The Allure of Fame: Is There A Camera Crew In Your Kid’s Future?
by Kristy Campbell (Saving One Teen at a Time)
While at the gym yesterday, one of the p----cat Dolls' songs came on my iPod. My teenage daughter keeps me hip by adding songs I normally wouldn't choose, and as I listened to "When I Grow Up", I realized how becoming famous is replacing so many other goals for kids.
When I grow up
I wanna be famous
I wanna be a star
I wanna be in movies
When I grow up
I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars
I wanna have groupies
I recently attended an empowerment think tank meeting led by Jess Weiner. I am a part of her Actionist Network™ and Jess' mission is clear… "to create a nation of confident women and girls". Our purpose was to brainstorm and to construct strategies for companies and media to help support messages of self-esteem to young girls. As we discussed issues that are prevalent in our culture as well as the body image messages that are being reinforced to our young girls, a statistic popped up from Jess' Power Point presentation. I'm completely misquoting her research in that I can't remember if it was a study of 10 or 10,000 tween girls (8-12 years old), but the resulting information was clear. When the girls were asked what the top three career choices are for them, they unequivocally answered:
1. Singer
2. Actress
3. Famous
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Saving the World One Teen at a Time is a weekly column about navigating the tween-teen years in an increasingly thorny, competitive and tech-dominated world, written by two women with super-hero insights. Kristy Campbell is a mom of 5 (1 teen, tween twins, 1 pre-tween, 1 toddler) and works as an actress and social media consultant. She is currently writing her guide on how to survive the modern mom's midlife crisis. Abby Margolis Newman is a mom of two teenage sons, and one prematurely teenage 10-year-old son. She has written feature stories for the New York Times, and articles for Parenting, Working Mother, and Scholastic, among many other publications.
