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Newsweek: Are We Turning Our Kids into Generation Diva?

Okay, even Newsweek is talking about it: female American kids being super duper obsessed with the way they look and getting treatments to look more attractive is the norm. Apparently it is now standard for little kids to get haircuts that cost the same as 20 comic books. That’s 50$ to normal people. That is lunch for a work week spent on getting your ten-year-old’s hair did.

Consider this: according to a NEWSWEEK examination of the most common beauty trends, by the time your 10-year-old is 50, she’ll have spent nearly $300,000 on just her hair and face. …today’s girls are getting caught up in the beauty maintenance game at ages when they should be learning how to read—and long before their beauty needs enhancing. Twenty years ago, a second grader might have played clumsily with her mother’s lipstick, but she probably didn’t insist on carrying her own lip gloss to school.

Is it really that bad now? Just in the big cities or everywhere?

I admit I was totes intrigued by the idea of keeping lip-covering substances on my person at all times, but I didn’t actually put it on because it tasted bad and rubbed off in a few minutes time. When kids go beyond the comfort of being okay with their own body into the world of never being good enough before their bodies are developed — mentally as well as physically — how do they create a stable self-image? Appearance continues to change over time, and when something isn’t “right,” when something happens to tip the little microcosm in their brain to instability, how are they going to react? Is this a simple case of retail therapy training, or are we going to push the kiddles into the brain meds a bit more quickly due to the incomplete feeling created by the ideal image? How are people managing their bodies? How attainable are their beauty or health goals? Is health even part of the equation?

MANY QUESTIONS THAT I CANNOT ANSWER.

Both men and women have enough body issues and insecurities without the addition of a huge body inferiority complex. It’s called being a teenager — wanting to fit into society. There are those who pointedly go the opposite of mainstream acceptance and end up being put into the category of (extreme) counterculture or (lightly) going through a phase. Either way, we all fit somewhere. As far as I experience, that’s what normal is. It can be an active or passive process.

Being okay with the way oneself appears is an indirectly learned thing. Idk if it’s being taught well if at all. I’m guessing it’s becoming a “do as I say, not as I do” type of lesson. Saying everyone should like their own body sounds great, but when the same people saying it spend an hour on makeup in the morning, or covering their graying hair with color while making a fuss about it, it sounds a tad disingenuous.

This other part of the article makes me wonder how much is amped up anti-media propaganda and how much is real. But what if it is real… this sucks.

these days, body dissatisfaction begins in grammar school. According to a 2004 study by the Dove Real Beauty campaign, 42 percent of first- to third-grade girls want to be thinner, while 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of getting fat. “When you have tweens putting on firming cream”—as was revealed by 1 percent of girls in an NPD study—”it’s clear they’re looking for imaginary flaws,” says Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff. [link added]

I want to know how big these studies are and where they happened because I refuse to think it’s actually going on. Da Nile. I’m in it. This commercial, however, continues to rock.

Further digging reveals some fun articles on body image and how little girls are learning how to interpret body hair. This article on MSNBC talks about ten-year-olds getting bikini waxes and one salon’s “virgin” wax deal. People are getting their kids dehaired early on to “permanently” remove pubic hair because their mothers tell them it is ugly. It becomes considered a deformity. Half the time the kids probably aren’t fully developed or aware of how their body acts in adult form.

Isn’t it enough to accept a body as being imperfect, and the imperfections give it interesting parts to learn and explore? Telling her the way her body grows is gross seems like an awful lot of stress to put on a kid. Idk. I’m throwing a lot of loaded questions out here.

Shit like this is easier said than done when kids really do have a lot of body hair early in life. Any time in life really… additional hair can give people complexes. Me and my full face of hair know that. I keep it in check. I pluck, shave, and wax random parts of my body so that I look good according to the accepted concept of attractive. I’ve had laser facial hair removal six times only to have it grow back with a vengeance. Really the only hair that bugs me is on my face. The rest I leave alone half the time. My body was programmed to have it. But then, my ovaries are programmed to create multiple large cysts that create their own painfests of inconsistent popping, literally making my body sick until it passes. Maybe the programming isn’t always right.

Who am I to tell an eight-year-old to not worry about the hair on her legs when she’s as middle eastern as I am and getting made fun of for looking different? Besides somebody speaking from experience, just another adult trying to fight the good fight. While waxing my tummy.

There’s an in between somewhere in all of this.

I have room for one diva in my life, and she is covered in hair.

Are We Turning Our Kids into Generation Diva? newsweek
dove campaign for real beauty
Bikini Babies: Preteens and Summer Body Image recipestoday.com
Too young? Preteen girls get leg, bikini waxes msnbc

DID YOU KNOW: Fiona thinks she is a bracelet.

DID YOU KNOW: She is not a bracelet.

(11:44:54 PM) SJ: cats are freaky in that if you see them fro mthe side you can see the crease of their mouths
(11:45:01 PM) SJ: and they are like cartoon joker smile mouths
(11:45:04 PM) SJ: with pointy teeth
(11:45:50 PM) letme: VAMPIRES
(11:45:52 PM) letme: each and every one

edit:

No, not a redesign, don’t get that excited. I have added a Past Work section, as well as updated my Recent Work. Check ‘em out and be disgusted.

When the thermostat of Urbana decided to turn upupup with big time humidity and stay there, i was ready for the heat. i had been waiting. finally it had come. I didn’t have a problem with not turning on the air — leave the sliding door open and the front door to create a breeze and sleep with the fan on me. Saving energy by not turning on the air, i’m a genius! Wrong. I has a cat. Battlecat started laying around looking like a dead slut. She wasn’t as chirpy as normal. As much as i liked the quiet, i’m pretty sure i was killing my cat or at the very least making her miserable. SO. How to keep her cool.

I looked up kitties on the internet and found that cats keep cool by sweating through their paws (teeny surface area) and panting (only when it’s really bad). They lay around to conserve energy and groom constantly to create a cooling effect by their saliva evaporating from their fur. Well i had to help my bitchy cat. I came up with an idea, i hope i’m not the first: brushing her with a damp brush.

Battlecat does not enjoy brushing. she will sit for about fifteen seconds before she tires of my vain attempt to keep hair from getting all over my place and her developing hairballs. WELL i wet the bristles of the brush and brushed her during one of her death poses and she make a HUWHAAAAAA face. And she let me brush her for a good minute. The brush was dry by then. I’m fairly certain it works because i will brush her about three times a day and she willingly sits for me. She’ll even turn around so i get everywhere, and she smashes her face into it so i get her head. If you try this on your cat, don’t be put down by her not reacting. Battlecat acts like it ain’t no thang when i’m done each time, but her change of heart on brushing tells me it helps.

Since this discovery i have broken down and turned the A/C on because a cat looking like a dead whore is the opposite of fun. Now she’s gone back to looking annoyingly bored all the time. If only i could get it down to 75F. at least it’s not 85F.

it’s extremely warm and humid. i’m stuck on the craptop while the real laptop gets work done on its imperfections. NEVERTHELESS it is slightly alarming to turn around to see my cat laying like this on the floor behind me.

perspective builder eh eh.

listening to The Slip yay.