by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: April 21, 2009

It is quite disturbing that so many parents are prepared to allow their children to leave the house looking like miniature adults. Their daughters may be insistent that they only want to follow the latest fads and trends, but surely if the adults are the ones paying for the clothes then they should have the final say. Many parents are obviously swayed by the insistent pleadings of their youngsters, though, and decide to give into their daughters' demands, convincing themselves that the clothes their children wear are relatively unimportant.

The trouble is that girls are increasingly made to feel fashion conscious. Companies are aware of the value of pester power and so they have been trying to tap into the pre-teen or 'tween' market. Girls and boys have always played games in which they pretend to be adults, with girls dressing up in their mothers' clothes and tottering around in high heels and being the housewife or playing nurse to the boy's doctor. However, such games are based in fantasy.

It is different when girls are going outside dressed as if they are teenagers. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell a girl's age, and there are plenty of older individuals prepared to exploit the naivety of young girls. Girls may want to convey to the world that they are grown up, but in reality they are not physically or emotionally mature enough to understand the implications of what they are wearing. They simply want to wear what their friends are wearing and to be fashionable. Indeed, there are little girls walking around the streets with the playboy' logo and provocative statements more suitable for adults on their t-shirts.

The issues surrounding the sex industry can be contentious for feminists, but here we have young girls walking around with 'playboy' and 'glamour model' written on their t-shirts, seeming to epitomise the very objectification of women which feminists have tended to crusade against. There is no irony in wearing such items, as young girls probably don't even understand their significance; they just see the familiar playboy bunny logo which they can only identify because all their friends are wearing it.

There seems to be an obsession with sex in Western society, and there are plenty of companies prepared to use the notion that sex sells to target the pre-adolescent demographic. Young girls and boys are constantly exposed to images of scantily clad women and teenagers, and so they think that this is the norm. Women who have become successful and are regarded as celebrities seem almost to have become role models for young girls, and so it is not surprising that they want to emulate their favourite stars. It is therefore parents' responsibility to establish boundaries and to try to get their daughters to embrace their childhood, rather than seeking to look and behave as if they are adults, when they clearly have a long way to go before they reach such a stage.

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