To me, there is pre-covid and post-covid. Pre-covid it seemed children stayed kids until they reached 8th grade, until they became teens. I was twelve years old when covid happened; I was twelve years old when I “grew up”. In today’s world, almost everyone has some form of social media, whether it is Instagram or Pinterest. Within social media, there is an insane amount of romanticization of growing up.

Children tend to look up to their favorite celebrities, at least I did and still do, with easy access to social media they can see their idols, partying, drinking, or just simply hanging out with friends. In turn, they will want to start mimicking their actions. It may seem harmless, but this is the beginning of a series of events that will lead to children dreaming of growing up.

Now one may say “This has always been the case!” to that I say, yes, but now children have access to partying, drinking, and hangouts more than ever. They all have phones. They can all find parties and drinking on Snapchat. They can all learn how to pose with their stomachs out. They can all romanticize growing up.

Furthermore, in popular TV shows and movies adults play teenagers, in entertainment teens do much more than drive around, and be independent; they party, get drunk, get hurt and cause harm. In media, this is depicted as the norm, preteens watch shows and movies believing that is what growing up should be like. Take any early 2000s TV show for example–One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, etc– they are all set in high school, with the basis of the plot being students acting like adults. Sneaking into college parties, getting arrested, skipping school and leaving their homes.

This is what middle schoolers watch, all of these shows are on Netflix and are PG-13. The image painted of high school is harmful and true to most. The portal of it like such in media leads to a fear of missing out, or FOMO, which will lead kids to act like college students when they are 14.

I believe that FOMO is a leading factor in the phenomenon of children growing up too soon. Watching others do things you want to do but can’t do, or are afraid of due to your age will eventually lead to you overcoming those obstacles and participating in the activity. Without the FOMO no one would try to grow up too soon they would just go about their lives.

Peer pressure goes hand in hand with FOMO. Even though I would argue peer pressure is not as big of a problem as media romanticization, I still think it pushes kids to grow up too fast, making them feel like they need to date or take on adult responsibilities to be like their older friends.

This issue rose to prominence during the pandemic, use me as an example, I was locked inside my house with nothing besides Netflix and TikTok. The exposure to coming of age shows made me want to change, I had no children my age around to be like and the media showed me that being a kid was okay. Nothing was out there to show me that I did not need to change. On top of that social media was blowing up more than ever.

So now I had TV telling me to act mature and grow up, and I had social media showing me all of these teenagers going out with friends and partying. By the time I was in 7th grade, I was acting like I was a junior in high school.

The pressure to grow up too soon is new, it is a cultural shift fueled by media, social media, and a post-covid world that accelerated childhood. Kids today aren’t looking up to older siblings or classmates; they look up to influencers, celebrities, and fictional characters. All represent an unrealistic version of getting older. I understand it because I lived it. I was twelve years old when the world shut down, and twelve years old when I felt I had to grow up. Maybe it’s time we stop romanticizing growing up and start letting kids just be kids.