Some of this is so extreme you just can't imagine it: There's a story in Philadelphia Magazine (via Jezebel) about moms who take their kids to spas for treatments. As in, bikini waxes, and we're talking about an eight-year-old. (And yes, they discuss the fact that an eight-year-old probably has no pubic hair to wax.) And teens getting botoxed. Ten-year-olds with aesthetician-created, perfectly arched brows. Six-year-olds getting weekly blowouts. Yeeeugh. Clearly something has gone horribly awry here.
The author says it's a slippery slope though. How many moms start off with the mani-pedi bonding experience with their girls? And if your ten-year-old gets teased about acne, is it so wrong to take her for weekly facials? As a mom who has been fairly permissive on the nail polish front, I thought hard about this one. Here's where I draw lines: When my kid and I lounge at home and do the nail painting thing, it's about being goofy, like playing dress-up. I let her coat my toes in blue lacquer. But when the goal is to present some bizarre idealized image of perfection to the outside world, when spa treatments become simply necessary upkeep because heaven forbid the world sees you with stray brow hairs, and that's something girls as young as ten need a mommy lesson in, then I think it has moved over into yikes.
There's some discussion of the necessity of going through the "ugly" phase of youth as crucial for learning self-acceptance. I think we have such a narrow vision of beauty if it doesn't allow full brows and necessitates some freaky pre-emptive strike against frown lines. It's not just about stealing your daughter's childhood, it's also about the imposing the most bizarre of standards--Don't get wrinkles, don't have body hair, look at all times like the boring celebrities you see in magazines. Clearly many of the moms in the story see their girls as extensions of themselves, and that's a far cry from aiding your pre-teen with a few pimples.
