Tweenies teetering on Teens

Though my blog will be reserved for writing about parenting teenagers- I have learned that “tweenies” are younger and younger and teenagers aren’t developing just because they have the syllable “teen” at the end of a number. I felt like things seem to be happening sooner in our society. I know there is the belief of all of the hormones injected into a great deal of the food we ingest and I do believe that plays a significant role. But I have also talked with my pediatrician about the role that bombardment of sexual innuendo is playing in the sexual maturation of children.

What these kids watch contains a great deal of sexual innuendo at a younger age than my generation. The restriction of what is portrayed on television is lesser than in my early years. These things are not going over their heads. They are infiltrated with many things early on and it can stimulate a certain way of thinking and can place them in a much more knowledgeable category when the hormones start flowing. For example, when I was a kid I wasn’t allowed to watch much television after 9 pm because that is when shows like “Three’s Company or The Love Boat would be on using a much different form of entertainment than shows holding the 8 pm timeslot. Shows like Donny and Marie and Sonny and Cher variety shows, Little House on the Prairie, or The Waltons. As a society, we’ve become fairly lackadaisical about what we allow our young children to absorb; after all, it is everywhere. But I’ve never been so naive to think that these things just go over their heads. For years many television shows that all of my kids’ friends’ were watching were banned in my home- SpongeBob included. I wanted to protect them from those things that I deemed inappropriate.

If you actually sit and watch some of these shows with your children on a regular basis, you’ll see that adults or authority figures are typically portrayed as idiots – always being the butt of the joke and talked to in an extremely disrespectful manner by the child characters. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I believe that this sets a precedent for our youth that this is how you should interact with your parents. Hannah Montana, Zach and Cody, and Drake and Josh all generate this mentality and just how many times a day do you think they are broadcasted? Most of the shows that “tweens” are watching have “teen” issues and characters. I’m not sure how many high-schoolers are still interested in iCarly though she is portraying a high school character. The audience of these shows is “tweenies” that we are empowering with teenage issues and attitudes long before they can even conceive of those thoughts.

I remember that time in my life. Those “tween” years were awkward and we were all going through our changes, but there was more modesty about it. I remember getting Tiger Beat magazine and hanging posters of Donny Osmond, Shawn and David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, and John Travolta on my walls. They were pretty much fully clothed – with the occasional unbuttoned shirt with the onset of disco. But recently, my 10 year old daughter has consistently begged me for posters of Taylor Lautner completely bare-chested. She describes him with words like “hot”. It freaks me out.

I have spent a great deal of time remembering being 10 years old lately because of my daughter. I don’t recall that there was anything unusual about it. It was all fairly innocent. I remember having my first “boyfriend” that year. He was in my class. We played on the playground together and sometimes sat together at lunch. But mostly, he called me just about every night and occasionally rode his bike to my house. Eventually elementary school would end and we would go our separate ways to different middle schools. Interestingly, when we met up again at the same high school, we never acknowledged that 5th grade year. If it wasn’t such a big deal for me then - why can’t I imagine any boy calling my daughter or visiting my daughter on his bike now?

I remember boy/girl parties in my girlfriend’s basement. You know, the long table filled with Doritos, Cheetos, M&M’s and the wide variety of sodas. The lights off with colored light bulbs, turning multi-colored disco balls and strobe lights while the latest K-TEL compilation album blasting out KC and the Sunshine Band, Pablo Cruise and Gloria Gaynor. The boys would line the wall opposite of the girls and everyone waited for Robert John’s Sad Eyes or The Commodores “Sail On” to play, signifying that it was time for couples to dance. Inevitably, all drama began at the moment that a boy chose a girl to dance (naturally by way of sending his best friend to ask her best friend) because someone else’s heart was clearly broken. You could be assured that the rest of the night would be filled with everyone choosing sides and defending and attacking their classmates. Nothing catastrophic ever happened back then so why can’t I imagine my 10 year old daughter in that scenario. I wonder why it feels different? Does that mean I am getting old?

Recently we were on a family beach vacation. My mother, my daughter and myself were sitting under our umbrella on the beach when a large pack of twenty something college guys decided to use the open beach directly in front of us to play football. These guys were all naturally bare-chested and in bathing suits as we were at the beach. To my surprise and completely unprompted, my daughter began to rate these boys based on their physical characteristics. She chose the best smile, the best abs, the overall best looking etc. (On a side note, I was impressed with her taste as each one that she categorized I could see that he had been appropriately chosen.) She talked about those guys for the entire vacation. They had left quite an impression upon her. Her reaction has left quite an impression upon me.

I remember receiving my first set of Judy Blume books when I was 10. It was a rite of passage thing. “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” It was a book discussing the onset of puberty from a young girl’s point of view. I remember that being my first introduction to openly acknowledging sexuality and it was a big deal when I received those. So based on some of the changes that are taking place with her, I decided to take my daughter to make the purchase of the Blume books. I felt like we were taking a big step- a significant Mother Daughter bonding expedition. Besides after our trip to the beach, it was clear to me that hormones were already starting to circulate within her, and had been for a while. Sadly, it wasn’t nearly the special moment that it had been for me back then or was for me as a mother now. Clearly, my daughter had already been witness to music videos and television that had already robbed her of that. But I do think she liked that I was acknowledging her as an emerging pubescent.

Those teenage years come fast and furious and they are hard on all parties involved. The past ten years truly flew by. My little girl is emerging into a young lady and as much as I want to stop it, it is like a speeding train. Regardless of what I feel, she is changing. And if I think about it, she is right on time with my own maturation process.

But I think what I’ve figured out is that she is coming into it all so much more openly educated by society than I was. Part of the process of the “tweenies” for me was peeling back the layers of innocence and uncovering the emerging adolescent over a period of years. But when there isn’t much innocence to peel away, you are pretty much at the heart of it all raw and uncensored at the age of 10 instead of the age of 12. It is sad if you think about it. We are robbing our children of the experience to discover their changing selves.

I have been the mom of teenage boys for a while now as well as a dance teacher of teenage girls. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve heard a lot. I know what we are about to embark on. I want to be excited for her. I wish I could embrace this time of life with her but instead I’m hesitant and cautious. I’m sad because I have amazing memories from that time of exploration from my life when I was 10 years old. Yet I know that it will be drastically different for her because she has been clued in to so much already. In the meantime, I’ll continue to reject the bare-chested posters. I’ll just pray that she doesn’t receive an invitation to any girl/boy parties anytime soon and I’ll watch out for strange boys on bikes.