When I was younger, I always dreamed of what it would be like to finally be an adult, to finally have freedom. But as I am getting closer and closer to my 18th birthday, I can’t help but wish I was still a kid. While this is a new feeling for me, this is a phenomenon that has been constantly talked about for a long long time: Women want to stay young to avoid irrelevance, and girls want to grow up to be respected.

In regards to women fearing irrelevance, let’s use Leonardo DiCaprio as an example. He has a streak of dating younger women, then breaking up with them right as they turn 25. While this is a trivial example, with no concrete evidence of the causality of the breakups, it emphasizes why “Invisible Woman Syndrome” (IWS) can be so hard to deal with and damaging. IWS is the feeling that many women get when they reach their late 30s, and especially when they turn 50. The idea of IWS is that as women get older, they become more and more irrelevant. This stems from their fear of not being good enough and being unable to keep up with societal standards such as perfect skin and non-gray hair. Many women fear getting pushed to the side in favor of their younger, more desirable, counterparts.

To push back against these fears of irrelevance, there have been recent trends in which adult women are infantilizing themselves, as a way to cling to their youth. For example, there have been a lot of “girl” trends recently, such as “girl dinner” and “girl math”. These terms were originally created as a way to make light of experiences that a lot of women have had, and to connect with each other. However, what has ended up coming out of this trend, is that women have been acting like immature versions of themselves. Whether that is intentional or not depends on the person. But one thing for sure is that these trends oftentimes imply that women aren’t mature, professional, or worthy.

For example, women use “girl math” as a way to compensate for their poor monetary decisions. When women say that paying extra so they can qualify for free shipping counts as “saving money,” or that paying with cash doesn’t actually count because that money was never in their bank account, it is just wrong. I understand part of the joke; I, for one, sometimes forget that things under $5 aren’t actually free. However, using this trend as a way to make yourself seem ditzy and immature just doesn’t sit right with me. It feels too much like women infantilizing themselves as a way to feel younger and less responsible. I thought we were past the times in which it was cool to be stupid.

And while many adult women are trying to “grow down,” we’re also seeing a recent surge of younger girls trying to grow up too fast. I like to call it the “13 Going on 30” phenomenon, in reference to the 2004 Jennifer Garner movie where the main character is upset over some friend drama and then wishes she were an adult, as if that would be the answer to all her problems. You see this phenomenon in action when girls try to act older than they are in the way they dress and behave. One motivation for this may be frustration with not being taken seriously and the desire to be treated with respect. As Gwen Stefani so eloquently put it, “Oh, I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite/So don’t let me have any rights.” This lyric really embodies the frustration of not being taken seriously because of your gender and age. I put no blame on these girls wanting to grow up, because I used to be one of them, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t wanted to skip past the messy parts of adolescence.

One manifestation of this phenomenon is the recent trend of younger girls exploring more “adult” hobbies. Let’s take the recent “Sephora girls” trend as an example. This is a trend of young — usually pre-teen — girls flocking to Sephora retail stores and having their parents spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on skin-care and makeup products, which are meant for adult women and are actually damaging to pre-pubescent skin. The reason a lot of these girls are buying and using these products is because of their desire to emulate their older role models. 

Now, trying to emulate older role models is nothing new and is not necessarily a problem. I started playing the clarinet because my uncle was a clarinet player, and I wanted to be just like him. Now I’ve been playing the clarinet for seven years and have had so many great experiences and have learned so much because of it. And, it is not the fault of older influencers who are showing their skin-care and makeup routines. They’re just doing something they enjoy and want to share with the world. I don’t think that anyone is necessarily at fault,  but girls looking up to adults – usually in their late teens or early to mid 20s – as role models is not the way to go. Influencers are giving advice to young girls, who are so greatly different from their intended audience of women of the same age.

Both of these trends can be damaging in so many different ways, but mostly because it causes you to wish to be someone you aren’t, and takes you out of living in the present. Rather than being happy with who they are, girls are dreaming of what life could be, and women are dreaming of what life could have been.

Now there is not a concrete solution to all of these problems, but each person can do their part. Just doing simple things like makeup and skincare – do it for fun! Do it because you like to do it. If you’re joking about eating a plethora of snacks as dinner (the “girl dinner” trend), that is fine and funny. But also show the ways that you are taking care of yourself and promote healthy eating habits. Take pride in your intelligence and rebrand “girl math” as being a financially-literate, savvy consumer.

If more and more women take these small steps, it will show girls that they can be strong, healthy and smart, while still prettying themselves up if they want to. Take Ilona Maher, a BHS grad and professional rugby player, as an example. Her motto is beast beauty brains. This is a perfect example of how you can be so many stereotypically conflicting things at the same time, and that is fantastic. She shows how it is cool to simultaneously be strong, feel beautiful and act smart. You don’t have to conform to society’s standards for what any of these things look like, and you don’t have to pick and choose. The current trends of not acting your age will be incredibly hard to bring down because they are part of a much bigger problem, with no easy fix. Except maybe taking down the patriarchy, but that’s a topic for another article.