Makeup and Little Girls: What Message Are We Sending?
As we stood in line, waiting for our turn with Santa yesterday, I watched a woman apply full makeup to her 6 year old.
Blush, eye shadow, and a finale of red lip gloss.
To see Santa.
And as I stood there, all I could think was how wrong it felt.
When I Facebooked what I had seen, my friend Emily Bilbrey replied with a comment that summarizes how I felt perfectly…
the worst part is, that kid is going to grow up thinking (being told) that she needs the makeup to look pretty. absolutely ridiculous! i can’t imagine putting an idea like that into my daughter’s head. ):
That’s exactly it.
Earlier this year, before my daughter’s ballet recital, I wrote about the message that I feel we send our daughters when we put makeup on them.
To avoid being washed out under harsh stage lighting or as preparation to visit to Santa…what are we teaching our daughters?
Then, today, I saw this video that serves as an excellent example of how we might be encouraging our daughters to act older than they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=23NBQNWCoao
Whether we apply the makeup or videotape them acting like adults*, what message are we sending them?
I’d love to know what your thoughts are.
At what age should girls be allowed to wear makeup?
Do you allow it under certain circumstances and not others?
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*Though I do realize that the video was meant to be light hearted and the little girl is super cute, I feel that the video is representative of a larger problem.
My husband and I don’t think young children should be allowed to wear makeup. Our girls wear lip gloss on occasion but even that is more than my husband likes and it comes from someone else. Even for myself I rarely wear makeup beyond chapstick.
Oh, you hit my hot button here. I have a 13 year old and I have VERY gradually let her wear a bit of makeup each year. But it’s never enough for her…and I hate seeing the little ones feel that they NEED makeup to be pretty.
Your girl is absolutely beautiful already. I don’t know how I will approach this in the future (if I do end up with a daughter).
I personally wear makeup every time Ieave the house. I admit that this is partly due to self esteem problems, but these days it’s less about fooling strangers and more about having fun dressing up. I don’t knowthe meaning ofcasual :p I love my sparkly eyeshadow.
As far as makeup for performing goes, it shouldn’tbe about ‘being pretty’. Stage lights and distance make faces look more like blobs, t really is about making their features visible. Obviously on a small stage with medium lights this won’t be much of an issue, though. It’s nuts how stage makeup looks perfectly normal from the audience position but freaky and almost clown like (depending on how intense the makeup is) up close.
Hmmm, I am bad with the makeup (on myself). I wear it every day. My kids see me put it on, and Abbey likes to play “makeup store” where I let her put make-up on me. I let her wear “lipstick”, which is really just chapstick or softlips, but it’s still something. I let her paint her nails, but Ryan doesn’t even like that.
I don’t have a problem with the recital makeup, because I think she honestly understands it’s part of the costume. We talked about it, and she never, ever asks to put on the makeup we used for the recital, even when she’s playing dress up.
My thoughts, as of now, are maybe middle school for a little bit of light makeup? Lipgloss? A little mascara? I don’t know. I struggle with it, because I LOVE makeup, but I don’t want her to think she needs it. Ever.
That is absolutely ridiculous. I haven’t even thought about when I will let Sadie wear make-up. Maybe start with lip gloss at age 13? I have no idea…..
I wear makeup almost every day and my daughter sees me putting it on. She’s almost 3 and I paint her nails regularly and let her wear lip gloss when she asks for it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And honestly, if she asked me to put eyeshadow on her for the holidays or her birthday party or something like that, I would. At her age, she likes it because she thinks it’s pretty, not that it makes her pretty.
gross
My 5 year old daughter knows that she is not allowed to wear makeup until she is a teenager. I see her watching me put on my makeup and studying everything I do and in the back of my mind I wonder what message I am sending her every time I cover up my face. I do my best to talk to her about character and intelligence but also what beauty is. It is not lipstick but who you are as a person. I don’t think 5 is too early to start ingraining this type of thinking into a little girl’s mind! If we as parents don’t then someone else will and it will most likely be a message we don’t want them to hear!
Nichele, this is such a great question! What a great piece. My daughter is already curious about makeup, and she’s only two (when she sees me wearing it once a week), but I see allowing her to wear lip gloss (that’s it) only when she is 12 or 13. I’m sure one day when she sees her fellow 8-year-old peers wearing eyeliner it will make it that much more challenging to make my case, but we parents must stand our ground on these issues. I understand that the video was meant to be cute and lighthearted but the scene of this little one drinking “wine” while watching “Sex in the City” made my stomach turn.
To continue the conversation, I recently wrote a review of the show “Toddlers and Tiaras” about this very issue: http://4realmoms-reelmama.blogspot.com/2011/09/wildly-inappropriate-parenting-toddlers.html
I invite your readers to check it out!