Want to know if another generation of kids is headed for holy hellfire? According to Salon's Broadsheet, just check out Newsweek.
Broadsheet's Amy Benfer has pulled Newsweek
articles from now, the late nineties, early nineties and the eighties
that all say the same thing: today's tween girls are growing up too
fast, they're skankier than the previous generation of tween girls,
they know too much about naughty things, aaaack. Avert your eyes!
What prompted the rant? A Newsweek article on Generation Diva, a comment on the trainwreck that is TLC's Toddlers and Tiaras that attempts to define the new normal as "a generation that primps and dyes and pulls and
shapes, younger and with more vigor."
Author Jessica Bennett says, "Girls today are salon vets before
they enter elementary school. Forget having mom trim your bangs, fourth graders are in the market for
lush $50 haircuts; by the time they hit high school, $150 highlights
are standard. Five-year-olds have spa days and pedicure parties. And
instead of shaving their legs the old-fashioned way—with a 99-cent
drugstore razor—teens get laser hair removal, the most common cosmetic
procedure of that age group."
First thing Broadsheet's
Benfer points out is exactly what I thought when reading the article -
how many parents have the money for $50 haircuts for themselves, not to
mention their kids? Granted, I'm now bald,
but even before that, my haircuts have always been under $20. Throw in
an occasional eyebrow wax (which, yes, is a luxury that I have clung to
more as a mom who needs SOMETHING of my own), and we're still under $30
- with tip. My daughter, meanwhile, has had two haircuts in her three,
almost four, years of life: one when she was under a year to cut the
dark colored newborn tips off the ingrowing blonde baby hair, the
second to clean up her own "fix it" job to her hair.
Frankly - I
don't see a problem with having taken her to a salon.Technically,
neither cut cost us a dime because the hairdresser was a close friend,
but I would have paid (tried to pay) to have my daughter's hair cut by
a professional - in part so I could do the mom thing and take pictures
of her first cut and in part so I didn't have to hold her still,
concentrate on cutting in straight lines, make something out of the
mess she'd made. It was WORTH IT to me to take her to a salon instead
of doing it myself. Does that mean I've set her up to put beauty above
brains or made her vain? Nonsense!
She gets her toenails
painted too - usually by my mother, who delights in their at home girls
night bonding sessions. I guess that's technically a pedicure party,
but is that really that bad either? I loved having my toenails painted
when I was her age too - by my babysitter, who ironically now owns her
own nail salon - and if you'll remember, I'm the mom who shaved her head . . . I'm hardly your beauty-obsessed airhead.
Which
is the real issue here - how a mother looks at beauty. If she's
struggling in this economy and pulling out $150 for highlights, she's
the monster creating a monster. If she's putting her kid on Toddlers
and Tiaras, she's just a plain old monster.
But if she's letting
her three-year-old wear nail polish because it's sparkly, and she just
wants to sparkle . . . she's letting kids be kids.
Image: Amazon (read it - it's hilarious)
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