The days of children running barefoot in grass and making messes for the fun of it are over. Fantasizing about toy stores and having an endless supply of candy couldn’t seem more distant from what children dream about today. Now, our adolescents possess a hyperfixation on being grown up and have learned to grow oddly comfortable with only tolerating things that children should experience. 

A current national example of this is the conversation about 10 year olds at Sephora. More specifically, little girls have been going into beauty stores and leaving with a full bag of cosmetics that aren’t for their age demographic. In addition, they’ve been known to dismantle the tester products. 

People compare their childhood with the new-age childhood many children are experiencing as we speak. There’s been strong anger and confusion as to why this is happening, and most people who criticize it blame the parents. And while the parents definitely have a hand in this, I don’t entirely blame them.

People neglect to think about the fact that there’s been a massive decline of things for children within the past five years. People are upset why kids aren’t playing with toys anymore, but where are the toy stores? Hell, where are the toys? There’s nothing new or exciting that’s made with children in mind nowadays. And to compensate, they turn to things that aren’t meant for them. 

As kids, we’d roll our eyes into the back of our skull whenever someone told us to enjoy our youth. But having grown up a little, I’d love to re-experience my childhood. A majority of people would agree that when they were younger, they wanted to be older. But the majority of people wouldn’t agree that children should be using expensive beauty products that don’t benefit them.