Is This The Death Of The Awkward Phase?

I saw a video the other day of a 12-year-old talking through her anti-ageing skincare routine.

Not her cleanser. Not a little moisturiser. Anti-ageing skincare.

As in, a child who probably still has to ask to go to the bathroom in school is worrying about wrinkles. Wrinkles she does not have. Wrinkles she will not have for a very long time. Hopefully.

At first, I thought it was funny in that very bleak internet way. Then I realised it is actually a bit terrifying. Because when did being 12 stop being culturally acceptable?

@roberttolppi This has to be rage bait 😆 #sephorakids #makeup #antiaging #skincare ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound

There used to be a very specific stage between childhood and being a proper teenager. You were too old for toys, too young for anything actually grown up, and deeply convinced that a friendship bracelet, a side fringe and a body spray that smelled like chemical strawberries were going to change your life.

It was awkward, obviously. That was the whole point. You tried things. You got them wrong. You wore outfits that made absolutely no sense. You copied celebrities badly. You thought you were serving when, in reality, you looked like you had been dressed by Claire’s, Disney Channel and blind confidence.

But everyone else looked a bit funny too, so it was fine. And there used to be whole worlds built for that exact age. Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, magazines, friendship bracelets, embarrassing posters, silly YouTube challenges and shops full of things that were tacky in a deeply age-appropriate way. You were not trying to be an adult. You were trying to be a teenager, which at 12 felt basically the exact opposite.

Now, it feels like that stage has been completely skipped.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Southlands (@shopsouthlands)

Preteens are not just trying to look like older teenagers anymore. A lot of them are copying adults. Their skincare routines are coming from women in their twenties and thirties who are actually old enough to need them. Their beauty standards come from TikTok, where everyone is filtered, contoured and somehow already worried about ageing.

And I know every generation thinks the one below them is growing up too fast, but this feels different.

Because this is not just a 12-year-old borrowing her mam’s mascara for school. This is 10-step skincare routines, full glam GRWMs before school, designer water bottles, viral beauty products and children talking about collagen like they are preparing for retirement.

The sad thing is, I do not even think this is really the kids’ fault. They are just copying what they see. And what they see, constantly, is adulthood being sold back to them as an aesthetic. Look cleaner. Look richer. Look prettier. Look older. Look less like yourself.

And it is weird because being a preteen used to give you a little bit of room to be strange. You could have a terrible haircut. You could wear something tragic. You could decide your entire personality was “girl who loves yellow” and nobody expected it to be marketable.

Now everything feels like content. Even childhood.

A sleepover is not just a sleepover anymore. It is a vlog. A school morning is not just a school morning. It is a GRWM. A bedroom is not just a bedroom. It has to fit an aesthetic. Everything has to be cute enough to post, which is a lot to put on someone who should still be allowed to be a bit weird.

Maybe that is what we have really lost. Not bad fashion, not terrible makeup, not the painful side fringe era, although personally I think some of us suffered for character development. What we have lost is the space to get it wrong privately.

The awkward phase was never glamorous, but it was useful. It gave you time to figure yourself out before the world started commenting.

And while nobody is exactly begging to be 12 again, there is something very sad about watching kids skip the messy bit and go straight to trying to look polished.

Because if you are already worrying about ageing before you have even finished growing up, what are you supposed to do with the rest of your life?

Words by Andrew Connolly