Growing up too soon?

I came across a kid's profile ( he is 10 years old ) on one of the social networking sites. The first surprise was that he had a profile on a social networking site and the next surprise was the description in the "About Me" section. It said "I am sexy, flirtatious, trendy, athletic and cool" :-) Another friend of mine who has a kid of the age 11 years says sometimes his son comes home and says "Yo Dad"! and that for his next birthday he wants an ipod.

We usually associate such behavior to adolescence or the starting of it. I find that kids these days are more independent. They select their own clothes, shop a lot of stuff by themselves. For kids, I think adulthood is all about breaking free from parents's care and from the conventional ways of the society. There seems to be a lot of friction between the parents and their kids these days in terms of understanding each other.

Can we consider this as a natural journey of a kid towards adulthood? Is 10 the new 15? Are kids these days growing up too fast?? I am not an expert to be able to give answers to any of these questions. But all I can say is that this goes a long way in shaping the kids for what they become in the future.