Are Girls Growing up Too Fast?

Are girls growing up too fast?

Today girls are growing up faster than ever. Ten is the new fifteen and fifteen is the new eighteen. Most twelve year olds are facing problems such as peer pressure, sex issues and alcohol drinking that twelve year olds ten years ago didn't face till they were fifteen. But who is forcing them to grow up? Is it the celebrity idols they are forever trying to look like or is it the new breed of "tweens" that society is just learning to accept.

Only about four years ago was the term "tween" invented. Short for tweenager, it to someone who is trying to be twenty-something when they are still only in their early teens. These girls have replaced dolls with mobile phones and make-up kits and have traded in books for the latest editions of "Girlfriend". Peer pressure has a lot to with this transformation. With their favourite celebs plastered all over the covers of the magazines, tweens feel the need to look just like them. Since the the term "tween" has been founded skirts have gotten shorter and tops lower as though the label allowed them to grow-up overnight. And drugs and alcohol are also seeping into tween culture The past decade had also seen the amount of girl "tweens" that smoke marijuana double and 10% no longer consider the drug dangerous. This only proves that girls are growing up too fast.

Studies have also proved that girls are "growing up" quicker. A study taken in 1995 showed that the proportion of girls who are no longer virgins before 15 had risen from 11% to 19% since 1988. That was nearly 15 years ago and according to the pattern the proportion would be sitting around 30% today. That realistically means, one in every three girls under 15 is no longer a virgin. Therefore that makes schools introduce sex-ed a lot earlier in classrooms. A subject that girls may not be ready for. Studies