Do Tweens Need Their Own Space?

From the ages of 8 -14, Justice was my favorite store, Teen Vogue and J14 were my favorite magazines, my favorite show was Shake It Up, and my favorite apps were Stardoll and Episode. It seemed as if there were endless spaces for me to be a tween, to experience the internet and pop culture on my own.

But does this exist today?

Online commentators are constantly critiquing the existence of tweens on social media. Calling for their removal from Sephora, Ulta, and designated young adult spaces. But the real question is, where else are they supposed to go? Teen Vogue no longer exists outside of the few articles they post monthly, tween music and TV are virtually nonexistent, and tween clothing stores are truly nonexistent, present only in stores like Wal-Mart. Tweens today are forced to go from skidding their knees at the park to wearing mascara and blush to their eighth-grade math classes.

There is no transition period for them anymore.

For example, when Tavi Gevinson created Rookie Mag, she allowed young girls to speak their minds, write about their experiences, and stay inside the bubble of tweenhood, all while being surrounded by girls the same age as them. Ultimately, an entire group of people was able to slow down the already quick transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Today, it is almost the opposite. A 30-year-old woman and a 13-year-old girl could be wearing the same outfit from Aritzia paired with the same ELF concealer under their eyes, and the same retinol massaged into their skin. It is our frightening reality where we are all grouped into one, not children, tweens, teens, and adults, but just girls who are all on the same internet.

In the first Rookie yearbook from 2012, the acknowledgement concludes with the sentence, “thank you to our readers for existing and helping us to exist.” Who is helping tweens to exist, who is aiding them in growing up properly, who is shielding them, believing that their beauty only exists underneath piles of painted-on faces? The answer is no one.

This is not to say that these tweens cannot swim through this on their own; it is just to say that they should not have to. Spaces where they can navigate through awkward phases and uncomfortable moments shouldn’t be intertwined with the rest of the world. It should be a quiet space with the sun hitting the window in a way that makes it reflect a rainbow, or something like that.

I have always been fascinated with growing up — enthralled with it, really — but now that I am here, I can’t help but feel sad for the girls who won’t get to experience adolescence as I did. Adolescence covered in hot pink zebra print, mustache sunglasses, and monogrammed Vera Bradley lunch boxes. A true testament of what it meant to be a 12-year-old girl and maybe what it still means today.

Being a young girl is difficult enough without the echo of adulthood knocking on your door.

This is my formal petition to bring back tween spaces, to allow young girls to build their minds and become who they are without the world as their audience. To make the best of the awkwardness that is growing up and the tender torture that is tweenhood.