Sexualized children. . .

In case you have forgotten, in 2011 CNN strongly condemned the TLC network’s show Toddlers and Tiaras because it sexualized young girls. The show had a cult like following but was relatively tame in that girls were dressed up to look like older girls and women as beauty contestants.  There was no overt sexualization of the girls but it was inappropriate and in bad taste and pointed out the illness of moms and dads living out their dreams through their children.  Not good but not the worst thing either.  Nothing in comparison to what we have going on today.  In typical media morality, it presumed to say that “Everyone in society suffers when children are sexualized, but those hurt worst are the children themselves.”

Funny how that was so bad but now we have graduated to having drag queens read to children the same age, teachers who encourage these same aged children to being to explore and define their sexuality and gender, and the classroom has become the arena for discussing everything from sexual desire to the convoluted alphabet soup of the non-binary.  How is this overt sexualization of children now authentic concerns for education but throwing a gown, a swim suit, and a tiara on a hair-sprayed, made up girl harmful to the children themselves?  Now the point is that I am not in favor of any of it.  It am not suggesting that Toddlers and Tiaras is benign.  I do not think that there is any place for the sexualization of our children whether by dressing them up for us or teaching them to think in adult categories of sexuality.  Both are an abuse of children.  In every case, we are robbing our children of their childhood and forcing them to think and act like adults -- adults who are not thinking rightly or acting very well either.

The sad reality of our time is that the sexual identity has become the most important identity for anyone and the goal of education is to aid and assist the children in exploring and defining their sexuality.  What is abuse is that no child does this on their own but only under the influence of others.  Adults have already done a pretty good job of screwing up childhood already.  We have decided it is more important for moms and dads to be happy than the children in their care to be safe and secure.  We lie to ourselves all the time in saying happy divorced parents are better than less than happily married ones.  We have decided that quality time over quantity justifies putting ourselves, our careers, and our goals ahead of the responsibility we have to the children in our care.  We have have surrendered our children to the screens and failed to instill values and faith in them.  We have indulged them in every techno toy without even admitting or addressing the dangers to them such access to the internet and the tutelage of media may incur.  Why do we think we are helping our children by thrusting them into the hypersexualized world of adult desire, entertainment, and perversion?

Like somebody once said, I know why drag queens want to be around small children but what I do not know is why we want our children to be around them.  Substitute nearly anything from our over sexualized culture in the place of drag queens -- including plain, ordinary, heterosexual sexual behavior.  None of it belongs there.  Children should not be pawns in a war over sexual desires and gender identity nor should they be used for our own curiosity or entertainment.  But that is what our educational process has decided to do -- to do battle for their cause in the classrooms of our youngest and most vulnerable children.  Why are we not as concerned about this as we once were about a poorly conceived and tacky TV show a generation ago?  That does not justify the show from the 2000s but only points out how flawed our judgment has become.