The Kids Are Not All Right: Too Sexy, Too Soon

By Diane Clehane

As the mother of a girl, I often find myself wondering how I’m going to protect my daughter from our overtly sexual culture that seems to bombard kids from every corner. Granted, she’s four-and-a-half so I have some time before this becomes a real concern. Then again, as I’ve written about previously on this blog, any time I shop for clothes for her I’m reminded that childhood isn’t what it used to be.
Hip huggers, sequins, and pint-sized versions of sexy adult clothes abound – but not in my house. My daughter has been taught, “Glitter is cheesy.”

It’s one thing to edit a child’s wardrobe; it’s quite another to act as bodyguard against overly enthusiastic crushes and first loves. With the likes of Hannah Montana and her real-life counterpart, Miley Cyrus (I’m not a fan of either of them), and any number of shows targeted to young adults but watched by tweens (Gossip Girl and every reality show out there), there is little doubt that our children are being exposed to sexual images and behavior at a much earlier age than ever before. Off screen, these stars’ behavior is celebrated no matter how inappropriate it is. Jamie Lynn Spears, the star of Zoey 101, was all of 17 when she announced that she was pregnant. She was Nickelodeon’s biggest star, for goodness’ sake! She celebrated the birth of her child with a glowing cover story in OK! Magazine.

I don’t know if there is any correlation, but I have been struck by the number of moms I know who have told me their young sons – yes, you are reading this right – have been “stalked” by girls eager to begin a romantic relationship. I know this is all anecdotal, but within the past week, no less than three mothers of boys between the ages of 11 and 14 have told me that they have had to step in and tell the girls to cool it. And, says one, her son was completely relieved by his mother’s intervention. “I think he was feeling the pressure to go along with it because it’s what the other kids were doing, but he’s not ready,” she told me. “He couldn’t find a way to tell this girl to back off, so I did, and both of us are tremendously relieved.”

One 12-year-old boy’s mother told me her son caught the eye of an older girl who was calling and texting day and night. At one point, she was texting him 60 times a day. The last straw came when she overheard her son on the phone telling his “girlfriend” he couldn’t call her every night. He also tried to explain he was not allowed to text after a certain time. She could tell he was upset at her reply so she checked his phone (I admit, I’d do the same thing) and found a text message from her that read, “I can’t help it if my boyfriend is hot.”

Another friend told me she happened to play the messages on the family telephone when she got home from work last week and was shocked to hear a breathy young girl explaining how she’d like to perform the sex act popularized by Monica Lewinsky on her 14-year-old son. Turns out her son had been seeing this girl for several months on and off and he’d recently broken up with her. This was her way of trying to lure him back. Thankfully, says his mom, it didn’t work.

Finally, today I was interviewing a mother for another article about a completely different subject and we began our chat by talking about our kids. She, too, told me her 11-year-old son was getting late-night calls from an overly aggressive girl who needed a stern talking-to from her to stop the stalking.

And I thought I had to worry about the boys.

If things continue to go this way, it would seem that I have to worry more about the girls my daughter chooses as friends than the boys she will be dating. Yikes!

I do remember the sting of being less than cool in junior high and high school and it wasn’t fun. The pressure at that age to fit in has always been enormous. But back then, you were made fun of if you didn’t have the right brand of Earth shoes or a White Stag ski jacket. No one was an outsider if you didn’t want to have oral sex—at least no one I knew.

This is truly a disturbing phenomenon that isn’t new and seems to be growing. I remember Lifetime did a movie several years ago about this very subject. I mentioned it to my brother, a high school health teacher, and he confirmed it was all too true.

To hear the mothers of these very young boys worry about the sexually aggressive behavior of the girls that have decided to pursue their sons is very troubling indeed.

I was told about a book, So Sexy, So Soon, that examines what parents can do about preventing their children from falling prey to this disturbing trend. With 12-year-old boys are looking at Internet porn and 13-year-old girls are offering oral sex in exchange for popularity, it seems to merit a spot on the required list for parents everywhere.

As we send our children off to school for a new year, let’s not turn a blind eye to the things that are robbing our kids of their childhood. Turn off the television when things heat up—and know what your kids are watching in the first place, monitor their time online, get to know who they are hanging around with and dating, dress kids as kids and say no to anything that remotely looks like it could be worn to an MTV Awards show. Easier said than done, I know.

All I can say is I’m glad I’m the mother of a preschooler who has no idea who Miley Cyrus or Jamie Lynn Spears is. I intend to keep that way for as long as possible.