Middle School Girls Gone Wild

I am including this New York Times op-ed in its entirety here, as it will soon disappear behind the Times Select wall. For those with grade school/middle school kids (girls, especially) it is a must-read.

Ugh. We are just a year or two away from this stuff....

Editorial Observer
Middle School Girls Gone Wild
New York Times
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Published: December 29, 2006

It’s hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it’s just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes. The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.

They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. ...Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud. I just sit there, not fully comprehending. It’s my first suburban Long Island middle school talent show. I’m with my daughter, who is 10 and hadn’t warned me. I’m not sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. It was something different. Something younger. Something that didn’t make the girls look so ... one-dimensional.

It would be easy to chalk it up to adolescent rebellion, an ancient and necessary phenomenon, except these girls were barely adolescents and they had nothing to rebel against. This was an official function at a public school, a milieu that in another time or universe might have seen children singing folk ballads, say, or reciting the Gettysburg Address.

It is news to no one, not even me, that eroticism in popular culture is a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet, and that many children in their early teens are filling up. The latest debate centers on whether simulated intercourse is an appropriate dance style for the high school gym.

What surprised me, though, was how completely parents of even younger girls seem to have gotten in step with society’s march toward eroticized adolescence — either willingly or through abject surrender. And if parents give up, what can a school do? A teacher at the middle school later told me she had stopped chaperoning dances because she was put off by the boy-girl pelvic thrusting and had no way to stop it — the children wouldn’t listen to her and she had no authority to send anyone home. She guessed that if the school had tried to ban the sexy talent-show routines, parents would have been the first to complain, having shelled out for costumes and private dance lessons for their Little Miss Sunshines.

I’m sure that many parents see these routines as healthy fun, an exercise in self-esteem harmlessly heightened by glitter makeup and teeny skirts. Our girls are bratz, not slutz, they would argue, comfortable in the existence of a distinction.

But my parental brain rebels. Suburban parents dote on and hover over their children, micromanaging their appointments and shielding them in helmets, kneepads and thick layers of S.U.V. steel. But they allow the culture of boy-toy sexuality to bore unchecked into their little ones’ ears and eyeballs, displacing their nimble and growing brains and impoverishing the sense of wider possibilities in life.

There is no reason adulthood should be a low plateau we all clamber onto around age 10. And it’s a cramped vision of girlhood that enshrines sexual allure as the best or only form of power and esteem. It’s as if there were now Three Ages of Woman: first Mary-Kate, then Britney, then Courtney. Boys don’t seem to have such constricted horizons. They wouldn’t stand for it — much less waggle their butts and roll around for applause on the floor of a school auditorium.

Comments

[Cynthia Samuels]

This is very disturbing. I have often thought how grateful I was to have had boys - whatever the issues they aren't THESE. I think, too, that I would have been far too rigid and ideological with girls - although reading something like this piece makes me wonder if that would have been so bad... Anyway, my boys are amazing young men whose attitude toward women I deeply respect.
BUT the reason I am writing is that this morning I read a piece on AlterNet that illustrates the dreadful potential for the future of these girls as they emerge as young women. Maybe you won't be surprised, but I was -- at the violence that is part of this piece: called Sacrificing Dignity for Attention: How Underage Women Have Become Club Commodities. You'll find it at www.alternet.org.
What sad information to consider at the start of a new year!

[BeachMama]

I agree with Cynthia, this is very disturbing. I can't believe how some of these kids are acting out the pop culture. The fact that they (hopefully) don't understand what they are singing about makes it even scarier.

Looking back to my airbands in highschool, "The Pointer Sisters, Go Go's and Buster Poindexter" were pretty tame compared to now.

[Abby]

This is terrible. I am so glad my daughter is only four - I still have a few more years...

[Izzy]

I just can't understand how parents don't see the potential consequences of letting their daughters become so sexualized and commodified, particularly at such a critical point for their self-esteem. How can they, as well as school officials, be so oblivious?

[ann adams]

Yes I know. I have 3; two in 6th and one in 8th and I spend much of my time keeping a lid on things.

I have one 6th grader who thinks she's too heavy; the other, ten months younger, thinks she's too skinny. Trust me, they're both perfect at their height and weight.

I'm going to copy this or link to it and maybe send it to Blogging Baby as well.

Thanks.

Ann

[tangela]

i would be fascinated to hear from the parents/friends, etc. of the actual participants in this talent show...i assume in Northport, NY???where are YOU????

[girl]

I'm a middle school student (girl) and somtimes i wish there were restriction somtimes... i mean i'm a pretty girl and don't need to wear tight cloths and tight pants to prove that, but i can't help to fall into insuqurites and feel fat and ugly next to other girls who are basically avertising themselves as things not people,so i can admitt somtimes i have to look at sertain way to be at a sertain social standing , but what makes it weider is the supportive parentsof girls like these,and most guys seem to like ugly girls dress skimpy then pretty girls dress as themselves.please parents out there show you kids their are more to girls then how they look, maybe if everyone stoped reacting positivly to this then then we (girl middle schoolers) could be ourselves and not what the media wants us to be

p.s I HATE when girls younger then me dress like those stupid " bratZ" dolls i mean have you people seem how barbie years ago compared to barbies now. its horride!

[Mary Anne]

Completely awful...kids these days don't relize what they are doing and they don't care. They don't get that they should act like a child and enjoy it. This makes me scared that my 9 year old will go to middle school and end up like that, a tease, a stripper, whatever you would like to call it it is horrible and parents should take more action.

