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"I want my daughter to see this"

by MIA FREEDMAN

There is so much angst about tween girls. In the media….among parents…. I am guilty of it myself. I angst about tweens a fair bit. I have for a while now but it’s made worse by the fact my daughter is hurtling towards her tweenage years at the speed of Miley Cyrus. Gah!

And gulp.

I’m always on the lookout for bits of age-appropriate pop culture. People or things she can be interested in that aren’t, well, Miley Cyrus (who may well be fine for a 16 year old but not a 6 year old). Or Bratz dolls. Or Pussycat dolls. Or anything involving pole dancing or skanky music videos (I’m sorry but is there a better word than ‘skanky’ because I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS).

The problem is – I love pop culture. And by nature or nurture or both, my kids love it too. With the amount of media I consume, it’s challenging to quarantine them from everything, as hard as I try.

So whenever I OCCASIONALLY stumble across a pop culture thing aimed at tweens or young girls, that I actually like – I want to share it. I felt this way about Bindi last year and it inspired me to write this post.

Well, HELLO Willow Smith.

Yes, Willow Smith. Daughter of Will and Jada. Pop singer. Whatever your views about child stars (sometimes they turn out OK = Beyonce and sometimes not = Lindsay), Willow Smith seems to be walking that very fine tween line. And she’s walking it beautifully.

I love this video. I love the message, the lyrics, the melody and the clip. I love what she’s wearing. I love that she doesn’t get changed 10 times in her video. I love that she’s not wearing a weave and that she seems happy and goofy and mischievous and a bit cheeky without being overtly precocious.

I just love it. In fact I’m going to play it to my 6 year old daughter.

More Willow – and not a midriff in sight:

 

It’s easy to diss the bad stuff but what have you seen around that is POSITIVE for young girls? Boys?