Growing Up Young

Abstract

This article presents findings from a study of the role of prior childhood adversity in the pubertal narratives of 16 African-American and White girls, defining adversity as the experience of stressful circumstances (e.g., abandonment, abuse) or psychological states (e.g., depression) that influence the experience of later life events, relationships, and self-perception. A majority of the girls reported such adversity, explaining that it either trivialized the problems typically ascribed to early puberty or demanded early maturity, particularly adult female roles, which consequently affected their adjustment to early pubescence. The author discusses the implications of childhood adversity for the salience of early puberty, examining the ways these identity features intersect to blur the staging of girls' development by producing multiple crossings into adulthood.It is no longer a rite of passage, a chance to be intimate in the world of women.-hooks, 1996, p. 93 F ervor has arisen recently over the decreasing age of puberty in girls, sometimes problematizing the phenomenon or, alternatively, expressing anxiety over precocious sexuality (Kaplowitz, 2004;Lemonick, 2000). The effort to protect the inexperience and naiveté of girls assumes, however, that the young are unknowing of cruelties familiar to adults. Adolescence often initiates sexual maturity and the capacity for more abstract thinking and social awareness, and puberty's physical signs (and attention to them) often become central to this emerging sensibility. What becomes of puberty's personal significance when girls are introduced to various adversities and stressors as children? Is early puberty a problem when cognitive and physical incongruence are not an issue? This article responds to these questions

Rationalization of Teachers’ Behavioral Expectations from Secondary School Girls in Lahore: A Phenomenological Study

“…Teachers with low expectations are more likely to use direct instruction, give students fewer chances to take charge of their own learning, hold students to lower standards of performance, ask students less artistic and creative questions, and use more close-ended questions than openended ones (Rubie-Davies, 2007). The stresses and mental health difficulties young girls face as adults might have an impact on their future life experiences, friendships, and self-respect (Martin, 2018;Pinto, 2007).…”

The entanglement of sexed bodies and pharmaceuticals: A feminist analysis of early onset puberty and puberty-blocking medications

“…Figuring a child's sexual development as a problem requiring observation, measurement and often painful treatment is likely to produce a relation to sexuality that is troubled in some way. Puberty in contemporary western cultures is already widely figured as problematic; a time of difficulty requiring increased levels of physical and emotional privacy particularly for girls (Harris, 2004;Pinto, 2007;Lesko, 2012). Although the aim of treatment may be to postpone such difficulties, medically attending to sexual development may have the opposite effect.…”