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Mom exposes 5 reasons why girls are skipping the tween phase, going straight from child to teenager

Kids used to watch Hannah Montana; now they're obsessed with their skincare routines.

Tweens reading their composition books to each other.

Have you heard the recent stories about nine-year-old girls who have become obsessed with skincare routines? These days, instead of wanting to get a gift certificate to Claire’s for their birthday, they prefer Sephora. How about the 10-year-olds obsessed with watching adult shows on Netflix instead of age-appropriate content on Disney+? It's all evidence of a disturbing trend: young girls seem to be growing up faster and skipping the awkward tween phase altogether.

Ashley Embers, a parenting YouTuber with over 127,000 subscribers, explored this topic in a compelling video that gives five reasons why young girls are skipping the valuable tween phase and acting like teenagers. This troubling trend is caused by changes in media, marketing, smartphone use, and how young girls socialize.

Why are tweens acting more like teenagers?

“This small sliver of time between childhood and teenage life was once a transitional phase where children would start to find their place in the world, but now they bypass their awkward stage altogether and jump straight into behaving like adults,” Embers opens her video.

Here are Ashley Embers' five reasons why childhood is being cut short for many tween girls.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

1. Tweens are abandoned by retail

“One of the reasons that preteens have fizzled out is because they don't have designated stores for them anymore,” Embers says. Growing up, when departing from childhood, you would get stores designed explicitly for that transition into teenhood. Think Pink by Victoria's Secret, Claire's, Justice, and Ardene. These stores got you out of the childish styles of clothing and accessories while still keeping everything age-appropriate.”

2. Social media has a bigger influence on tween fashion

“A big reason for the lack of preteen stores is because children's fashion influence is now coming from TikTok and Instagram rather than their peers at school,” Embers says. "The problem is that most of the creators on these platforms are over the age of 13, unless you go through the loophole of having a parent-run account, and this means that the kids who are going on these platforms are being influenced primarily by adults and teenagers.”

tween, pre-teen, girls 9 to 12, tween fashion, girls, middle schoolTween girls volunteering.via Canva/Photos


3. The demise of pre-teen media

In the video, Embers says that two types of media are just not as relevant for preteens anymore: television shows, specifically Disney programming, and magazines such as Tiger Beat or J-14.

"The cream of the crop was the Disney Channel. The shows from Disney were iconic and such a big part of so many people's upbringing, think of Lizzie McGuire, Ned's Declassified, Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Sweet Life of Zach and Cody, That's So Raven," Embers says. "The thing that made these shows so special is that they taught us about the transition from childhood to adulthood. They addressed things like crushes, navigating cliques in school, conflict with friends and parents, and just finding out who you are, and what you want to be."

Embers says that kids watched these shows after school and could talk about them with their friends the next day or watch them together. But nowadays, people watch television at their own pace, and that communal spirit is gone.


4. Advertising has changed

There has been a significant shift in how tweens interact with advertising in the era of social media. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1998, which prohibits social media platforms or online services directed at children under 13. Embers says that even though kids 13 and under shouldn’t be using many of these online platforms, they still do and are exposed to advertising for adult products, because it’s illegal to sell them anything else. This has affected tween tastes by making them advanced for their age. “We got ads for things like toys and games, and kids now are getting ads for Stanley Cups and wrinkle-free straws,” Embers says.


5. Overexposure to crisis

Once a tween is given a smartphone or their friends have them, they are exposed to many of the world's horrors. This causes them to lose the innocence of childhood and become worried about politics, natural disasters, inequality, and violent crime at a time when their brains aren’t developed enough to process them.

"There is increased exposure to violent or sexual content at a younger age which causes a desensitization and normalization because children's brains aren't fully developed to process this in a way that an adult brain can," Dr. Willough Jenkins, an inpatient director of psychiatry at Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, said, according to Embers.

Embers’ reasoning for the end of the tween era may be distressing to many. Still, she concludes the video with a silver lining: schools and parents are beginning to crack down on smartphone use among tweens and teens, and we may be on the precipice of positive change. "The effects we're seeing of social media on kids are still so new that there's still time to rewrite the story for these kids," she says. "With all the research coming out about the damages of phones on children, things are starting to change."

via Alexabii97/TikTok and Bmchper/TikTok

Bailey defends Alexandria's breakfast.

Alexandra Sabol is a writer and a mother of 3 in North Carolina who makes TikToks centered around cooking and raising her family. Many of her videos feature her giving a deadpan look while preparing meals that look a lot like those cooked in everyday American homes. But, sadly, the food just isn't good enough for some self-righteous moms on TikTok.

(And that could be the exact reason why Alexandra is posting videos.)

In a video with over 3.3 million views, Alexandra filmed herself preparing a meal for her 1-year-old daughter that included 3 powdered donuts and an applesauce pouch. The video received a lot of negative feedback from other parents who shamed her for feeding her 1-year-old donuts as well as her appearance.


"Healthy and nutritious! Just like mom," one user wrote. "No toast? No cereal? No fruit? Surely one of those options is better than those powdered donuts," Miss Cheetah added. "Fruit would be just as cheap, maybe a dollar or 2 more expensive, but worth it for your child," Aiden Stanley added.

Breakfast! 

@alexbabii97

Breakfast! #platebreakfastwithme #breakfast #fyp #foryoupage #foryou #fypシ #fypシ゚viral

The mom- and-fat-shaming inspired other mothers to jump in and defend Alexandria. They shared how they also feed their kid the occasional donut and what’s most important is if the child is eating well and loved. The post also inspired a thoughtful TikTok of support from Bailey, a formerly sanctimonious mother, who defended Alexandra’s choices and admonished those who judged her.

She also pointed out the uncomfortable fact that women who don’t meet traditional beauty standards are likelier to be shamed online.

“I see creators on this app every single day who have a million or so followers and fit the traditional standard of beauty. They will make their kids junk. They will go spend $500-plus at the grocery store on mostly junk and no one says anything probably because they're popular and they're skinny,” Bailey said.

Let’s talk about the “donut mom.” 

@bmcpher

Let’s talk about the “donut mom.” #fyp #donutmom #momsoftiktok #parenting

“You have this woman that is not a widely known creator, is not a hundred pounds, and she's getting shamed on a large scale getting shamed. I am just so terribly sorry for her," she continued.

She added that she knows she shouldn't feed her children processed foods, but it's impossible to be perfect.

“I'm that mom, and yet, sometimes you know what [my daughter] eats? Cake pops, donuts, french fries, cookies because she deserves to live a little bit because sometimes, while it's not the best, sometimes, moms, we're not at our best. Sometimes, we lack a little bit,” she said.

Bailey then pointed out that the reactions to Alexandra’s video have more to do with the commenters' lives than the mom they are shaming. She admitted that she understands how the commenters feel because she used to be that way before she was changed through her faith.

"I used to be one of those moms, in another life—pre-Jesus me—that would see that video and judge this mom," she said. "I was unhappy in my life. I was unhappy living the life that I was living. In my marriage, in my home, in my parenting, I was not happy. So I had to use the few things that I did right to judge other moms."