Over
the years I’ve acquired 3 permanent scars – the first was from when I
was 1 and weirdly obsessed with my image in the mirror, and fell
backwards holding a full-sized one. The second was when I was 2 and my
house help lost it and almost killed me because I’d sat, with a dirty
diaper, in a bucket of water she’d walked 4 streets to fetch. And the
third from that one time I tried shaping my eyebrows myself at 7 years
old.
Fast forward to a few days ago when I
heard my neighbor practically screaming her head off because her
9-year-old daughter had made the same clumsy mistake I’d made so many
years ago. She’d somehow gotten a hold of a new razor and was shaping
away and cut herself deeply. When asked why she was trying to retouch
her eyebrows, she said she liked what “Aunty Bose” did to her brows when getting ready for church. “It was fine and I want my own to be like that“.
I actually understood her plight. She
has (well, had) those really beautiful full brows that remind me of Lily
Collins or Cara Delevingne that I so crave now; and felt like she was
definitely making a huge mistake. But I had to wonder why she was trying
to be like Aunty Bose at such a young age. I remember when I was 9 and
my Aunt bought me a set of lipsticks – my sisters took everything and
left me with the nude coloured one. And even that one I was only allowed
to use when I turned 13. I didn’t understand then the makeup injustice I
had just been served, I was just upset because they had taken my
present that Aunty gave to me. So it baffled me why she was so concerned
with her appearance.
At what age should our kids start
worrying about beauty or grooming. At the age of 9 if your son comes up
to you and says he wants to use spirit to grow side burns or a beard to
look more mature or your daughter coming to you to ask for money to buy
lip gloss – what would you do or say?
I should say I was lucky because my mum
allowed me go all out for my 13th and I even got goth makeup. Some of my
friends on the other hand didn’t touch a tinted lip gloss till they
were 16 and 18.
I notice nowadays that a lot of women
try to give their kids as much freedom as possible and want them to grow
into young adults. But how much of it should we allow? I’ve seen
3-year-olds with fake lashes, lip stick and penciled-in brows; and
please don’t get me started on the ‘Christmas Hair’ mandate.
When I discussed this with a female
friend of mine she absolutely did not agree with my mum’s choice of
letting me wear makeup at 13. “No oh! That’s too soon! You were
still a small girl. My daughter will not know what they call lipstick
until she is in university. Even then ‘sef’, all this contouring and
Nike eyebrows will be a no no!“. “It’s a no ‘abeg’“. Point taken.
Another aspect is if we aren’t talking
about regular child. For example, in the modelling industry younger
equals better. So does the rule also apply to child models? There are
parents who allow their kids go into modelling at young ages; and in the
modelling world that comes with attention to beauty and grooming. Does
this factor into shielding your kids from caring about their appearance
to soon?
It boils down to this – do we allow our
kids the luxury of being free enough to try new things with beauty and
grooming and hope for the best, or do we control as much of that aspect
as we can and still hope for the best? Do we let our kids be free and
learn from their experiences; after all it took me a bloody face to know
you don’t mix eyebrows and razors. Does becoming a teenager
automatically qualify you to take beauty into your own hands or do you
need to be at least 18 or older? How much restriction should a child
have when it comes to beauty & grooming?
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