By Mary Park, El Diamonte High School, Grade 11
March 7, 2011
Growing up is not an option. Along with adulthood come business, and the burden of paying bills. If any adult were asked if they could revisit their childhood, most of them would say yes. Surprisingly, this is the opposite for children. Most children have times when they wish they were older, and then go on playing with their Barbie dolls or GI Joe figures. But lately, young children are trading in toys and easy bakes for cosmetics and razors.
Blame television, people, trends, Internet, and technology. But, the biggest factor is you. Young children reflect off the people they are surrounded with. Role models would be significant people around them or people they see on television. Whatever their role model does, curiosity rises, motivating children to try also. The Internet is also a whole new world to children because everything is on there. When school starts, peer pressure kicks in influencing kids to get the new item hot off the shelves. Cliques rise and the stress to be cool gets on everyone’s minds.
To give freedom to children, the world is an unlimited open place. “I think that kids are taking things for granted because they have too much freedom to express how they feel and how in-depth they want to be,” said Marcus Moreno, a senior at El Diamante High School.
Because we are supplied with so many resources to make life easier, children are also taking the easier way out. Instead of reading a certain chapter or writing an essay, cheat websites and answers are online exposing them to severe consequences in the future.
Ashlee Zwahlen, a senior at El Diamante High School explained, “I think they are exposed too much these days. It causes them to express inappropriate behavior while attempting to act older than they are.”
Especially in the entertainment industry, everything is wild and crazy. Reality shows are every popular because it reveals the lifestyle of people which glamorizes them, and inspires children to act the same.
Everything encourages children’s attitudes to change, but it is up to the guardian to control them. More and more youngsters are altering their personality and styles replacing Barbie for mascara or toy fire trucks for shaving cream. Their innocence and childhood is diminishing while money problems and peer pressures sink in. So is it really worth trading my childhood imagination for fortune and materialistic items? Absolutely not.
