for Paul, George, and John back in the late 60's. Six year old girls wishing they were teens is an old concept. I had Barbies and dreamed of the day I could be 16 and drive and have a boyfriend that would take me on dream dates. Of course, when I got to be 16, the boys I knew weren't rich enough for dream dates, most didn't have their own cars, and none of them looked like Ken.

But I don't remember elementary school aged girls screaming and crying for Justin Timberlake like they do now. Junior high, sure. But elementary school girls were still playing with baby dolls.

I have an almost 13 year old daughter and an 11 year old daughter. They are both beautiful girls, and it's harder to protect them from the world's mindset now than it was with my oldest daughter, who is about to turn 22. My girls aren't in to Miley Ray Cyrus (Hanna Montana), saying she is attractive to younger girls, just like Hillary Duff was to them.

I saw an interesting documentary, I guess, a few years ago about how Madison Avenue had discovered the elementary school girl market and was starting to cash in on them. What Madison Avenue did was to take products they were interested in marketing to elementary schools and find the alpha females. The alpha females were told they had been selected to participate in research which would affect millions of school girls in America. What are girls going to like? The alpha females would dig around in these boxes of *junk* and start saying "ohh! I like this! This is cute!" Well, since the alphas were the top dogs in the whole school, all of their friends wanted what the alphas wanted. And the younger grade level girls wanted what the older grade level girls had. Then the crosstown school girls wanted what those girls had. And so it went through cousins and friends all over the country. The mothers, of course, bought everything their daughters wanted, because to be unpopular in an elementary or junior high school meant social death- the worst thing possible for an elementary school girl!

In the documentary, I saw the Madison Avenue types take these girls into a conference room and tell them they were grooming a rising star who was 13, but she needed some help with her image. They'd ask the girls what the starlet should wear, hair, makeup, song subjects, etc. Whatever the alphas said, from the choices they were given, that's exactly what young stars like Hanna Montana would wear and the kind of songs she would sing.

So anyway, they constantly groom a new Hillary Duff or Hanna Montana every 5 years in order to attract that 5 year market from 5-10 and maybe up to 13. The 8-13 year olds go after the boy men like Johnny Depp. Then at age 13, the girls start getting into real trouble with real boys. Most girls in this country are throwing their purity away at age 13. 13!!

So yes, Oh, there has been a real an palpable shift down in age for young girls to mature more quickly. I am like you and think it's not a healthy thing. The girls aren't thinking about becoming mothers and nurturing babies. They are thinking of becoming the next American Idol. It isn't good.

Thanks for the post.

Donna