Strollerderby : tween

New Tween Dora Revealed!

KeriF — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:04:00 GMT

When Mattel and Nickelodeon announced plans last month to introduce a new tween Dora, parents were afraid their daughters would lose the original Dora they had grown to love. And when her silhouette was revealed, that fear turned to outrage.

Big hair. Short skirt. Head seemingly proportionate to her body. How could this be Dora?

"She's a tramp!" was the typical response (okay, it was my response).

But now Dora is revealed in all her glory. Is she a tramp?

The miniskirt everyone thought she was wearing turned out to be a tunic worn over leggings. She seems modestly and appropriately dressed for a doll of her age, which is "approximately modeled after a nine- or ten-year-old," according to the press release. (Why so vague, Mattel? What is Dora trying to hide?)

I actually think this doll is a great idea. My niece, Hilary, who is almost six, loves Dora. She also loves Barney and the Teletubbies. But those aren't really appropriate shows for a six-year-old. Why should kids have to give up the characters they love just because they get a little older? Tween Dora will be perfect for Hilary, who will be thrilled that Dora is growing up just like Hilary.

Dora will be joined by the Explorer Girls, and the foursome will go on adventures just like little Dora, but with a greater purpose: organizing a beach clean-up, volunteering at Abuela's senior center, picketing in front of the local Planned Parenthood (okay, I made that last one up). She'll also solve mysteries with her friends and still teach Spanish words and phrases along the way.

And don't worry, little Dora isn't going anywhere.

What do you think? Should Dora stay in preschool or is tween Dora a good idea?

I'm Not a Brat, I'm Autistic

Would You Get A Hannah Montana Tattoo if Miley Cyrus Asked You To? A Baldwin Brother Did!

SunnyChanel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Here’s a little advice. When a 15-year-old dares you to get a tattoo, there is absolutely no way you should follow through with it. My 15-year-old niece dared me to change my name to Sunny Delight and did I do it? No. I did not. What do they know…they’re 15! Apparently, actor/writer /born again Christian /brother Stephan Baldwin not only takes 15-year-olds seriously but has the tenacity and follow thru to see an off-the-cuff dare to fruition.

Last year, Stephan Baldwin crossed paths with tween queen Miley Cyrus at the White House. According to Baldwin’s rep, Miley dared Cyrus to get a tattoo tribute to her in exchange for letting Baldwin make an appearance on Miley’s mega hit show Hannah Montana, “making him the best dad ever to his young daughters.”

He held up his very permanent part of the deal with the initials HM tattooed on his shoulder, but did Miley? Despite Miley saying that it would happen, a rep from Disney rep told the New York Daily News that the actor is "not cast in an upcoming episode."

No matter how much your love your kids, would you get a Hannah Montana related tattoo to prove it?

Via: New York Daily News

Did VF "Groom" Miley Cyrus?

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:01:00 GMT

All joking aside, this business of Miley's half-naked pictures in Vanity Fair is raising quite a kafuffle. And this fills me with great hope. In a culture where young girls are modeling at 12, and being pushed into adulthood by age 13, it starts to feel like fighting to keep our girls Bratz and low-cut jeans free and innocent might be a losing battle.

But Gawker suggests that something even more evil is going on here.

They argue that in fact Miley Cyrus was effective 'groomed' (the method used by pedophiles to make the victim and the victim's caretakers comfortable with the molester)...

Even though Miley's parents were at the shoot (witness the creepy photos with Dad), it is clear a boundary was crossed.

The outrage and finger pointing aside (Disney blaming Vanity Fair is RICH), what the hell kind of world are we living in? This girl is not the first to be exploited (remember "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins? See below)

Nor will she be the last. In the end, nothing stands between kids and exploitation but their parents. And it's clear in this case that Miley's parents failed her gravely. Hopefully none of us will make the same mistake.

World's Shortest Memoir: Miley Cyrus Tell-All?

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:03:00 GMT

I was born in in 1992 (or whenever) in Tennessee. I love horses and makeup and boys and Facebook. My fans are so kickin. I was rocked to sleep each night with Daddy singin' "Achy Breaky Heart." My Daddy used to have a mullet and now it's all grown out so he's hawt. My Mom is trippin and I like to sing and kiss boys and wear cute underwear.

But Dad and Mom or so totally rude. They won't give me MY money or let me and my new boyfriend post pictures of ourselves on the Web.

The End.

Or something. The (very wealthy) Tween Queen is being paid serious dosh to write a tell-all memoir, at the vastly experienced age of 15. Imagine!

By the time the book comes out, the Hannah Montana star will no doubt have left very little to the imagination, if the rumor about Vanity Fair proves true.

Cigarettes in Kids Movies, In Life, at Grandma's

Madeline Holler — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:34:00 GMT

I can kind of sympathize with Eric Alterman's rage in this post on Media Matters. He's pissed because he took his two 9-year-olds to see "Definitely, Maybe" which, according to him, wound up being cigarette porn instead of a nice father-daughter family flick.

He says the movie glamorized smoking, especially for young females, and also made it appear to be easy to kick the habit.

Also:

It was a two hour cancer commercial. It was morally indefensible and disgusting, since the movie is being marketed to teens and tweens. I wonder if the cigarette companies paid for this kind of loving attention, and I wonder how many people will die of lung cancer to put money in the pockets of the Hollywood moguls who made it.

Strong language, but I get his point. Incidentally, the fact that smoking would be part of the movie was no secret.

