Opinion: Cut the glamor and let tweens be tweens
Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Workshop for Bay Area high school students, a two-week intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.
Just recently I saw my cousin for the first time in a while. Maybe it was the time that’s passed, but she looked like a whole other person from what I remembered. Thick makeup, short shorts and a different attitude. It wasn’t completely horrible, but it made her look unrecognizable.
“You look so good!” I said. “How old are you? 14?”
“I’m in sixth grade,” she answered.
Still in elementary school, and yet she was already 10 steps ahead of where I was at her age. She looked way too mature for her age.
Middle school to me is vivid, because of countless embarrassing but important moments.
When I was the only and the oldest preteen girl in a traditional Asian immigrant household, my parents had always controlled the way I dressed, managed my free time, and expected a strong performance at school. I’d always been limited as to what I was and wasn’t allowed to do, and I eventually got used to what I then deemed as strict and useless rules.
Now I realize my parents were protecting me from moving too far ahead and becoming a person I wasn’t ready to be yet, protecting me from becoming a preteen like my cousin.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that this “unknown girl” isn’t anything less just because of the changed way she acts or looks. Nonetheless, she is still my young and innocent cousin, only just influenced by today’s new trends and media influences — something hidden from me in my preteen years.
I feel bad for today’s young teens. Already in such an awkward stage of youth, middle school, and having to carry the same rules from family like I did, but in worse positions. Today’s preteen girls have to manage that alongside mental health and social status, all while being asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and forcing them to come out of their childhood shell and wear the mature, young adult mindset.
That extends to other areas. For example, although I’d been given the privilege of technology at a young age, I was still micromanaged on how I’d use it. But it was never my main source of entertainment.
My brothers, ages 4 and 5, have numerous electronics and are able to play whatever and whenever they want. They just can’t live without it. The same thing is happening with today’s young tween girls, who are commonly on Instagram and TikTok.
There, they’re welcomed into the online world of trendsetting and aesthetic following, and yet these trends only brainwash them into depending on the media’s opinions about societal trends and ways to have a satisfying life. They are unable to fathom the idea of doing things on their own.
Social media targets preteen girls with their retailing tricks. Popular tween stores I grew up with, Justice and Claire’s, were my friendly and girlish entry to a young woman’s world. I wasn’t influenced by trends outside of the stores, and I only focused on what was physically in front of me. I was content with just purchasing a T-shirt on a rack, alongside the fashion choices of my mom, of course.
Today, I’m seeing these stores close since the latest trend is shopping at older but “aesthetic” stores like Sephora or Lululemon. These stores were far too luxurious for me as a preteen. Groups of young girls come into these stores and purchase the same things they see online, made popular by older girls. These niche trends trick them into embodying something they’re not, like a 20-year-old woman modeling a bathing suit online, highly different from an 11-year-old’s body.
Today, tween girls seem to rely on social media to choose what motivates them and the way they live and act. Simply just looking at anothers girl’s Instagram post drives them into putting all their focus on social standards and being popular, reaching all the attention they can get just for short moments of popularity.
These girls are scared of standing out without the support of an iPhone.
I didn’t need social media. I was constantly hungry to become a bold and authentic individual.
Older generations and social media want to turn tweens into teens, and it’s not OK.
Instead of taking away one’s childhood or criticizing tweens for their clothing and attitude, help them acknowledge it’s OK to have an opinion and disagree. Tweens are not below us, but younger than us, and they always will be.
Lianne Carla Catbagan is a student at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose.