Let Children be Children

All my posts are known to deal with real issues and whenever I come across something that burdens me, I’m inclined to voice my concerns via this medium. This time around, I’m imploring parents to let their children act like children and not coerce them into things associated with adulthood .

Sunday, June 22 I happened to attend a JCDC event with my face free of makeup, hair in a ponytail and light jewelry. While enjoying the show, my eyes happened to glimpse a child not much older than 10 years old seated in the row before me. With permed hair, lips brightly colored in red & eyes shadowed in bright pink powder coupled with a variety of unmatched ‘fandangles’, this child happened to be the center of attraction around her peers for obvious reasons. As she fidgeted in her seat certainly forgetting the date on her birth certificate, my mind took a trip down memory lane.

At 10 years old, I didn’t know a thing about curling irons & hair products (besides shampoo, conditioner and hair oil) as I still wore cane-rows/rope twists & bubbles in my hair. At 10 years old, I was only allowed to wear LIGHT lip-gloss. At 10 years old, I was clueless as to what eye-shadow looked like moreover to be adorning my eyes with it. At 10 years old, I admired women who had colored fingernails and the closest I came to wearing nail polish was when I stole my mother’s markers, hid in my room and had fun marking my nails….after which I would be scolded. At 10 years old, I wore casual clothes purchased at Children’s Place & Cookies etc. For church, I wore pretty little ‘age appropriate’ dresses with white laced stockings and flat shoes. During this time, I admired the older girls who wore fancy dresses and high heels praying for the day I’d reach their age. It was not until high school that I was granted permission to ‘break out of my shell’ and it was not until I became an adult that I’m absolutely free to do what I want to.

As the journey down memory lane came to an abrupt end, I looked back at the child; no fault of her own but that of her parents. I’m annoyed with parents who allow their children to ‘mature’ into ‘adults’ before time. No child at 10 years old should be wearing eye-shadow and lipstick under any circumstance. In the event that the child will be going on camera (for TV purposes) then light makeup can be applied. Parents ought to be blamed for children growing up too quickly. If at 10 years old a child is acting like a grownup, what exactly will happen when this child enters the teenage years and eventually become an adult?

I am Laydee Sharmz saying ‘childhood years are the happiest years of one’s life so let children be children and refrain from forcing them into adulthood at a tender age’

Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry.