Then there's TV, Bartell said.

"So many of the TV shows for this age group have kids in their own world. The parents aren't there at all or their roles are very minimal. The kids are walking around with very little parenting," she said. "The media pretends they aren't pushing girls to grow up quickly."

When the media pushes, parents should push back, she said, providing the time and space kids need to focus on other things like being smart, or a loyal friend, or a tolerant big sister.

And what of the child who looks older than she is? Does my daughter see what I see when she stands in front of the full-length mirror, where she pranced not all that long ago in her Cinderella gear from a dress-up box overflowing with glittery fairy wings and plastic tiaras?

Were those things harmless or a big mistake, like the whole piercing of the ears thing might have been?

Lenore Skenazy, a writer castigated as "America's worst mom" for letting her 9-year-old son ride the New York City subway by himself, urged me to give the worrying a rest.

"Nobody can wear their fairy wings forever," Skenazy said. "She would look weird wearing the fairy wings in a couple of years. If she thinks of herself as a beautiful young woman, that's not so terrible. If these are your biggest worries — my daughter looks good in earrings — it's time to grab a latte."

Besides, Skenazy said after looking at a photo of my punctured and shorn daughter, she doesn't look 16. She looks 11.

That's a little better. I'll keep that in mind next time one of her 9-year-old friends tells me how hot Tony Hawk is, or their little crew rips into "I'm Too Sexy" at a karaoke party. The blogger stars on her own YouTube channel, jumping around to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." She lists her age as 16, my mommy meltdown number.

"Look, I hate a lot about our culture, too," Skenazy commiserates. "It's extremely manipulative and forces kids to be interested in things they weren't, yet. But it's OK. There are always going to be parts of society that are really stupid. We played with Barbie before she was an astronaut, yet we grew up with a sense of decency and morals and social conscience. Kick back."

There's the magic: Learning to walk tall through the stupid parts, both me and my daughter as she bounces between big kid and little girl. The former already has several really good looks that kill. The latter still loves hopscotch. That makes her exactly who she needs to be.

"The outside is always going to change," Bartell said, "but who she is as a person starts now."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.