[bob]

ummm im a guy, ya the few the proud that care... i went to a small middle school so they had control over this, no dances were ever like this, or talent shows. i guess my school was a lot more...monitored, compared to the other schools.For example i had friends at the bigger school near us and they siad they could get away with almost anything. i heard two kids were feeling each other in the back of the class... i think the media is to blame and that parents dont pay attention or care

[kadira cookalot]

im a 7th grader we recently had a dance everyone waz freak danceing but it waz girl on girl my friends were like come on dance. im my head i waz saying u are not danceing your grinding on each other i felt uncomfertable parents if u rais your kids right they will know what to do

[boo]

um im pretty n all and i dance to pop culture but i dont show my stomach and wear tight shorts i m just going to dance see my momma taught me how to be a lady and for those gurls to go up there and act like dat its ashame i mean they r just tryin to look good but with all of daat tight shorts and clothes and make up that makes them look like little skanks ..... sorry but its da truth and umm i dont wear makeup i believe im pretty without all that stuff i aggree with you parents by the way im in the eighth grade and im 14 i contain all a`s and im popular

[suzie]

i'm a high school freshman, but my dances all through middle school were like this where everyone was grinding and the girls were wearing teeny tiny minis with shirts that tied up the back and let me tell you the boys liked it, but they didn't take them seriously at all. i have had steady (6 mos. or more) boyfriends every time i've ahd one, and they actualyl value you. i dress like i have a dress code, because it shows you take yourself seriosuly and like the person on top of me said, i was raised to be a lady. i'm not saying i dont wear make up, i do, but not in excess. i do wear mini skirts and tight pants, but not extremely short and skin tight. i like to think i dress ppretty classily. also my parents would never let me go out if my shirt was under wear a normal bra would be, or if my thong was hanging out or if my skirt was too shrot. it's just not okay, and these girls will elarn that when some of them are knocked up at 15, like a lot of the girl sin my grade are. and don't think this is a inner-city, low income (not being mean, it's just poeple generally stereotype that) im' from a very well off community and really save yourself the embarrasement you'll ahve a lot of explaining to do when in 20 years your kids see these scandelous pictures.

[ganster cuz]

i dont agree with any of you im in 8th grade im a boy and im not saying this because i like to see girls in these close. i mean if they want to dress luike this you cant stop them i mean if u want to dress diffrent i understand but to me it dose not really mater. peace out home skillits

[Kaya]

I'm in seventh grade, and I'm a girl. All of the girls who are walking around in these tight shorts and straightening their hair, and wearing a lot of makeup, It's funny that people think I'm ugly just because I don't dress like that and I wear glasses. I'm very happy that my family has raised me to have VERY high self esteem.

Also, the boys in middle school who like girls who act skanky like that, end up dating the girls (many girls were dating before 6th grade!!!!) From what I know, THESE GIRLS ARE LOSING THEIR VIRGINITY BEFORE THE 8TH GRADE!!!!!!! PLEASE PARENTS, TEACH YOUR KIDS HOW TO ACT THEIR AGE AND NOT LIKE AN ADULT!!!

[person]

Well, I'm a guy in 7th grade and I can completely relate here. Every dance I have been to, there was LOTS of grinding. I personally refuse to grind. I mean, I know it's not sex, but its too close for me. I attend a tiny all-boys private school. We have a slightly larger sister school down the street (all girls). We coordinate dances and invite other local schools as well. My friends all rave about it, but I stop and say to myself, "What is so great about it?" I understand that dances are supposed to be social and maybe even slightly sexual, but not this. I also would like complain about the "security" at dances. Our security is pretty tight, but parents are often so stunned by students' behavior that they do not enforce any rules at all. Kids are smart. If they see a chaperone approaching, they are going to get away as fast as they can. They aren't going to just keep grinding like some chaperones think they will. I think dances are important to MIddle School life, but they should not be centered around sexual activity.

[Middleschooler boy]

This is crazy. If any1 thinks tht guys like those kinds of dances thenyiure wrong. We like the pretty girls who don't dress up in extremely tight clothes and belly shirts like they're from the 80's

[hello]

i've seen another stories... some of them are at http://loadingvault.com/search.php?q=girl&type=0&domain=1&types=on
and free to download

[jared]

I'm a guy and i'm in the 11th grade and I agree with most of you on this issue. Every school year I see the younger generations coming in and from what I can see...they're getting worse. I overhear all these freshmen talking about getting drunk and having sex and it disgusts me. Also, i've been noticing that most of the middle schoolers and freshmen all wear all these skanky clothes and dudes wearing pants all the way down to their knees!...I mean come on..how lame that they feel the need to dress like everyone else in order to be accepted. Hell, I bet you anything that it's just t.v. and the media thats responsible for this. I mean..when I used to watch the cartoons and other programs on t.v. when I was younger, they didn't even cuss! But now...seems like everything has taken a turn for the worse... Ha, when ever I have kids, you better believe that i'm going to set some restrictions. Anyways..I'm out dudes..peace

[troubled teens]

Completely awful...kids these days don't realize what they are doing and they don't care. They don't get that they should act like a child and enjoy it. This makes me scared that my 9 year old will go to middle school and end up like that, a tease, a stripper.

http://www.troubledteensguide.com/discuss-teens-problems.php