David Cameron may have tried to intervene to rein in the sexualisation of children, but the real answer lies with parents
The explicit tastelessness of a section of the pre-teens clothes market is enough to bring out the prig in the most broad-minded. The sexualisation of children should be a warning to the adult world. Its real significance is as an indicator of a deeper cultural shift. Yesterday, as we reported on Saturday, the government revealed a plan of campaign against the former. But that cannot disguise its powerlessness against the latter.
Not many parents would buy a pair of knickers for their daughter advertising her as a future porn star, and most of them probably flinched if they caught their under-16s watching Sunday night's MTV movie awards where the latest episode of the teenflick Twilight scooped the pool again, prompting some of its stars to respond with the awards' hallmark bad behaviour. The commodification of childhood, of which sexualisation is a part, is indeed a depressing development. And however determined parents are to fight it, it can seem impossible to confront the power of the high-street chains and the superstores, which spend millions persuading children to want what they sell. But that does not necessarily mean government intervention will tackle the core problem.
The coalition, which commissioned Reg Bailey of the Mothers' Union to investigate, was merely picking up where the last Labour government left off. There is real public anxiety here, as the influential parenting website Mumsnet "Let girls be girls" campaign showed. And with good reason. In April, the thinktank Demos, analysing education department figures, found that more than a fifth of teenage girls said they felt worthless, lacked confidence or had low self-esteem. The poorer their families, the more acute the problem. Turning children into consumers distorts values just at the moment they are most vulnerable. It is one more damaging aspect of our unequal society.
David Cameron promised to act. But restricting advertising near schools and making it easier for parents' concerns to be heard doesn't add up to a revolution. In truth, there is no government-led revolution to be had. For what is happening to children is a reflection of what is happening across society. We have been seduced by easy credit, cheap consumer goods and the rise of the celebrity into a sex-and-shopping culture that we have now passed on to our children. If all the little girls who want so desperately and inappropriately to wear the same clothes as Miley Cyrus didn't also have mothers anxiously sourcing the Duchess of Cambridge's new frock or Tulisa Contostavlos's X-factor outfits, maybe they would still wear jeans and a t-shirt from choice. The real answer to what is influencing our children is ourselves, and it is up to us to do something about it.
The coalition, which commissioned Reg Bailey of the Mothers' Union to investigate, was merely picking up where the last Labour government left off. There is real public anxiety here, as the influential parenting website Mumsnet "Let girls be girls" campaign showed. And with good reason. In April, the thinktank Demos, analysing education department figures, found that more than a fifth of teenage girls said they felt worthless, lacked confidence or had low self-esteem. The poorer their families, the more acute the problem. Turning children into consumers distorts values just at the moment they are most vulnerable. It is one more damaging aspect of our unequal society.
David Cameron promised to act. But restricting advertising near schools and making it easier for parents' concerns to be heard doesn't add up to a revolution. In truth, there is no government-led revolution to be had. For what is happening to children is a reflection of what is happening across society. We have been seduced by easy credit, cheap consumer goods and the rise of the celebrity into a sex-and-shopping culture that we have now passed on to our children. If all the little girls who want so desperately and inappropriately to wear the same clothes as Miley Cyrus didn't also have mothers anxiously sourcing the Duchess of Cambridge's new frock or Tulisa Contostavlos's X-factor outfits, maybe they would still wear jeans and a t-shirt from choice. The real answer to what is influencing our children is ourselves, and it is up to us to do something about it.
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