At the time that the concept of adolescence was becoming institutionalized in America, "Tearing Open the Rosebud" warns that young women were being forced to grow up too fast--a theme explored elsewhere in The Youth's Companion in such pieces as "Miss Before Teens." Compare it, however, with the advice given to teenaged boys in "Boys of Sixteen."

http://www.merrycoz.org/yc/ROSEBUD.HTM

[Variety] TEARING OPEN THE ROSEBUD (from The Youth's Companion, June 8, 1848, p. 24)

Certainly one of the signs of "these bad times" is what I call tearing open the rosebud. We seem anxious to leave as little time as possible, between childhood and womanhood. We cut short by every means in our power, that precious season when the mind is gradually opening to the cares of the life, and by books and company we often hurry our children into those cares, before we have prepared them how to conduct themselves under them.


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