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"Throughout the aging process, the grass is always greener on the other side. Teens are desperate to be seen as more adult, while older women struggle for youthfulness. Both groups use clothing and makeup to convince the world that age...Throughout the aging process, the grass is always greener on the other side. Teens are desperate to be seen as more adult, while older women struggle for youthfulness. Both groups use clothing and makeup to convince the world that age is just a number. But if seeing a 50-year-old woman in a short Lycra dress with a 20-year-old guy on one arm and a copy of Twilight in the other seems, well, sad, so too is the teen girl who tries to act twice her age.\n\n \"There was this one girl whom everyone in my high school called The Mom,\" says Whitney, nineteen, from Boston. \"She dressed like she was in her 40s, and all her mannerisms were very adult.\" Other teens who are trying to look more mature eschew the Ann Taylor Loft and go straight to Cougar town. \"A lot of girls at my school put on stilettos and skimpy dresses to seem older,\" says Josy, seventeen, from San Francisco.\n\n Striving to be more sophisticated is understandable in today's fast-forward culture. Pressure to grow up quickly comes from many sources--be it parents, friends, or the media. \"Very rarely do you see a teenager wanting to be more of a kid,\" says Holly, sixteen, from Ocean City, New Jersey. \"We always want to appear older.\"                           \"My parents have always expected my siblings and me to act older than we are,\" says Josy. \"From a young age, immature behavior was not acceptable.\" Parents sometimes send mid messages, says clinical psychologist Limor Kaufman, Ph.D. \"Parents want teens to respect their authority and at the same time be more independent,\" she says. \"It can be confusing. There's tremendous pressure on girls in terms of presentation and performance.\"\n\n The push to grow up prematurely also comes from peers. \"People at school will watch certain TV shows or read books to follow the trends of what older people are doing,\" says Whitney. Girls who try to appear older will often mock anything that seems youthful, says Holly: \"They'll make up stories involving adults or say that everyday teen activities are foolish.\" Often, insecurity is the reason girls work overtime to paint themselves as more savvy than they really are. Acting older makes girls feel more knowing and less vulnerable, especially in social situations. \"Some of my friends like to seem like they're beyond teen movies, music, and TV,\" agrees Maggie, seventeen, from Augusta, Georgia.\n\n Teen-focused television and movies often glamorize the youth-as-adult lifestyle. \"Gossip Girl is enticing--there's something almost addictive about how it glorifies the characters' lives,\" says Josy. \"Girls are obsessed with those types of shows in an almost unhealthy way,\" agrees Whitney.\n\n It's not only fictional characters who make older behavior look both cool and normal--young stars often become insta-adults when they're thrust into the spotlight. \"Taylor Momsen is dressing way beyond sixteen and walking around smoking without trying to hide it at all,\" says Maggie. Taylor admitted to her adult proclivities in Teen Vogue's September 2009 cover story: \"I'm not going to date someone who's sixteen,\" she said. \"I would eat a boy my age alive.\"\n\n \"We all fall in love with the illusion that the next stage is going to be what we want,\" says Kaufman of the media's influence. Holly admits to being wooed by the facade: \"I see how much fun 20-somethings have going out to bars and dancing, and all I can think about is wanting to do that instead of enjoying the life I have now,\" she says.\n\n Kaufman says acting more mature can have some benefits--like helping to form a long-term identity. \"Girls who say they read The New Yorker are showing they want to be taken seriously intellectually,\" Kaufman says. \"That may be a direction they choose to head in even if they don't actually understand the content at the moment.\" And Whitney says that though some girls in her school thought The Mom's behavior was silly, others looked up to her for her maturity. So taking on more responsibility at school, having a genuine interest in a challenging topic, or developing a put-together style can be good--as long as those things aren't done just for show.\n\n Though being a teenager can often be frustrating, it's important to realize it's a singular time that many people regret rushing through later in life. \"I see many of my students mourning their lost childhoods,\" says David Elkind, Ph.D., author of The Hurried Child (Da Capo Press) and professor emeritus of child development at Tufts University. \"They see younger kids having fun and realize that they may have missed out on those experiences, pushing themselves toward adulthood. I think you see that in celebrities like Britney Spears.\"\n\n \"For right now, it's OK not to have all the answers,\" says Kaufman. \"This is a time of asking questions and building your identity.\" Those who go out of their way to look like they've got it all figured out are often totally transparent anyway. \"The harder some girls try to appear older,\" concludes Holly, \"the younger they look.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/13-going-on-30>