The day before my first day of high school, I was swimming in a pool and swam straight into the wall. I had a huge cut in the middle of my nose, along with my braces and rubber bands to align my jaw. Super attractive. I had fire red jeans on with a lace shirt from Delia’s; the full package, I know.

I spent most of my middle school years taking pictures on iPhoto, making music videos on iMovie, and playing Wii sports. Now there are middle schoolers that follow me on Instagram that have thousands of followers, with full done makeup and outfits I wouldn’t be able to put together even now. Where the heck is their awkward phase and how can such an uncomfortable part of our lives just disappear?

1. Celebrities

I think who kids look up to these days play a huge part in who they want to be. As a tween, I looked up to the girls in the shows I watched. Now kids are watching things like Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl at such a young age. TV exposes them to drugs and sex, which causes this to become the norm.

This is who I looked up to as a tween:

The long sleeve t-shirt under another shirt is a classic.

Now, thanks to reality television and social media this is who twelve-year-olds look up to:

2. Social media

The only social media my friends and I had in middle school was Facebook and that was usually used for “truth is” statuses and over-edited pictures using picnik, pic monkey or whatever website to put some cheesy quote like “god made us best friends because he knew our moms couldn’t handle us as sisters!” LOL! There was no Instagram or Snapchat; we didn’t have all of these opportunities to compare ourselves to others. Some of these kid’s main hobbies have become who has more likes, followers, comments, and all superficial things on social media. There is so much pressure on teenagers to live up to this expectation and social media definitely doesn’t help.

Kids are maturing faster

The “awkward phase” is occurring before they even know it’s happening. Puberty is occurring earlier, which could be happening for many reasons; stress, obesity, being exposed to specific chemicals, etc. There is a lot of research on it, but the point is that kids are looking older, earlier. The fact is, if a 12-year-old looks like a 17-year-old, that 12-year-old is still a 12-year-old. There is no need to rush their time growing up.

We have our whole lives to dress up and be a grown up. As someone who took their time growing up, I don’t regret a bit of it. I think my “awkward stage” lasted way longer than most people, but that’s also because I took my time maturing. I played with dolls for a little bit too long. I’ll always like kids movies and acting like a child.

As much as those years made me cringe, looking back at the pictures, videos and memories now have me laughing for hours. Be grateful for your awkward phase: I am! Wearing too much eye shadow, tripping over your Uggs, spilling things in class, freezing up in front of a crush, are all the things that come with your awkward phase. It is such a part of who you are and definitely an important part of growing up.

~Written with appreciation for my terrible awkward phase~

Shoutout to my 8th-grade self! I worked the braces, bushy eyebrows, blue eyeshadow, and random piece of hair.