Pretty Baby isn’t just a movie

I’m a big believer in the right of children to be children. I assumed all parents felt the same, until I overheard a mother at Julie’s 6th grade Halloween party lamenting the fact that her daughter didn’t have a steady boyfriend yet. That “unattached” girl was 12 years old. That seems mild in comparison to what some mothers are doing.

From Philadelphia Magazine:

“It’s not just to get them ready for their big party,” says Albert. “It’s like, ‘Okay, you’re becoming a woman now, here are the things you’ll need to do as a woman.’”

Except, of course, they’re not women. This new, unstoppable desire of mothers to pluck and paint their daughters has created an unexpected conundrum for spa owners and aestheticians, who can’t afford to lose the moms’ lucrative business — but who also don’t want to be partners in crime. When moms book appointments to get their preteens waxed at Pierre & Carlo European Salon & Spa inside the Bellevue in Center City, owner Joseph Cutrufello makes it a point to run through with them exactly what will be happening to their child (read: pain, sweating, high ­probability of ensuing red bumps on young, sensitive, not-in-need-of-a-wax skin). At Bernard’s Salon & Day Spa in Cherry Hill, it wasn’t enough to simply suggest to moms that it’s not the best idea to apply harsh chemicals to the scalps and hair of their six-year-olds just to make their hair “more blond.” “We’ve flat-out told mothers that highlighting such a young girl’s hair is a bad idea, and something we’d rather not do,” says Carla Ciociola-Toppi, the spa’s marketing director. “But so many mothers push anyway that now we have them sign a waiver.” The waiver basically states that the spa prefers not to perform various services on children, that the mom understands this, and that she decrees it happen anyway.

I can’t imagine getting me bikini waxed, let alone my 10-year-old. Most 4th graders don’t even have public hair to remove; I can only surmise that it’s an effort to get them used to the trials they’ll have to face when their women. But womanhood doesn’t have to be painful. I’m not counting piercings here, since that’s a non-gendered decoration. My biggest female vanity is perming my hair, which is uncomfortable because of the need to sit still for 3 hours. I used to get my eyebrows waxed, but since I got a piercing there that hasn’t been practical. So I just tweeze stray hairs from time to time. A couple of times a year I spring for the luxury of a $12 manicure. That’s it. I’ve never even had a pedicure — I have ethical problems with paying a woman to kneel at my feet–so I paint my own toes. That’s it.

I’ve been likewise as conservative with my daughters as I am with myself. As preschoolers they played dress up, and when asked I would paint their fingers and toes with peel off, non-toxic polish. Once they got to age 10, they got real nail polish, if they were interested. In middle school they were allowed to wear a little makeup if they wanted to, which neither of them did. In their 20s they still don’t, and are beautiful just as they are.

We had a few little feminine milestones, but they were non-invasive. At 17, before their senior pic shooting sessions, I offered to take them for an eyebrow wax (Julie went for it, Mere declined) and to the chain salon in my neighborhood for a manicure. The photography studio had a makeup woman, who used a light touch so they wouldn’t be washed out by the lights. The last big rite of passage was accompanying Julie to a funky salon in Tucson to have her hair done up for her wedding.

So it’s pretty obvious I’m the last mother who would subject a kid to a bikini wax or God forbid, a Brazilian. I’m far more interested in raising them to appreciate and love their bodies just the way they are than I am in indoctrinating them in self-abusive rituals. If, as adults, they choose to opt for different beauty regimes than I do, it’s none of my business. It’s their bodies.

But that’s their adult bodies, and their decisions. Children deserve to be children, not plastic dolls. If a mother wants to play prepubescent make-over, let her go buy a Malibu Barbie and her boyfriend Ken, and leave her daughter alone to swing on the monkey bars at recess.

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