Preteen Gluttony and Our Spoiled World

I was walking hurriedly down an aisle at work yesterday and something I saw stopped me dead in my tracks. I’m still fuming about this two days later.

A young girl, no older than 10 and followed by her slightly older brother walks casually toward me. Oblivious of her surroundings and talking in that usual, self-conscious pre-teen way, she says “Oh c’mon, Jess. WHAT-evah!” She giggles and flips her hair behind her to irritate him. He shook his head and asked in a weary voice, ” Would ya please stop talking like that?” His tone left no doubt that this question was oft-repeated and just as often ignored. None of these things were my particular irritant. In fact, I barely noted this interaction. I was too busy looking for something I needed about 10 minutes ago.

What shocked me, annoyed me and rankled me, was the girl’s attire. This young child, not necessarily old enough yet to have a monthly cycle, was wearing a very low cut tank top. With a Wonderbra. And crotch cutter shorts. The little boobs she had were on display and out to play. Are you KIDDING me?? Where are the parents? This is unacceptable! Will I one day see the parents of this child on the news, sobbing out their astonishment that their child was kidnapped or worse? Or scaling it down a bit, maybe their daughter has a hard time knowing how to conduct herself in relationships in the future? Her parents certainly condone the “show a lot of skin to snag a man” theory. Maybe she’ll be a stripper and they’ll say they just don’t know what happened.

Is this what we want them to emulate??

I’ve seen a lot of this lately. Especially in the retail line of business. Young kids love to hang out in stores. They, thankfully, still can’t get into bars.  Barnes and Noble (where I used to be employed) is a hot bed of preteen dating. I actually saw a 13 year old girl in a mini skirt drop a book and slowly bend over in front of about five 17 year old boys. Yes, on purpose. Yes, without underwear. Their reaction was exactly what you’d expect. What I see disgusts me, concerns me and more than anything, fills me with shame. Shame for everyone involved. The culture of Can’t Show Enough Tits & Ass that we live in. The celebrities that promote it. The men that drive it and drool over it. The women that don’t teach their daughters that brains matter just as much as beauty, and that sometimes, less is more. Even shame for myself. I’ll admit it, I like my legs and I wear my shorts, short. However, I’m 26 years old and my Mommy and Daddy don’t tell me what to do anymore. Plus, the shorts still cover both cheeks, completely.

We are so fortunate to live in a time of freedom. Women have every right a man does here in America. Every single one. The battle was won, many years ago, not that you can tell. I think we’ve accomplished as women, what men never could. We’ve let ourselves be a sex symbol first, and a person second. We lowered our standards and never made anyone rise to ours. A long time ago, women (and even some men) fought hard to have their voices heard on this matter. Bras were burned, marriages shattered, marches organized, families destroyed. All over the issue of equality. An issue that we take for granted today. Of course equality is right! “Pish posh, we aren’t ignorant fools anymore. Hardy har har.”

Wake up. We are pissing away opportunity every day. We as a people, not just women. Our values suck. My generations seems to think we’re more enlightened than our fathers. I’d say we are. But being more enlightened assholes doesn’t make us smell prettier. And if we don’t do anything with that enlightenment, that just makes us outright stupid.

People will say that women make more strides everyday in the workplace, in college, in test-taking statistics. Ok, fine. Lovely. I don’t give two flying rats asses. Look around you!! What are my eyes telling me? What does my heart know? What do you see? I see an entire new generation, raised on TV as a substitute for parenting, that think it okay to dress like a slut and/or treat women like sluts, and worse.

Someone I worked with once told me to always strive to be better than the best, and not to pride myself on being better than the rest. It was something I needed to hear at the time. I was complacent with being better than most, and had stopped trying anymore, content to settle in the top percent. I think we’ve done the same, but actually one step worse. We’ve lowered our standards as a people. We look at Jerry Springer shows and think, “Ha! I am way better than them!” And you know what? I don’t blame TV/movies, I don’t blame the media, and I sure as hell don’t blame music. Those things are forms of expression, don’t you know that? They are birthed from us! Blame yourself first. Ugh, people who want to point an accusatory finger at today’s media piss me off even more. How about this? MONITOR what your children watch! I know, it’s a tough concept, but just follow the bouncing ball. YOU control what your children absorb.

Baywatch is popular because a bunch of guys, all ages, shapes and sizes want to watch boobs jiggle around. It’s simple enough. Sex has always sold, in whatever form was popular for the time. In Muslim territory, I am sure an ankle glimpse can sell the crap out of some Cola. Back in the Roaring Twenties, sleeveless dresses sold cigarettes by the millions. Millions of cartons, I’m sure. This is not going to change. We are hardwired for sexy time, and there isn’t anything wrong with that.

The problem is that somewhere, down along the path of time (now strewn with discarded clothes, empty synthetic drug containers, older weapons abandoned as newer and more advanced models take their place) at some point, we started communicating these messages to our impressionable youth in a way we never had. Coincidentally or not, our youth has become a demographic for the first time in our history. Children not even close to old enough to work, have oodles of dollars to spend and oodles of time to shop. I again, blame the parents. Stop giving your 5 year old’s cellphones and your 12 year old’s padded bras. I promise that your child will one day recover from the crippling damage that lack of brand name clothing will have on their social status. There is a world beyond the doors of high school, thank god.

Our youth, unable to drink, smoke, even be outside alone legally, should not shape our TV programs. They should not be a stock on Wall Street. We, the adults, should shoulder that responsibility alone. As adults, we’ve found out that the world can be heart-achingly unfair. That no matter how hard you try to be the best, sometimes you still fail. We found out that you can be kicked out of your home, compensated with a paltry sum because the government needs to build a lake there. That sometimes the people you love will not love you back. That parents die, that dreams don’t always come true and we learned that our childhoods were precious gifts. So, we now have the responsibility of keeping it precious for them. Keep them young.

Better yet, learn to say no. It’s a small but effective word and boy, does the world ever need to hear it.

We are spoiled, world. Straight up, mad spoiled. Just think, less than 100 years ago, people were going through a real depression. A wide spread, deeply felt dark depression. They were worried about how they were literally going to clothe their children. Parents were watching their children starve because they didn’t have enough to feed them, much less educate them. Alcoholism hit an all time high as did child labor. Bank robbers were idolized because they represented fighting the system. Big bad government was born. Those people shouldered what life gave them and swore to give a better life to their kids. This was not what they had in mind. Kids throw a shrieking fit just because they didn’t get an iPhone for Christmas? I’m sorry, what is so important that you do in 2nd grade history class that you need unlimited access to the Worldwide Web and text? Gluttony is not the opposite of poor. It is the opposite of wisdom. There is a difference between what you need and what you want. I should know, my father told me that on a weekly basis.

I just hope that we all wake up before we go hurtling down some trash chute, stuck all over with a label that reads Rotten to the Core.