Still, here's my question. How DO we bring up smoking with the kids. I live in a part of the country where smoking is banned practically everywhere. You barely even see butts on the ground and it's not terribly common to smell second-hand smoke. (But of course I make a big deal out of gagging when I do.) Would such a movie have been an opportunity to talk about smoking, point it out, say "see, they made smoking look great, didn't they?"

The main smoker in our lives, my mother-in-law, keeps it a big ol' secret from the kids and there are all these euphemisms (lies?) everybody uses to explain why she has to go to the garage but, no, you can't go with her. Isn't that kind of making it interesting by making it secretive and worth lying about too?

So what is it with smoking: should kids see it or not? What do you tell your kids about smoking -- especially if you're a smoker?

Why Tweens are Too Young for a Brazilian Wax

Madeline Holler — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:34:00 GMT

Jeez, I can think of a million reasons, the first of which: is there anything to wax?

The other 999,999 reasons … come on. I know we’re sexualizing girls at younger and younger ages, but 10? Waxing her pubes?

Apparently, you're never too young for this Australian website, read by girls aged 9 to 14. In an article about Brazilian waxing, they try hard to make the case:

So why does it appeal. Nobody really likes hair in their private regions and this removes it.

In another article (yes, more than one on the site), there's this description of what exactly happens. The good news is, I feel like this might deter all but the most goaded young kids.

Wax is smeared onto the mons, the cloth is pressed into place...then they turn the music up loud...rrripppp. It's quite normal for the waxer to throw your legs over their shoulder, or ask you to moon them so they can get the strays. The waxer then goes over your red bits with a pair of tweezers to pluck out recalcitrant strands.

Why does “pluck out recalcitrant strands” make me cross my legs?

One Australian writer, appalled by the notion that some celebrate getting rid of the just-grown hairs of adolescence, gives us a rundown of how things are going in the land of kiddie hair removal. (And you say marketers aren't savvy.)

As a cosmetic pharmaceutical company, Nair is obliged to reinvent normal bodily functions as problems with handy product solutions. And the Australian arm of the company has claimed its target audience is slightly older, in an attempt to distance itself from the US campaign, which involves phrases such as "Pretty isn't a look. It's a feeling," "Nair will leave your skin smooth and totally touchable!" and this pearler from Stacey Feldman, vice-president for marketing at Nair's parent company, Church & Dwight: "When a girl removes hair for the first time, it's a life-changing moment."

Life-changing, indeed! Now, about teaching girls the proper names for body parts, better add “mons” to the list so the little tykes know exactly what they're getting in to.

3-Year-Olds Getting Their Periods?

Madeline Holler — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:27:00 GMT

Here’s something you thought you’d never have to deal with: your 3-year-old going through puberty. Yet it’s a little more common than you think (though, mercifully, still pretty rare).

And it looks like something that doctors might overlook at the well-baby check ups. Somehow, the mothers in this story figured out that their daughters -- their preschoolers! -- we're thiiiiiis close to getting their periods, and then spent a good bit of time and energy convincing their pediatricians.

The average age of puberty for both boys and girls has lowered by two years over the past century.

From the Daily Mail: "In fact, a recent study showed that British girls today start their periods at an average age of ten years and three months, compared to 11 years nine months for their mothers and 12 years for their grandmothers."

But for an untold number, it's happening much earlier than that -- like around 8 years old. And still earlier for a tiny number of those -- at 3. Wow!

Called precocious puberty, endocrinologists don't know why some girls reach this very special time in their young lives at a very alarmingly time in their really young lives. But it can have lasting damages, not just physically -- bones aging rapidly, for example, but also emotionally. Kind of tough coaching a 3-year-old through the changes when she isn't all that facile with language, huh?

Even with the older ones -- like the 8-year-olds, it can be confusing and isolating, some women who developed early as girls say in the article. Plus, they're often much taller, have to use deodorant, get acne (or for boys, grow facial hair) or suffer from cramps when nobody else does.

The good news is that once early onset puberty is diagnosed, it can be controlled with medication, allowing time to catch up with the body and slowing the effects of the early onset puberty.

Momsquak talks about it briefly and trots out the hormones-in-meat theory, but comes to no conclusions. Still, makes you think. Makes you cross your fingers and think.

Photo: Daily Mail

Testify: Being a Tween in the Locker Room Is a Little Bit of Hell

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:03:00 GMT

Years ago, I sat at lunch with a big group of women I worked with at the time. Our ages spanned the generations and one woman, a mother of a girl entering middle school, told us a story about how the other girls in the class were giving her 12-year old daughter a very hard time. We all shook our heads in a collective, compassionate "Say it, sister!" All of us remembered what a tough, tough time being twelve was.

It is the age of horror when the mean girls start to dig in and the nice girls run back to their closets to cry and play Barbies (not that I'd - ahem - remember that at all). It is the time when some kids when some still think the opposite sex is disgusting and others are well...you had at least a vague idea of what those kids were doing. When all those hormones and emotions and prank calls and boy-girl parties and junior-sized bras are mixed together in an academic setting, things can get terrifying and quick.

Finally, someone with some sympathy for middle school angst and anxiety is stepping up and saying, "Enough with the nakedness!" Elizabeth Woodruff, a clinical instructor of kinesiology at University of Alabama says that feelings of body inadequacy and the possibility of hazing on teams and in locker rooms are preventing many tweens from participating in PE, especially if they have to change or shower in front of classmates. Woodruff says parents need to seriously address this tween terror so that kids are free to take part in sports and gym class without fear. Removing just one more bit of hell from 12-year old existence? I say Amen! and Hallelujah! for my pubescent brothers and sisters.