Is fashion the reason for the sexualisation of children or is it ill parenting? I believe it’s a mixture of a lot of factors; fashion and ill parenting plays a small part in this extremely important and sensitive issue.
We know what it’s like to be a child and as a young girl every day I would imagine what it would be like to be older. I wanted to wear lipstick and heels and read magazines that were aimed at older people than me (my favourite was 17). However, my parents said ‘no, wait until you’re older’.
But now, we see girls as young as 5 years old dressed in heels (like Suri Cruise – who has also be named by Glamour Magazine one of the world’s best –dressed women – yes WOMEN), toddlers wearing full make-up, spray tans, false eyelashes and dressed in short dresses in Toddlers and Tiaras and a child been given a £6,000 gift voucher by her mother for a boob job – this was her 7thbirthday present!
The gift can’t be used until the seven year old, Poppy Burge is 16 years old legally – so why give it to her? In my view this “gift” will send Sarah Burge’s daughter in having a self loathing state of mind – she will hate her body from a young age, and at 7 you become more aware of your body image and want to dress yourself – so in my opinion, really not the best time to give her a plastic surgery voucher. It has been drummed into her through this gift that isn’t perfect and she needs £6,000 worth of surgery done to become perfect – surely as a parent (I’m speaking hypothetically, I’m not a mother), you’re child is perfect that day she or he was born and will always remain perfect?
Another factor is advertising and the media, which sees little girls across the world being bombarded with images of slim, beautiful women who have everything they could ever desire. We adults know this is a marketing campaign and so tend to choose to ignore it, but most of the time it does work on us and we give in to materialism. So what do you think the effects are on children, who don’t understand what air brushing is, when they see these adverts?
Fashion is huge, it’s always been around and has influenced many millions of people, but it seems now that children’s clothing manufacturers/suppliers are dressing children in a more provocative way. This has to be due to demand and the parents are wanting to buy these clothes (they’re the ones with the bank account), but surely these people should have some morals? Take a look at this image I found with Paris Hilton posing with a child wearing the matching dresses:
Why can’t children be children anymore?
The British Retail Consortium has issued new guidelines on age-appropriate clothes for children, to which nine high-street brands, including Debenhams has signed up.
All in all, it isn’t just fashion and ill parenting that is causing the sexualisation of children. Advertising, children wanting to grow up too fast, celebrity culture, the media, television programs – they all play a part, it may be small or on varying degrees depending on the view, but you can’t point the finger and say that is what the catalyst to this problem is.
This issue needs to be dealt with in a diplomatic way, but I fear it will take a long time until we see results.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1384107/GLAMOURs-Best-Dressed-Women-2011-Suri-Cruise-barely-nappies.html
http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/fashion/celebrity-fashion/2011/04/glamour-best-dressed-women-2011#!image-number=30
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2003969/Pint-sized-pageant-queens-pushy-parents-tantrums-galore-Toddlers-Tiaras–biggest-stars.html
http://mommyish.com/stuff/happy-7th-birthday-my-gift-to-you-is-a-boob-job/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/human-barbie-boob-job-voucher_n_873705.html
http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1073679/Marketers-prepare-impact-Bailey-childhood-report/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
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