Why do we sexualize our children?

Child beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey.

I recently took my kindergartener to a cheerleading camp, which was a Saturday morning with local high school cheerleaders.

She had fun, and so did all the other little girls.

It wasn't the little ones that occasion this post, but the older ones, the teens.

Some years ago, travelling on business in San Francisco, I had dinner at an Arab-themed restaurant that included a belly dancer with castanets and strategically placed veils.

She was all smiles when dancing, but when I tried to smile at her on the way out after dinner, she curled her lip contemptuously like the waiter just served her a burnt steak.

Why that story now? That was the feeling I got after watching the teenage cheerleaders.

They were all smiles while cheering in stretchy leotards that accommodated the gyrations and left little the to the imagination. But after showing us parents what they'd taught our little ones, when the music turned off, so did the smiles, which were replaced by a sexual awareness that characterized the belly dancer.

This wasn't about leering fathers, it was about teen cheerleaders knowing full well they were appealing to baser interests.

I really don't want Dee Dee to be a cheerleader. She can put the same effort into gymnastics, or piano, or math, or just being a little girl for a few years.

[2014-11-08]

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