Very young girls these days are turning into women right before our eyes. Just last week CNN reported how today’s girls are beginning puberty as early as 7. The cause for this change is unclear but it’s thought to be attributed in part to chemicals in foods and “other environmental factors”. With the onset of puberty, challenges arise and increased hair growth is one.
Unwanted hair is a real problem of course, specifically in certain places. Traditionally adults simply purchase a razor or make a waxing appointment and off we go. However, there’s a deeper issue developing with the hairless look. It’s not just about wishing to shave away from our monkey see, monkey do evolution. Unless hair is on our head, body hair on women (specifically) just ain’t pretty according to the beauty industry and the billions of dollars behind it.
Have we gone too far though when we sell adult women on the idea of waxing services for children as young as 8 years old with garbage such as this by New York City salon, Wanda’s European Skin Care Center?
Virgin hair can be waxed so successfully that growth can be permanently stopped in just 2 to 6 sessions. Save your child a lifetime of waxing…and put the money in the bank for her college education instead!” (source)
Virgin hair?! What a trade off and in fact, what a sell out to young girls. We at LS have already discussed the aesthetics, purpose and preference of female pubic hair on adult women but the idea of bikini waxes on 8 to 12 year old girls just doesn’t hold the same level of debatable fun. No need to ask why. Many might even agree with Marc Randazza:
I realize that I am a dad of a young girl, and one day I am going to have to simply accept that she has become a sexually active young woman. I can brace myself for that. But, if any sick bitch like the owner of Wanda’s places her hands on Natalia when she is 8 years old, I will not use my law degree to deal with the problem. I will slap that bitch so hard that she’ll turn inside fucking out.”
I hear ya. It’s enough I’ve been frustrated for years about the lack of responsibility child-geared media and businesses take with respect to young girls and boys and what I view as basic disrespect towards childhood in and of itself. No matter how I try to feed childhood to my kids, the external world doesn’t seem to let them be kids.
This extends further out than offering waxings. It goes into the heart of how kids are treated versus what is fed to them. Any adult can attest that the messages are in fact confusing. Basically if you have a young child you are bombarded with grown up stuff made child accessible or “child-size”. For girls trends hit waxings and Botox:
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 12,000 teens received Botox injections in the last year. (source)
For kids these days, what exactly do they have to look forward to as adults that they can’t do or attain or have access to during their childhood to teen years?
One core issue here is that girls are under the influence of adult problems packaged up to meet “needs” of youth when most youth wouldn’t even know they apparently needed it if it weren’t for the beauty, fashion and entertainment industry selling them such ideas! Kids aren’t prepared for the realities of adulthood nor should be. But why am I explaining it to you. You understand. So why do those in power seats that guide our children not get the obvious? Well, to borrow from the feared or loved Lady Gaga, it’s “money, honey“.
If the entire beauty bullshit didn’t start with pre-school conditioning by Strawberry Shortcake aka 21st Century redheaded bimbo (watch if you can stand it) or Dora the Explorer the Tramp, now a “tween” version showing a more fresh look for optimal marketability and profits or the myriad of other product lines sold to children, parenthood might actually be easier on the wallet and more beautiful in itself because us parents might have a chance to discover the pure and natural beauty of childhood from the way it’s supposed to be. I feel privileged my generation still had access to innocence; we don’t get to frolic in that state long enough.
The fleeting existence of innocence is what makes childhood to pre-teen age the most spectacular state of mind to experience. Why then is it severely undervalued and why are women obsessed with youthful beauty? Because our culture believes the old should look young and the young should look older. This philosophy sits on profit not truth but no age is immune to the power of marketing and capitalistic opportunity and don’t be fooled it’s ever because the beauty industry actually cares if you save your kids’ waxing money on a college fund. Beauty is business first. If there’s any truth to send out to young girls, that’s it.
