From the flashy dressing, to the make-up and the things they watch on TV and Internet, it looks like society is slowly losing the innocent 12-year-old teen.  GARDY CHACHA explores

Whenever KCPE results are announced; while ululations rent the air for best performers, it is usually interesting to cryptically notice the mature – yet so young – faces and statures of the adolescent candidates. Today, it is increasingly becoming difficult to tell apart a 13-year-old from a 20-year-old girl.

When you meet Sheila (or Shey as her cohort of nubile age mates refer to her), you wouldn’t imagine that she is just a Form One student. She attends a fairly fashionable upmarket school. I first met her at a teen awards ceremony for local talents. And boy, was she ‘dressed’ or what! A little tack and pull here and there, a ponytail coif and a lighter skin would instantly remake her into a Britney Spears. She wears to suit fashion only seen on carnal magazines; much like an adult.

hypersexual world

“We live in a fast world; fast foods, fast degrees, fast processing of products, fast gadgets and even fast growth,” says Dr Philomena Ndambuki, a child and educational expert at Kenyatta University’s School of Psychology. “One day you are a mother to a newborn and before you even know it, they have quickly transformed into teenagers, then mini adults. Many parents find themselves shackled in a quagmire in upbringing the modern generation.”

The psychologist acknowledges that today’s teen can easily blend in a homogenous group of young adults, camouflaging in the sheer magnanimity of hormone fuelled exponential growth.

“The ramifications are that they go through puberty much in the same way as we did but rather peculiarly; since they deal with a fast transition to adulthood without properly understanding their situation,” she expounds.

The statistics are telling. A report released a few years back by the Centre for the Study of Adolescents in Nairobi indicates that 40 per cent of girls and 50 per cent of boys are engaging in premarital and premature sex before their 19th birthday.

A significant percentage reported having sex with more than one partner in the previous six months.

Such are the issues today’s children are facing in a hypersexual world where even a food commercial is laced with erotic scenes, and music videos easily miss the threshold requirements without skimpily dressed women.

While this is happening, just as fast as the young girls are growing, parents are quickly losing their grip on shaping the lives of their teenagers as they slither through their palms rather sleekly, aided by technology and a growing culture of TV.

Dr Ndambuki says: “Today, gadgets such as phones and computers are accessible to almost every soul. It has become hard to monitor what a teenager is able to access and which buttons they are pressing at that brief moment they access an iPhone, an iPad or even a home computer. At puberty, curiosity in adolescent children peaks and is rather selectively skewed towards sexuality.”

carefree lifestyle

With all the X-rated imagery and a sociology that is conforming to Western idealism of connecting everything to the sexual appeal of a woman, the sharp propensity towards understanding the anatomy of sex has shoved children into a high drive of actualising sexuality.

In her book, Where Has My Little Girl Gone? How To Protect Your Daughter From Growing Up Too Soon Tanith Carey laments at the unpalatable reality of children in this generation getting exposed too fast to an explicit world where success is not based on hard work, but on a carefree lifestyle that elevates sex to the status of legal tender.

She further points out that even parents seem to be conforming to the idea that daughters need to look a certain way to get on in life.

In the book, Tanith explains how music, TV, fashion and other aspects of life have led to sexualisation that is damaging the experience of childhood.

You only need to walk along streets in major towns to understand that even children’s wardrobes are teeming with risqué fashion. While many fashion icons have steadily downplayed the effects of sexualised attires, pundits tend to disagree.

“Clothing is an essential thing about someone. They reflect an image of somebody and portray someone in certain light. As parents, we are supposed to play a role in what children wear and clothe themselves in,” says Dr James Kariuki, a sociology lecturer at University of Nairobi.

“We can’t casually let them decide what they want to wear but even in our decisions on what they wear, we need to proceed tactically so that the children understand concepts behind dressing.”

Dr Kariuki says the society we live in is changing so fast with the advent of technology. Today, it is no longer astonishing to see young girls wrap themselves in tight clothing that exposes their bodies to wild imaginations.

Kariuki’s explanation resonates with many cultures considering that even in a liberal nation like the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister David Cameron promised, before being elected in 2010 that if elected, he would rid the country of overly sexy clothes and toys for children to ensure children experience childhood.

morally upright

James and Mildred Jama are parents to two girls: The younger going into puberty and the older one in her early teenage. “Parenting is quite a challenge and it requires dedication,” says Mildred Jama.

 “Adolescence is a crucial point in determining how morally upright the child will turn out to be. It is a hectic time that for us we have been on the lookout for any — even if little — sign of straying. As soon as it rears its head, we curtail it before it escalates into something we hadn’t foreseen.”

Jama says in order to transform an adolescent into an upright and successful woman, you have to make her understand herself and appreciate every stage of her development.

He states, “At adolescence, the girl needs just the right amount of information on what is happening with her body. She needs to understand that she is not yet an adult and has to follow rules. At this time, she will want you to loosen up on her because she feels like a grown up, but it’s only because of the raging pubertal hormones taking toll. As her parent, you have to ensure that she is living right.”

Another parent, Patricia Kimani, says: “An adolescent girl has nothing wrong with her; whatever she is experiencing is a universal process that all females go through. As her parent, you have to be her friend so that she can open up about what she does when you are not with her. That way, you know what she is doing wrong and you advise her properly. Provide basic needs for her but do not give her what she does not require — like money and freedom to do whatever she pleases.”

Pastor Tony Mungai, a care pastor at Mavuno Church, says parents — as natural custodians of a child — need to understand that a child becomes who she is moulded.

According to the pastor, allowing a minor to determine what they do, how they do it, when they do it and why they do it, is forfeiting one’s God-given parenting roles. What transpires after that is comparable to anarchy and the adolescents easily assume that they are adults, undertaking activities, which rob them of their childhood and ultimately destroy their lives.

Arguably, for any parent to imagine the lives of their girls and young women taking an intransigent turn into an anonymous abyss, is a condemning reality.

However, Pastor Mungai advises that to fill the gaps that emerge in parenting a young girl, parents ought to be there to guide them through the right channels to prosperity.

It could be worth thinking of how the future will be shaping as children get fed with the idea that sex sells. What will their views about womanhood be? Will they soon be going for boob jobs?