Tween models: Appropriate or not?

What does it take to be a good model? These days, it apparently has a lot do with being young–like really, really young. Lately, more and more of the models being featured in magazine ads and fashion spreads are minors, like barely even tweens!

From 11-year-old Thylane Blondeau's appearance in Vogue Paris to 12-year-old Kiernan Shipka posing for Grazia, it's obvious that scouts have been setting their sights on the pretty and innocent faces of our youth. But with the recent report that says that around 30% of models have been sexually harassed and 50% have been exposed to cocaine, the question becomes is it really a good for children to be in this environment? Just how young is too young for modeling?

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Personally, I wouldn't want my kids to ever enter such a stressful and appearance-based world at all, but if it's something they were serious about, I would definitely make them wait until they were older. It just seems so dangerous to me to expose children as young as 11 to an environment where people face so much pressure to look a certain way and be super trendy or fashionable. I mean, modeling is a dangerous job for 30-year-olds, let alone pre-teens about to enter their awkward adolescent years.

If parents are going to allow such young kids to model, I think they should limit them to modeling only for their age group where they will at least be wearing age-appropriate clothes. But, these girls are dressed way too maturely, sporting garments that are made for grown women! It doesn't make any sense.

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Call me old-fashioned but I say, let kids be kids. I mean, children already spend too much indoors and worry way too much about what they look like. Why encourage that?

What do you think? Would you let your tween be a model?

Images via AMC, Vogue Paris