Bare navels, thongs sticking out of jeans, tops with bare shoulders — girls 8-12 years old are becoming an ideal target group for the advertising business and clothing manufacturers today. Parents are silent or even encourage such a fashion … rarely realizing what harm it can do.
Girlfriends gathered at 11-year-old Yulia to rehearse a fashion clip in their own production. And, of course, in «star» makeup and outfits — like their television idols, because TV personalities have such a wonderful fate! And the girls try on everything that is bad: tight jeans, tops, leggings with a low waist, belts with rhinestones.
Masha, 10 years old, happily puts on a lace bra with inserts, although she does not yet have a hint of breasts, but a shiny pebble shines in her navel. “Is it going to be really sexy with a crop top and tight sleeves?” — she is interested in the opinion of her friends, intently studying her reflection in the mirror. Julia, the host of this game, turns on the record and starts humming another hit.
Like many of her peers, Yulia joined a wide circle of young fashionistas, clearly oriented towards certain rules of consumption. Her defiant outfits will never leave her unattended. “Today, children and adolescents are literally being forced into explicitly sexualized behavior that is not typical of their age,” warns psychotherapist Daria Krymova.
“The adult world is filled with sexual provocation in many areas,” says child psychiatrist Alain Lazartigue. “Girls imitate this world, but due to sexual immaturity, they cannot experience such emotions in the same way as we adults do. They strive to know desire, but do not understand the danger of the excitement they provoke.
Role confusion
Julia no longer wants to be treated like a child. “The age when parents cease to be the main authority for children is getting lower,” notes family psychotherapist Ekaterina Daichik. — From the age of ten, children begin to focus more on their peers, older children, as well as stars of mass culture. Even at a very young age, they identify themselves with their TV idols and begin to behave according to the rules of behavior of teenagers, for whom, as you know, the dress code is the basis of the foundations.
Adopting the mannerisms of their pets, the girls try their hand at a new way of being. So they try to identify themselves, to find their own face. But, in fact, the appearance, image standards are imposed on them by television, advertising and all kinds of «star factories» …
Fascinated by TV shows about teenagers, young beauties fall under the influence of an unhealthy (and it seems so feasible) dream of being elected. Such a trap works very effectively: the same young schoolgirls look at them from the screens, who in the evenings brilliantly light up in discos. What a role model for a whole generation of teenagers.
Attacked by advertising, not feeling the authority of their parents, growing girls are left to their desires.
Waiting for their lucky ticket — a ticket to the world of glory — these young creatures consume everything without restraint. Over the past ten years, children have become the target audience of advertising — after all, for example, each student, according to a survey by OTR (Public Television of Russia) in 2020, on average receives from parents from 2 to 396 rubles a month, depending on age and family income level. In total, 13% of schoolchildren receive pocket money in Russia.
“We live in a society where children are increasingly turning into child kings,” says Alain Lazartigue. — The family is going through a crisis, and the child becomes for the couple an illusory basis of stability, the embodiment of an ideal value. Too desirable, he acquires the traits of omnipotence. Many parents today are afraid to contradict their children, confusing authority with necessary authority.
It happens that a child of 6-12 years old dictates to his confused parents what they should do, what to buy. As a result, children become victims of two opposite tendencies — the infantilization of adults and the appropriation by them of parental functions. The resulting confusion of social and family roles greatly destabilizes the child’s psyche.
Attacked by advertising, not feeling the authority of their parents, growing girls are left to their own desires. They want to have everything «like all normal girls»: cosmetics, accessories, gadgets — girls perfectly «read» all the windows.
Kings and prey
The new fashion has also changed the world of toys. “Princesses suck,” an eight-year-old angelic creature in a rhinestone T-shirt remarks sternly as he picks out a gift in the toy department of a large store. A young customer prefers fashionable dolls that resemble characters in games or youth series.
“With apparent abundance, perhaps the most scarce toy today is an ordinary doll,” says Elena Smirnova, head of the Center for Psychological and Pedagogical Expertise of Games and Toys.
Manufacturers of cosmetics do not lag behind toy manufacturers, offering children’s makeup lines in pastel or fluorescent tones with sparkles. Fashionable clothing also emphasizes eroticism: the new XXS lines emphasize the yet almost non-existent charms of the figure.
“From the child king we come to the child prey,” analyzes Alain Lazartigue. — The consumption of external attributes is at the same time an economic phenomenon, and (for girls) a search for their identity, and an attempt to find a solution to existential issues. Deprived of restrictions, children seem to wander through life, catching on themselves evaluating glances, without which they cannot decide and exist. Adults turn them into an object of desire, which they cannot yet be, since they have neither the independence nor even the relative maturity of adolescents.
Unconsciously, these girls seem to flaunt themselves, they form an idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbsexuality and love, in which the emphasis is on the consumption of sex. “This is the paradox of modern society,” states Daria Krymova bitterly. “On the one hand, adults curse pedophiles, and on the other, they expose their children for show, making them objects of sexual desire.”
The authoritarian model of parenting is rejected as too rigid, and the humanistic model is often understood as permissiveness for the child.
Parents, without realizing it, become accomplices in such a situation: “It’s fashionable, what can we do!” Moms willingly accompany girls on shopping trips (“Daughter, my doll, she must have everything that I didn’t have!”) Or imitate them in the endless race for youth.
Karina is 35 years old, but she looks more like the older sister of Lisa, her 12-year-old daughter. She admits that she is flattered when she is confused with her daughter. The fact that Lisa is wearing defiant thongs does not bother her at all: “When there is beautiful underwear, why not show it? You need to keep up with the times, accept your children as they are. Lisa has her own style, even if someone does not like it. What does she have to do now, wear her school uniform again? I also have a thong, and this does not prevent my acquaintances from treating me with respect.
Psychologists Diana Levine and Jane Kilborn, in Sexual But Not Yet Adult, warn against the consequences of childhood sexualization, which they see as a trend.
“It should not be confused with either sexuality or sex, which are natural manifestations for a person,” the authors explain. “Sexualization means seeing people (and sometimes yourself) as objects rather than people who have desires and feelings. This is especially damaging to children and adolescents who build their own self-image and sense of self as sex objects.”
Neither complicity nor dictate
To explain, to negotiate, to allow or forbid — today parents do not have a common opinion. Experts note that many of them are hesitant or do not know how to raise their own children. A survey conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation showed that more than half of Russians (57%) believe that parents should treat their children as equals.
“Parents cannot draw a line between what can be discussed and what cannot be discussed,” Ekaterina Daichik notes with concern. — The authoritarian parenting model is today rejected as too rigid, and the humanistic model is often understood as permissiveness for the child. There is a gap between connivance and authoritarianism, and therein lies the danger.”
Alain Lazartigue believes that the roots of the problem lie in the misunderstanding of adults, in their inability to see and discuss the main issues. “It’s not really about wearing or not wearing a thong, it’s an absurd argument,” says a child psychiatrist. — It is important whether the parent considers the true interests of the child. What exactly does he want to embody in it? We cannot censor the world of television and advertising, but we can help a child find his or her own point of view in it. For example, to make a reasonable comment when seeing a picture that is too revealing.”
In other words, stop hiding your face when we face such a serious phenomenon. Our children are not «different», they are just what we ask them to be.