Changes

I think what struck me the most this week was seeing how much things have changed over time in terms of children. We saw a little bit in the movie "Tough Guise" of how different simple things such as action figures are now....they used to be pure, simple entertainment, but now they put so much emphasis on their appearances (which are extremely disproportionate to real life) that after you get done looking at how amazing they look with their perfect bodies (barbies) and their huge muscles (GI Joes) you don't even want to play with them! I know that as I grew into my TEENS my appearance became more of an awareness to me...but I feel like girls are starting to focus on looks wayyyy too early these days. My mom is a 4th grade teacher and she talks to me all the time about all these little girls coming into her class wearing all kinds of make-up or wearing skimpy little dresses and it just blows my mind! I didn't start wearing make-up till I was a freshman in high school! And in the 4th grade the only thing I was concerned with was who's basketball team I was going to be on at recess and what kind of drink I was going to get on our "pop break." Its not just the way they dress either, its their weight too. When you see someone like Hannah Montana on the cover of a magazine with only a sheet covering her boobs and looking like she hasn't eaten in a week or two, girls are going to get the wrong message! Hannah Montana is supposed to be this cute little innocent pop princess on the Disney channel that can do no wrong, then something like that crazy magazine comes out and girls just assume that's what they are supposed to look like since its the great Hannah Montana. It all goes back to these stick sized barbies that girls are supposed to love. They are getting the wrong impression at a young age and its becoming a bigger problem with each passing year. I would give anything to go back to when my biggest worries were basketball and pops! The big question is tho, what are those little 4th grade girls going to wish they could go back to worrying about when they are my age? Scary to think about that answer!