Due to hormone disruptors in our environment little girls reach puberty earlier than ever. Their bodies are ready before their minds are, and they have not had the protected time and space to be children. The Victorians had a lot of weird ideas, but one thing they did better than our current society is they protected girls as best they could from early sexualization and predation. When a little girl dresses like this and then finds herself groomed, lured, and molested/abused by an older man in the family or family acquaintance, the trauma and fall-out for her will be with her for the rest of her life; and the women who dressed her up like a strumpet and threw her to the wolves will be just as guilty.

Children want to please. They need to. Pleasing the adults in their life gives the reflected validation ‘that they are ok to exist’. Their continued safe existence also depends on this. So, why don’t adults make it a little easier on little girls - and just let them be little girls. There is time enough to be a woman. A child who never got to be a child will be mourning and looking for their lost childhood all their lives.