Coming of Age in Suburbia

Is personal purchasing power- the ability and opportunity to buy things without parental consent (or sometimes even awareness)- becoming a rite of passage for suburban adolescents? Or has that been the case for some time, and I'm only now catching on? I've seen lots of parenting articles decrying (or just trying to explain) the materialistic culture, and what that does to kids (and adults), and also some about the huge (and ever increasing) purchasing power of teens and preteens, but what of the ability to buy things itself?

I'm seeing more and more groups of 10/11/12 year old girls in the mall, shopping on their own, than I did just a few years ago. I saw four girls who couldn't have been more than 12 all buying stuff at Victoria's Secret two weeks ago. And one of them had a credit card. I'm not casting judgement, just curious if this is a new trend, or something I failed to notice before.

I obviously have a personal interest in the question. My daughter turns 12 next week and she has a cooler cell phone than me, an iPod nano, an iPac, a portable DVD player... At Christmas I got her a mall debit card and she and I did our shopping separately. She is one of those tween girls with "purchasing power" that are now seen shopping with friends at the mall. She frequently meets up with friends at a mall a few blocks from our house to wander and window shop and (sometimes) spend their allowance. And, in discussing potential places to move, I was surprised to find that her preference to live near places where she could "meet friends and buy stuff" was even higher than being near her school or a park. And I see the same trends among her friends. Being able to buy things, on their own, gives them a sense of autonomy that I don't see paralleled in any other activity.

I can appreciate the increased sense of autonomy, and they are really just mimicking the behavior of adults, but there's something about feeling "grown up" thanks to an ability to buy stuff that worries me. I don't remember that being an important activity for me as an adolescent, nor for any of my friends. And it seems like an unfortunate outgrowth of a culture obsessed with having more and more and more stuff. But hanging out playing video games wasn't de rigeur for my parents, as it was for my friends, and I'm sure they found that worrying too...