Such memories, Sassy and Seventeen. I didn't have an adult female figure to guide me through my teens. In the pre-internet era, everything I learned about personal hygiene and life, I learned through these magazines. I've heard Teen Vogue is pretty decent, but overall there aren't good options for teen magazines these days. Journalism is no longer valued and everything newsworthy can be found on Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter. The problem is that you have to wade through a lot of junk to find good content. And that's a tall order to ask for kids. Bring back the curated magazine that focuses equally on social justice and fall fashion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter loved these Brio magazines for teen girls:

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/brio-magazine/

Disgusting! I hope you’re being sarcastic.

OMG people. stop being so judgemental and rude. did anyone actually read the articles??? this might not be for you, but it might be interesting to other people. why put someone down just because their beliefs and interests are different from yours. just don't say anything next time, ok?

No. Focus on the Family is propaganda trash and we will continue to call it out any time we see it. Thanks for your input though.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter loved these Brio magazines for teen girls:

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/brio-magazine/

Focus on the Family? Gag. Indoctrination rags.

Hey, look at this!

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/could-the-teen-magazine-rise-again

Anonymous wrote:My mother hated those magazines but I still remember her stopping at CVS on the way home from somewhere to buy me an issue of YM I'd been begging for that had Elijah Wood on the cover. What stuck with me was her willingness to spend money on something totally inane because it would make me happy. I hope my kids will have similar memories.

Awww. I remember blathering on to my mom about NKOTB for hours. How she managed to look like she seriously cared about that, I don't know. I also remember showing her random things from magazine that I wanted and going on about whether the peach nail polish or the warm raspberry nail polish would be better, and she acted like that was important too. Thanks mom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter loved these Brio magazines for teen girls:

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/brio-magazine/

LOLno.

+1000. No cult reading for my kid.

My mother hated those magazines but I still remember her stopping at CVS on the way home from somewhere to buy me an issue of YM I'd been begging for that had Elijah Wood on the cover. What stuck with me was her willingness to spend money on something totally inane because it would make me happy. I hope my kids will have similar memories.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of those magazines were pretty crappy actually and not very inclusive. Another option might be a magazine called ‘Teen Breathe’ which I picked up at the Amazon store in Bethesda and I felt was very nice quality. Only comes out a few times a year and costs $8 an issue but those other magazines are really just as bad as Us and People.

Sure but they were fun and informative regardless. And many have gotten better in this day and age. So much so that at times it’s hard to find anyone other than a diverse person on the covers! Teen Breathe wouldn’t interest my daughters. They want the fashion, fun, sex talk without parents type of issues. Tick tok and Instagram is just so fragmented and there is not one single source they can truly go to, just like Seventeen and Sassy and Jane used to be. It was the source. It was backed up by doctors and behavior health specialists and were safe havens for teen girls to just privately read and enjoy.

This made me think of my gramma who got me a YM subscription for my birthday when I was younger. She renewed it every year and I never did have the heart to tell her I was too old for it, she would always ask me how I liked my magazine and how happy she was that she got me a present that would make me think of her every month when it came. She had a stroke when I was in law school and my subscription ended which made me so sad, especially since she declined quickly and no longer really remembered who I was unless she was having a really good day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:omg i lived off of Seventeen, YM, and Sassy. Marie Claire and Glamour were later like senior year of high school. And Cosmo (I would read my older sister's) back in those days was the racier of the bunch. lol. I so wish there was an equivalent to YM/Seventeen that my daughter could read. Those magazines were formative for me in learning about style and make-up, health-related/relationship topics, learning about issues of the time impacting young women. My teen gets random bits of information from tiktok and that's just not the same and has zero substance.

Yeah, I often find myself wishing there were some source of advice about personal hygiene and sexual health for my DD that came in the mail in a glossy package rather than out of my mouth. Not that I’m necessarily afraid to talk about these things with her, she just doesn’t want to hear about it from me. And agree that TikTok has taken the place of those magazines, but it’s such a cesspool and can be really bad for them mentally.

I needed those magazines as a kid because my mom did NOT discuss those things with me. I'm very open with my daughter and want her to hear these things from me and not from Tik Tok, as well, but often when we're discussing topics like make-up or hair, she'll say, oh I can watch a tutorial on TT or YouTube and I agree with you--there's so much crap to weed through on there to get something useful out of it.

A lot of those magazines were pretty crappy actually and not very inclusive. Another option might be a magazine called ‘Teen Breathe’ which I picked up at the Amazon store in Bethesda and I felt was very nice quality. Only comes out a few times a year and costs $8 an issue but those other magazines are really just as bad as Us and People.

I remember reading Seventeen back in the 60s. Couldn’t wait for the fall issue to come out each year.

I spent my teen years in Germany in the 1980s haunting our base’s Star’s and Stripes bookstore for the latest issue of Seventeen. It was a little tie to what was going on back home in the days before the internet. I’d be so excited when a new issue came in and remember how I would go home, settle in my room with a snack, and just savor every page.

This is a great thread! Believe it or not, I still have a couple of issues of Sassy that I saved for whatever reason. So glad I did. Does anyone remember Top Model?

Anonymous wrote:Ahhhh, I loved my magazones so much! When my daughter was little, she LOVED American Girl magazine, and I thought it was really well done. There was never a great opiton for her to move onto. (Girls' World is OK, but you know it's not the same.)

American Girl really was a good magazine. Shame there isn't a teen equivalent to that one