The Sexualiziation of Early Childhood

The Sexualiziation of Early Childhood

            We are exposed to sexy images so much that I miss a lot of them. Late night and sometimes early evening television will show images that will make me feel like I am invading on someone’s private time.  There are times when I am watching television with my daughter and she will say “now that makes me uncomfortable.”  Some children see images and want to copy what they see, some children live in a world where they are seeing family members be trivialized and objectified and they don’t know any different.  This week on some news program that my son was watching they were talking to a Mom who was “too sexy” for her children, she had undergone several operations to enlarge her bust and they, the children were unhappy about not only the operation but the attention that their mother was receiving.  The Mother told the story of how she could not make ends met before the operations and after she could support her children.  Her children who are very young could talk about her breast and how hard it was for her to sleep and the embarrassment they suffered from being seen with her.  Will these children have problems with relationships later on because of this?  I don’t know.  They know that their Mom is an object to people, that she is stared at and seen as an oddity.  I think that their personal choices and their personal identity will be shaped by their life lessons.      

            The images that we see and that our children see should be addressed by parents in my opinion. What one family may think of as too sexy the next may not.  One culture may define as sexy may not be the same for another culture.  In the school system we are told how long our skirts should be how high our tops should be , and what is appropriate to wear.  If we were to live in a topical country would our dress code be different? 

            For me I think that as parents it is our responsibility to talk to our children and guide our children in the manner that we feel is right, as professional I think it is our responsibility to understand our families and know how they feel about the dress that their children are wearing and what they think their children are ready to talk about in terms of sex.  Children may grow up faster than we are ready for them when they are exposed to sexual messages.  They may want to try things before their mind and bodies are ready.  We need to teach them to respect theirselves, to know how to talk about what they are experiencing, to respect each other.  

            Levin and Kilbourne  talked about  the new sexualizie childhood  and how if we limit our children to certain gender roles we run the risk of not allowing them to grow as a whole child, we may impact the skills that they need.   If we teach our boys only things that we think are male things they may not learn how to nurture, if we teach our girls only things that we think are feminine they will miss out on things. When I was growing up my Mother would say, you have to know what each other are doing and how to do it, but there were still things that the girls did and things that the boys did. Yard work was for the boys, and when they had yard work they didn’t have to take turns with the dishes.

            The one thing that the reading have taught me about myself is that, I still feel that there are things that are more appealing to boys and there are things that are more appealing to girls, not to say that only girls will like some things or only boys will like something’s. I can not see myself telling a little boy that’s it okay for him not to call himself a boy or a little girl not to identify herself as a girl, it is biology.  If we don’t label things as “girl” or “boy” than maybe for most cases we won’t have children feel as if they are doing something taboo.

References:

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

"Learning about Fairness: Race and Gender"

Katch, H., & Katch, J. (2010). Voices inside schools: When boys won't be boys: Discussing gender with young children. Harvard Educational Review, 80(3), 379-390.

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

Wardle, F. (2011). Responding to racial and ethnic diversity in early childhood programs. Exchange (01648527), 198, 68-71