I'm sure so many have said essentailly the same thing, but still, just because you have hit puberty it isn't an automatic entrance into being a "sexual being". I am 30 and hit puberty in 6th grade, 11-12 years old, as did almost everyone I knew. But I still played with Barbies and built forts and played on the swings at recess. I was a CHILD, one that was changing and growing and dreaming of Jordan Knight, but a child all the same. Now as a mother of two, girl and boy, and I am saddened by how childhood has disappeared. Not only in how we structure every aspect of their lives, but by dressing them like small adults. My 2 year old little girl should not dress in miniaturized adult clothes, but so often that is what is available. I have to buy a size too big in shirts so they aren't riding up over her little belly. The jeans are narrow in the thighs and flared--what toddler has a shape that can fit this? It's crazy. Thank goodness for Carter's and OshKosh.

If we allow our 11 and 12 year olds to look and act like 16 year olds, then what will they do when they are actually 16? What is there to look forward to? Prom will have no meaning if you had a huge formal 8th grade dance with limos. Growing up too fast doesn't stop after a certain point, it snowballs, and then we end up with jaded 18-19 year olds who have had dozens of sexual partners, who are posting naughty pictures of themselves all over the net, who may have picked up an STD here or there, and have no sense of self-worth or self-respect.