I remember waking up, putting on my slippers and running to my brother’s room so we could watch Saturday morning cartoons. My favorite shows were “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “The Animaniacs.” My favorite toys were Bratz dolls and beyblades. I would bring my favorite beyblade Sagittario to school and battle with my friends during recess. I had millions of Shopkins and always asked for more for Hanukkah.

Do kids do these things anymore?

Now when I look online, all I see are little kids being excited over skincare or makeup. Their Christmas lists are full of products like Sol de Janeiro and Drunk Elephant.

I saw this video of a 6-year-old filming a “get ready with me” and I was shocked by the products she was using. The girl was using a $68 Drunk Elephant moisturizer and put on a full face of makeup after. And during the video she was talking about using retinol to stop herself from aging.

What happened to the awkward tween stage that kids used to go through? Tweens are kids from ages 8-12 who are not old enough to be teenagers but they aren’t young enough to be considered children either.

I consider this tween stage to be an awkward phase of self discovery. During this time, most children go through puberty and begin to experiment with their hair and sense of style. Some even consider this stage to be the “ugly phase” because of how questionable these fashion and hair choices are.

I wore awful outfits when I was 8. One of my outfits was so bad that someone in my class said I looked like a witch. I was wearing a long black dress with polka dots from the Children’s Place with an ugly black hat that had a black flower on it from Justice. And when I was 12, I decided to be edgy and dye my hair hot pink because I was going to high school soon.

There weren’t any influencers like Alix Earle and Katie Fang to tell me how to do a certain makeup look or what shoes looked good with this outfit. Things that were trendy were based off of TV shows and movies from Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. I was obsessed with Ant Farm and tried to dress like China Anne McLain; I even asked my mom to buy me the neon pink pants she would wear.

What happened to shopping at stores like Claire’s and Justice? When I was younger, people used to think you were a loser if you didn’t have a Justice backpack and earrings from Claire’s. These tween stores aren’t as popular as they used to be. They have been replaced with stores like Zara and Sephora. I shouldn’t see 10 little kids crowding the Summer Fridays and Glow Recipe section in Sephora, putting on handfuls of skincare on their face and trying on crop tops in Zara.

Things that tweens used to enjoy aren’t trendy anymore. Using soda-flavored Lipsmackers and wearing questionable clothes from Libby Lu is cringey now. Kids feel pressured to wear clothes from Lululemon and use makeup brands like Rare Beauty in order to fit in.

It is sad to witness these young children not being able to enjoy their childhood because of society’s standards and companies’ marketing strategies.

Companies have caught on to the fact that children like to imitate the older people around them. So instead of making stores targeted for tweens with age-appropriate outfits and other products, they are marketing adult products to kids.

In an Instagram post, Drunk Elephant listed products that work for children to encourage them to buy their products. Companies are now targeting a demographic of people from the age of 10 to 24. It is insane that a 24-year-old is being put in the same age group as a 10-year-old.

Companies are not the only ones promoting this behavior, influencers are as well.
There is a new trend of influencers making “get ready with me” TikToks where they show all the expensive products they use while getting ready for the day. Little kids saw this trend, began to pick up on it and proceeded to buy hundreds of dollars worth of products for their skin.

Some parents are even participating in this trend as well. A TikTok account called Garza Crew is an account dedicated to filming get ready with me and shopping haul videos. Haven and Koti are two little girls who film these videos with their mom. The mother encourages her daughters to use large amounts of makeup and skincare.

So now that society finds tweens cringe, influencers and parents are convincing them to buy unnecessary beauty products and companies are treating them as adults. What are tweens left to do?

Kids are being forced to grow up fast and are becoming “Sephora kids” and “iPad kids” but instead of blaming companies or parents, people are blaming the children.

Parents should stop giving kids phones and iPads when they are 6, they should also put parental controls on their children’s devices. Companies should stop marketing their products to children. And society should stop viewing being a tween as cringe and see it as just a stage kids go through while they are trying to discover who they are.