www.phillymag.com/articles/pretty_babies/page5
Page 5 of 6 Helping out your kid whose cosmetic/semi-medical problem is causing low self-esteem is respectable, as is spending time with her in ways other than loading up the shopping cart with mini-me Juicy. But somewhere along the line -- well, the line gets crossed. We slip down the slope, and we're back to seeing eight-year-olds waxing nothing but, um, skin, 10-year-olds requesting certain therapists for their Saturday-afternoon massages, and early-onset Botox. "I do think, in some ways, this started as mothers and daughters spending time together, maybe getting their nails painted -- but then it morphed into something else," Hillman says. "A lot of times, these girls' mothers have unresolved issues of their own -- even perhaps an unresolved eating disorder -- and are taking control over making some aspect of their daughter perfect. As beauty treatments become a habit, kids start to think this magazine-cover ideal is normal -- and so is being pampered all the time. It's like a way of coping, an external support system," Hillman says. The Phoenix's Keating, who sees nine-year-olds in her spa on a regular basis, says she'd refuse any spa-going request by her own nine-year-old daughter, save for nail-painting as a treat. Klein takes her almost-12-year-old daughter into spas for the occasional cleansing facial ("Good skin care is a habit, and I'd like her to learn that habit early"), but draws the line at other spa services (mommy-daughter manis excluded). "She has her whole life to do what she wants," she says. "I want her to make those decisions about her body for herself, when she's an adult. Plus, I know so many girls who go into debt in college trying to keep up with all of this -- the spa treatments, the nice clothes. They feel like all this superficial BS is so important." And it's not just an expensive spa habit young women are learning at the hands of their moms, Hillman says. "When you're under the age of 16, change implies that something is wrong," she says. "So you have to be very careful about the message you send to your kids. They need acceptance to build confidence, and when you're bringing them in at a young age -- especially when it comes to the bikini wax -- you're telling them that part of their pubescent bodies shouldn't be there.
Technorati User comments utterly disgusting Mar 28, 2008 at 11:00 AM Posted by Anonymous The rich get richer and more abominable. I feel sorry for these girls and the emotionally damaged, scarred women they will inevitably become. "Pretty Disgusting" Mar 31, 2008 at 1:02 PM Posted by R Davies I just finished reading the article, "Pretty Babies" and was thinking it must be an April Fools joke. As a mother who lives in Wayne and has a 5 year old daughter I was disgusted by the thought of these kids being taken in for "upkeep" services usually reserved for women in their 20's and older. Look I get a 9 year old with a unibrow or terrible acne - there can be exceptions. Does the mother of the 7 year old really think her daughter's hair is not the right shade? My daughter's hair could never be more beautiful - soft and untouched. What's being done to these kids is serving them up a big helping of never being good enough. Do we really need an entire generation of girls thinking the only way top look pretty is to visit a spa for regular treatments - breeding the next generation of stone-faced Botox users - with no natural beauty to be found? I am 40 years old, had my first manicure at 30 and, amazingly enough, think I look great. When I was 15 my girlfriends and I bought a Let little girls be little girls for as long as possible! My 12-year old daughter has been a 36 B (almost C) since last year! There are apparently too many hormones in our food these days, causing early maturity and little girls don't quite know what to do with their developing bodies. The pressure they receive from their peers doesn't make it any easier to be the supportive mom - talking sense into their little minds. I have mainly focused on reminding my daughter that she only has one face all her life and she should take good care of it by keeping it cleaned, toned and moisturized. When she has an outbreak of pimples, I tell her she is still beautiful. We must remember, these are just little girls in women's bodies and treat them as the innocents they should remain for as long as they can. I hope more salons will get some balls and say no to these Freakish Mom's. If any of you Freakish Mom's are reading this-get yourself some help. Become a hairy hippie as soon as possible to flip off Mom! Obviously it is the symbolism of status that these rituals offer to the mother that is driving the early training efforts. It started years ago with plastic surgery for sweet sixteens, and long before that when we pierced our baby girls ears to make sure everyone knew they were girls. as long as our society rewards beauty and youth, mothers will be compelled to prepare their daughters for what they have experienced is the reality of being female. Plus, moms get to dress up their own little versions of themselves, like a doll (as in, my doll is prettier than your doll). There are a lot of people who call to try to get appointments for their young daughters, and I think it's disgusting. Does Philadelphia Magazine plan to stop accepting ads from salons that provide serice like these to tweens? This is child abuse and the mothers should be thrown in Jail for it. In short, the salon should have reported the parent to the Child Welfare Agency. Now the salon and the parent should both pay for the childs' psychiatric care. Or is the psychiatric care now considered a "normal" activity for a child. org for all the latest headlines about school teachers involved in sex scandals. How wide-spread could this problem possibly be if there are no statistics? Certainly if there were some numbers available we would have read them here. She does have a lot to say about her own past, but she could be making it all up. Maybe the author had a bad bikini wax when she was 12 and now she has an axe to grind. Before we get all hysterical, let's have a moment to think about and dissect what we read. the only thing that makes me smile about this article is that, for once, us men cannot in anyway be blamed for this atrocity. Why is it that when girls do it it's always someone elses fault but when boys do it it's their own responsibility?
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