IT'S 2005, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?

While spending some time at a mall today, I was hit with a thought, and a memory.
1979, First day of 7th grade. We were assigned a 'getting to know you' kind of thing with questions like what's your favorite food? Do you have any pets? What TV shows do you like?
Sitting next to me was a known bully named Dodie. Girl bullies are far worse than boy bullies, girls will spend time with you psyching you out to make you feel like crap about yourself. Boys just hit each other and walk away. Dodie was looking at my answers, cheating, I thought rather smugly, till she laughed out loud at me and made me change my favorite TV show from Laverne and Shirley to Three's Company.
My point here is peer pressure, and by the looks of the stores and catalogues I've seen lately, I'm glad I grew up when I did.
Now if you're 9-12 years old you're labled a TWEEN and marketed to agressively and obnoxiously.
Everything is pink and purple, covered in glitter and modeled by the likes of Jessica Simpson, Lindsey Lohan, and the Olsen twins ( who have yet to prove oddsmakers right with the OLSENS DO DALLAS.)
Very few companies use actual tweens to model what they sell to them. If I had a child I would do my best to help her,( or him ) see that this is NOT what women look like, or should look like. An uphill battle I'm glad I won't be fighting. Well, not much anyway. When The Disney Store catalogue featured a pink bathroom scale with PRINCESS painted on it in sparkly glitter, I blew up.
They got a letter from me that would have made Dodie seem like, well, a Princess.
I guess it's a battle worth fighting.