It is natural for children, when they notice that their parents are in a relationship, to show love for the parent of the opposite sex and rivalry for the parent of the same sex. However, in what Freud called the Oedipus complex – in the Greek tragedy Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother – there is a paternal function (father, mother or substitute) that orders and forbids such relationships, anticipating children who may have their own partner in the future .

Having said that, I see the general behavior of girls between the ages of 7 and 12 locking themselves in their rooms to try on clothes, hairstyles and make-up. Troubled by their weight and image, they invest time and energy in changing theirs look and look like your model or influential persons favorite. Today’s girls resemble the Barbies we played with as girls.

An interesting text by JR Ubieta (2019) states that discomfort in childhood, understood as a historical and changing concept, should not be read as individual disorders, but as symptoms of an era of transformations that affect work/knowledge, family dynamics (disorientation, loneliness, violence) and the link between technology and capitalism: “A society governed by hyperactive time, closing as a way of relating, because of the immediacy in the demand for gratification, it would be strange if it did not produce children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),” illustrating the new regime of time.

Ubieto adds that childhood is not a chronological moment but a logical time (J. Lacan); the first time to look, open to the unfinished, to what has yet to be built. Time to fail and learn, due to surprise and curiosity, to form symptoms and defenses (modesty, shame, ideals) to face the most intimate being. A time where sexuality and death appear, requiring veils before being approached. The time of transition from premonition to realization: “A place from which one looks and which does not return the image of oneself as an opaque stain.”

I return to the title and note the need for girls to live a full childhood. But how do we do that if we force them to be what we weren’t, if we hypersexualize them by encouraging them to imitate the poses of adults, if we treat them like best friends or demand that they always be the winner? Girls should not be anyone’s object of pleasure.

When the power market and family ties fade, parenthood is an act of love. It is to accompany the girls in their future and give them space to express their discomfort. It does not label them; for E. Laurent, it is madness to diagnose ADHD, autism, bipolarity in childhood. It helps them to think that it is not necessary to be part of the consumerist herd that demands instant and absolute gratification, without deliberation or limitation. But if they choose to do so, they will learn that all enjoyment, if not stopped in time, is liable to overflow.

In Sophocles’ tragedy, when Jocasta learns that she is not only the wife, but also the mother of Oedipus, she commits suicide. Oedipus injures his eyes with the brooch of his dress and becomes blind. (OR)