The Sexualization of Early Childhood

It is essential for adults and teachers to know where young children are at all times. After reading the topic “So Sexy So Soon”, I have gained many insights related to sexualization of early childhood. Young children growing-up within society today are very different from long ago. At an early age, young children are playing with sexy items, and engaged in sexiness within society. Young children encounter these issues at much younger ages than in the past, long before they have the ability to understand or deal with them (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Young children have toys and video games that sexy and violent. Most industries are making a large amount of money using sexy toys and other objects to gain young children interest (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Some children can afford these sexy items with parent’s income and some children cannot afford them, but all of them are seriously hurting. Whatever their race, ethnic group, economic status, or gender, and whether they can afford to buy a lot or very few of these products, children are deeply affected (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009).

When parents buy sexy toys for their children, it is inviting them to want dress and look sexy as well. For example; my oldest granddaughter is twelve years old and like wearing red lipstick, but we only let her wear it for dance class because it is a requirement for all dance students. Every time she put on the red lipstick my two year old granddaughter push her lips out to get some. Another example, my friend has a sixteen year old daughter in high school. She is in the band and love turning around so she can see her backside in the mirror. Now, my two year old granddaughter turns backward to the mirror and says “big butt”. I am working on this situation fast and in a hurry. Lastly, my neighbor was keeping two little girls after school for two working mothers. One child was eight, and the other child was four. He walked into the bedroom where they supposed to be watching TV and found the oldest child on top of the small child doing sexy things. While parents struggle to make sense of all this, children are being robbed of valuable time for age-appropriate developmental tasks, and they may begin to engage in precocious sexual behavior (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009).

When we stop long enough to listen to the voices in our head, we should realize it makes perfect sense that young children might like sexy objects given the sexualized environment around them. What worries me the most; young children suffer the consequences for the sexualization of their childhood. As young children grow and develop; they are constantly facing images and sexual messages that they do not understand at their early age. Young children can become very frighten and confuse as they learn about their gender role in life. At an early age, girls learn that their value determined by how beautiful, thin, “hot,” and sexy they are (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Boys learn about masculinity and how to judge young girls (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). As professionals, we have to teach young children that when exposed to sex too quickly it can hurt their healthy development. It can cause violent, attachment, diseases and even the birth of a baby.

My awareness of the sexualization of early childhood been influenced in many ways. One thing that stands out the most to me is as young children get older they learn to associate physical appearance and buying the right products not only with being sexy, but also with being successful as a person (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Another thing, parents teaches their children to say no to sex, but saying no is not enough, we have to find other approaches. We should be caring adults to help children to understand what they see, instead of leaving them to judge for themselves. Adults should know what stores children are shopping in, know the media they are seeing, what they are watching on TV, avoid stereotyping, eliminate items pertaining to sexy, and allow children to ask and answer questions concerning sex if they choose to. Also, adults should engage in conversation on a regular basis with young children. In doing this, it can reduce the corporation from marking sexy items to children.

Reference

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