Growing Up

Growing Up. Pencil on Paper. 2018

Growing up as a teen girl can be difficult, especially now, when girls are expected to act and look older than they are.

We start off playing at the playground with our friends, and of course, we are all too young to judge each other. After all, there is no time to judge when you're playing lava tag during recess.

Then we enter the next stage of our lives. Society introduces media to our young and impressionable minds at a young age. Soon, we go from watching cartoons, to teen sitcoms on Disney Channel, to movies meant for mature audiences; as this is all happening, we are absorbing unrealistic standards into our brains. We are setting goals for ourselves; goals to be perfect.

Next, our parents finally let us buy our first makeup kit. It consists of a pastel eye shadow pallet, fruit flavored lip gloss with sparkles, and bright bubblegum pink blush. We are excited to finally look like the girls we see on TV!
We. Are. Grown. Up!

After we have our new found confidence and sense of independence, we start to act up. Ah yes... the teenage years. We find our parents annoying, and we just want to text our friends and watch the latest episode of our dramatic TV series. We start to distance ourselves from our parents the times when we need them the most. There is so much happening through our teenage years. We are expected to make the right decisions because we are old enough to know better, yet the adults will not take our voices and opinions seriously because we are too young. Being a teenage girl is full of  contradiction.

This leads to a skewed perception of the world, and a broken remainder of our adolescence:
The boys that we used to play lava tag with are now immature, obnoxious, and disrespectful.
The girls that we used to play lava tag with act friendly to our faces, yet they speak hurtful words behind our back.
We are told by society to "show some skin and smile," yet we are told by our community to cover up and not draw attention to ourselves, especially if it is a distraction to some.
We are told to be smart and powerful, but not to be intimidating and arrogant.

We are told all of these things- "do this, do that" - and it overshadows who we are as a human being. In the midst of growing up and trying to find ourselves, we lose our sense of individuality. Then, we enter the adult world as we entered the adolescent world: lost and looking for who we are.

No, this is not my story, but it is a story felt by many young girls. Even if it is not their story as a whole, there are parts of it that hold true within their own lives. Will they overcome it? Or will they allow the pressures of society to form them into a pseudo-version of who they're meant to be.