This "age - appropriate" BS

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Well, my younger half - sisters, E and D, are now teenagers, or almost to that point....jeez, where does the time go.

E is 13, and D is 12 (there's only about a year or two of age difference b/tw them).

I'm 20, going to be 21 in February, which isn't too long off.

Their current interests are: Make Me a Supermodel, Pretty Little Liars, Twilight, Facebook, texting, all the clothes that the "cool" preteens and teens are wearing, and all the teen magazines, of course.

What are my current interests? Cars/Cars 2, plushies, animated cartoons and films, Wreck It Ralph, My Little Pony (Gen 1 and Gen 4), Where the Wild Things Are (the movie), dolphins, whales, Calico Critters, raccoons, and crows/ravens.

Where I'm going with this is, I'm sure it makes my mom and stepdad happy to have at least two daughters who are interested in what girls their age SHOULD be interested in....when we were all kids, my mom and stepdad supported my younger half - sisters in whatever it was they liked....E liked stuffed pandas, she got stuffed pandas, D liked dogs, she got stuffed dogs and dog - related stuff....

...When it came to what I liked, it was just, "You're 12 years old and you STILL watch DragonTales?" or, "Aren't you a little old to take a stuffed dolphin everywhere and talk to it? Leave that in the Car!"

They were willing to indulge my interests in cetacea (dolphins and whales) and animation up to a point, but I still never felt really accepted the way I was.

Maybe my mom and stepdad are happy to have my sisters interested in stuff geared toward teens and young adults; but I just worry that at some point, those interests are going to lead them to something they'd just as soon not get involved in (i.e., becoming obsessed with appearance/weight, vampire stuff, etc).

I'm not really looking for a solution to anything; just wanted to get this off my chest.

I'm sorry! That's got to be very tough.

My mother always treated my younger brothers very differently, so I can understand a bit.

..

Heh.... at 38 I feel much the same. I wanna' see "Wreck-It Ralph" but don't want to be seen as creepy, weird and a giant man-child.

You're not alone in this! I played with kids' toys through most of my teens, and even now, at the age of 28, I still find the idea of that fun! I was fortunate enough to have parents who allowed 90% of it to go on.

The Humans vs. Zombies live-action game that they did recently at my school gave me a nice excuse to use a Nerf gun.

And I also say down with "age-appropriateness" judgments in interests!! ! Yes, it may be unusual to play with Legos or Barbie dolls at the age of 15, but I fail to see how it hurts anyone!!

I also had random interests that were way OVER my age in childhood - like technical manuals and programming.

You're definitely not alone in this. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with books and video games. I asked for video games for Christmas when I was sixteen, and my mom sternly informed me that I was too old for them. She bought me this awful, fuzzy pink sweater that itched and a bunch of makeup for Christmas instead. Anyway, I'm 37 years old now, and I still love books and videogames and never wear any makeup. Sorry, Mom!

Im 32 and I saw wreck it Ralph and it was awesome!!!I love watching The Clone Wars series also.I guess for me it helps that I have a 6 year old daughter so it gives me a free pass to enjoy watching cartoons with her lol.

I like MLP and Adventure Time. I even bought an Adventure Time hat! My mom & sisters (all 3 of them) think OMG! that show is for kids etc. When it actually has a teen and young adult following. MLP my little sisters who are 11 and 13) say it's for 5 yr. old girls.

With the Adventure Time hat they reminded me OMG! you are going on 30! (I'm 26 will be 27 in March!) So that's scary!


I understand your pain. At 16ish I was told to take all my action figures and throw them away! I still got onto the floor and played with them reenacting scenes from cartoons I liked. I then just took that interest and got into videogames mainly.

Wish I could still get into toys though.

There is nothing wrong with a plushie collection, a lot of people find it cool if you have really good ones, such as Sonic plushes.
Wreck-It-Ralph was an awesome movie.
And MLP is an awesome show.
Its the Twilight thats the problem. I hope you dont really think thats a cool movie series or anything. The books arent very good either.