Is our skin-deep culture claiming my 9-year-old?

NEW YORK — My 9-year-old daughter looks older than she is. Always has. Kids and — worse — grown-ups who should know better comment on it all the time.

"Look how big her feet are," they observe, right in front of her.

It's all good, we tell her, humankind comes in many shapes and sizes. "Some kids just grow early."

Usually she smiles and goes back to hula-hooping, her stuffed animals, Mary Poppins, whatever 9-year-old kid thing she's happily doing. We never worried too much, until a few things recently set me fretting the toll of our skin-deep, sped up culture and discreetly searching my baby's body for nonexistent signs of puberty.

It began with a trip to the hair salon. She had grown her silky black hair down her back so she could donate a fat ponytail to an organization that makes wigs for sick kids. It had taken years to get her hair just right for a neat bob after the big snip, and I promised a trip to a fancy place to get the job done.

After her cascade of hair was gone, a pro with a blow dryer boofed her head to perfection and my 9-year-old went from looking 12-ish to looking 15-ish.

A few days later she got her ears pierced, adding another year. That's when panic took over, compounded by the first blogger in her fourth-grade class emerging to stress on a range of subjects, including a zit on her neck, getting into college — and having enough money to pay for it.

So if 13 is the new 18, then what's 9? And what can parents, especially those of girls, do to temper culture's pressure to grow up way too fast?

Susan Bartell, a psychologist and author of the self-esteem building "Girls-Only Weight Loss Guide: The Easy, Fun Way to Look and Feel Good," suggests parents not back away from the challenge, for starters.

"We have to say to our kids, 'You know, this show that you're watching or this store window are showing outfits and things that are not real life,'" she said. "'And even in real life, just because other parents allow things, I'm not going to allow it.' It's OK to fight battles with your kids. This is absolutely a battle worth fighting."

But first, Bartell said, some parents need to check their own motivations.