Eight going on eighteen - Pre-teens too sexy for their age

Carlington Wilmot/ Freelance Photographer
This nine-year-old girl dresses her sexiest in this mini skirt and mid-riff blouse.

Petulia Clarke and Claude Mills, Staff Reporters

SHE HIKES the lime green spandex miniskirt up a notch and tugs at the barely there halter top. Six silver hair clips hold the ponytail together and knee-high red boots complete the look. She dabs a little Charlie behind her ears, wiggles the hips and applies brick red lipstick. Black liner outlines the full lips and blue eyeshadow and blush make her look years older.

Step aside Britney Spears, here comes Lori, an attractive four foot one. And she's just eight years old.

The era of cable TV with the pop star craze is catching up on young girls. Frilly frocks, braided hair and patent shoes have given way to skimpy shorts, weaves and halter tops.

"I think her attitude and dress have to do with the fact that nowadays you can't distinguish between what clothes are for children and what are for older teenagers," explained Lorna Duncan, Lori's mother.

"The people that make these clothes now appeal directly to gullible children with miniature versions of what us adults and increasingly the pop stars are wearing and they just soak it up," she added.

BLAME BRITNEY

Yes, pop stars like Britney Spears are getting a lot of bad rap. Britney, with her trademark daisy dukes and revealing cut-off tops, heavy makeup and sexy dance moves, has not only been gracing the walls of pre-teens' bedrooms, but is finding herself gaining much support in like dress from her pre-teen fan group.

"You have to be in," insists a precocious 11-year-old Toni-Marie Small, "we're just trying to fit in with the cool kids at school, or else you'll be labelled an outsider."

An outsider, in 'tweenspeak', is the dorky teenager who flits unhappily outside the fringe of the 'cool people', is consigned to lunches alone, cold shoulders and name assignations like 'that girl who is in Susanna's (a cool girl) Chemistry class'.

"It's really brutal in school nowadays," Kourtni Hines-Smith chimes in. "It's either you are cool or you're not, there's no in-between, and you can be cool one day, and the next day, you're just not...it's like walking a tightrope."

They related a story about a girl who committed a 'fashion crime' by being the only person to wear a dress to a class party.

"She was the talk of the century, and she was known as the 'dress girl' until she graduated two years later, it must have been hell for her," Toni-Marie said.

"I dress in what's in style," Melissa Banks, 12 says. "I have posters of Christina Aguillera, Mya and Lil' Kim (pop stars) in my room and when I read magazines and watch BET, I want to wear and do what they're doing."

And the habit is easy to maintain. Stores, both uptown and down, supply miniature off-the-shoulder midriff blouses, cut-off shorts, platform shoes, sheer baby doll dresses and see-through tops for babies up to adults.

"Face it, there's been a huge development in children's needs nowadays, and we can't keep them in fashions of the '80s anymore," said one children's fashion store clerk in a trendy Portmore Mall store.

"Children's fashion is like the biggest seller nowadays. They have to keep up with everything that's trendy and cool, which adults usually interpret as too sexy."

FRUSTRATION

But if the kids are under pressure to be trendy and cool in their fashion choices, imagine the plight of parents struggling to control an army of J. Lo and Britney wannabes.

Parents struggle to find clothes that pass the cool-but-tasteful bar which will find favour with their daughters, yet will not offend adults.

"While Mummy will maybe give you a bligh, it is daddy who is the problem, he says he doesn't want anyone to see my...'stuff'," Ann-Margaret Mitchell, a 16-year-old, said. "But I know I look good, and I want boys to see me...daddy just doesn't understand."

Other young girls agree.

"Sometimes my mother insists that, for example, I get baby looking shirts and shorts," 12-year-old Paula Franksaid. "But then we go to the mall and she sees the other girls in their pretty teenaged stuff and asks me why I don't buy stuff like that. She's weird."

Fathers always get a bad rap. One father, Jared Nicholson, remains puzzled as to why his 'daughters want to expose themselves to unwanted attention'.

"They are young and don't understand danger. They say that Britney Spears wears this or that...but I can't stand it, when we go out, they have to change at least two times before I find something acceptable for them to come out with me," he said.

PEER-PRESSURE

Though not very popular in Jamaica, make-up wearing, and when children should wear it, has always been a sore point. Mothers like 33-year-old housewife, Allison Brown, are fighting to get their pre-teens back to natural.

"My ten-year-old daughter once locked herself in my bedroom and did her eyes and lips with my eyeshadow and eyeliner. I was just shocked. Then she went outside and the little boys on our block just surrounded her. She did quite a good job applying the makeup, but she looked much older and I didn't know where to start with disciplining her," Miss Brown said.

Miss Brown explained that because her friends were wearing coloured glitter on their skin and nail polish, her daughter felt she should too.

"When they say that they have to have the flared leg jeans or the light lipstick, I can understand that", Karen Williamssaid.

"You have to understand that exclusive clubs and peer groups are no longer just a high school thing: they start in grade two with the Jansport and Adidas bags and continue. Whether you're popular in school or not begins here, and I don't want my child to be discriminated against," she added.

Paula's mother Tinacan relate.

"When she turned 12, my daughter just transformed from child to woman. She took down the framed pictures of Barney and the Sesame Street crew and pasted glossy images of Puff Daddy (P. Diddy), Tyrese, Britney Spears and every scantily clad singer on cable TV."

Paula explained that she dresses the way she does to fit in.

"Nobody's into flowers or ruffles, white socks and Mary Janes. Mini-dresses and platform shoes are in. Creamed hair and lip gloss make you look beautiful," Paula gushed.

And 'beautiful' pre-teens are now everywhere. It's "hard not to want to be like everyone else," Melissa explained.

Reverend Trevor Edwards of the United Theological College of the West Indies noted that too much stress is being placed on physical beauty and not beauty of character.

"Parents need to encourage a balanced view of beauty which is not limited to dress or the texture of one's skin or hair but one's total personality, character, attitude, values and manners," Rev. Edwards said.

Beryl Weir, acting national director of the Women's Centre of Jamaica advises parents whose pre-teens are being pressured or are pressuring them into buying skimpy popular fashion, to talk to the children.

"Let them know the reasons why they can't have that now. Parents need to tell their daughters that they may be sending the wrong signals especially when they do things like wear make-up which makes them look years older," she said.

UNHEALTHY

Mrs Weir advises that this is not a healthy practice for pre-teens as it encourages them to behave like adults.

"The makeup and the way they dress might put them in more danger of being abused. There are males in Jamaica who don't seem to be able to differentiate between adult and children and will act accordingly," Mrs. Weir said.

Reverend Edwards also pointed out that children should not be blamed for the way they dress.

"Some little girls are being dressed up by their parents (mothers) innocently. They do it just to make them look pretty. Other parents with questionable values tend to dress up their children in order to make them attractive to men, who are seen as a source of income," he said.

"Dressing up children in this way could make them very precocious and sometimes rob them of their innocence as some irresponsible men will misinterpret their dress code and make sexual passes at them. It is this introduction into the 'adult world' which could lead to negative behaviour in the home and the school," he added.

Not their real names

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