16 October 2010

The Birds & The Bees...

Life used to be so much more simple when the conversation was really only about when to have that "talk". You know, the one about the birds and the bees. However, the conversation is no longer a conversation hut a fully-fledged debate, and perhaps rightly so. There has been an increasing trend, courtesy of the internet, for our children and their youth to be tested by the bounds of what is 'right'.

Some of the more interesting debate centres on child stars as they grow into adulthood and begin testing the waters with respect to finding themselves, finding an identity that they are comfortable with, and moving from the relative safety to the less safe world of being an adult. This is exacerbated by the youngsters themselves when they avail themselves of the technology at their disposal and post pictures of themselves. Miley Cyrus as the childhood sweetheart of the Hannah Montana series is a prime example of this need to adult-me-up crossover from childhood star to wanna-be taken seriously adult.

Another 17-year-old looking to have a much more adult image of late is Taylor Momsen.  Her recent appearance on the cover of Revolver magazine is tribute to that desire to ratchet-up to the next level the desire to be an adult.

As I was looking for some images that were tame enough to attach to this post, it struck me that once an image is posted to the internet then it forever remains "out there".

I guess the point of this post is really to ponder why there is a need to sexualise our children through the media, how we should deal with it as a community when these youngsters bring it on themselves by posting pictures of themselves, and should this topic be addressed in schools as a means of trying to prevent the most negative outcomes of what seems to be out of control at the moment?







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