thank heaven for little girls

“for little girls get bigger every day,” according to maurice chevalier–as well as the product geniuses at abercrombie & fitch and berjuan toys. but while chevalier’s cheeky tune was intended to be sweet in its message, it seems the agenda of these companies is to exploit the precociousness of today’s rapidly maturing youth, encouraging 7-year-olds to look and act like adults.

by all accounts uncouth, the company infamous for its americana is now peddling push-up bikinis to the second-grader set. “how is this okay for a second-grader?” asks rebecca odes on babble.com. ”playing at sexy is an inevitable and important part of growing up. but there’s a difference between exploring these ideas on your own and having them sold to you in a children’s catalog. right now, somewhere in the world, a girl is shopping at abercrombie kids and getting the message that her breasts might need a little help.” not to mention the fact that tourists visiting the states beeline it to a&f to pick up american staples to infect their wardrobes with. is this the message we should be sending to the world, let alone our little girls? thankfully the award for first-place fool goes to british department store primark for adding enhanced kiddie bikinis to their stock back in april, then were quickly pulled from the shelves forever after receiving numerous complaints. can we expect the same from abercrombie & fitch? i certainly hope so.

then there is the breast milk baby. all a girl needs to do is throw on a “magic top” that has strategically placed flowers over her nipples, hold the breast milk baby to the flowers, and voila! baby is suckling at an 8-year-old’s teet just like it would happen in real life–er, to a 38-year-old. and i can’t help but agree with jessica wakefield over at the frisky: ”i would never discourage kiddies from either gender from playing with dolls and learning nurturing behavior,” she says. “but breastfeeding seems like a bizarre activity to promote among little girls who don’t even have proper ‘breasts’ yet. why their own nipples don’t produce milk could be a tricky topic to wrap their heads around.”

as far as sales are concerned, these gimmicks are unfortunately genius. little girls are forever going to want to look and act like mommy. what better way to market to them then trying to sell them the bathing suits their mothers wear or by allowing them to nurse their own baby while mommy feeds little mikey?

but the question begs to be asked: why is our society so adamant about rushing our little girls out of girlhood? why are we so obsessed with sexing them up, playing to pedophilia fantasies?