A topic I wish to discuss with you today is the preening and pampering of children; even those so young they have only just stopped wearing a diaper. By preening and pampering, I don’t mean your regular hygiene routines of bathing and powdering bottoms. It is the eyebrow plucking, the fingernail painting and the lipstick bearing tots that concerns me.
This topic has been troubling me ever since I read an article about an Australian researcher and author of the book ‘What’s Happening To Our Girls’. She has been spending some time traveling around Australia to give talks over the sexualization of young girls, and I’m sure we can all pick out examples of this sexualization; it is, in essence, the act of dressing and making up young girls who make them mature more rapidly than they probably should.
Girls as young as five and six parading around in high heels, a ten year old wearing a thong bikini on your last vacation, manicures, pedicures and make-up on girls too young to know their gloss from their matte.
The message that Maggie Hamilton is trying to get out there is this – it is the sexualization of young girls who can and will lead to cases of sexting, oral sex and other sexual behavior before what is considered an acceptable age.
Is Maggie taking it too far or are we taking it too far? Should, for instance, a girl not quite into her teens be denied a wax if she is being teased about her mono-brow? Does this example class as sexualization? I want to know your thoughts – what are the boundaries of preening and pampering our daughters and should we be concerned that some beauty rituals or clothing will make them sexually mature before their time.
Credit: PinkStock
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