Me, full of character at 5. Thanks Mom!
I heard on the news recently about a woman who gave her 8-year-old daughter Botox injections. Botox! This comes on the heels of the announcement that Abercrombie & Fitch is now selling push-up bra tops for little girls.
What is the matter with parents today?
When I was a kid, all that mattered was that our private bits were covered, and that we were reasonably clean and neat for school and church. Anything more than that was gilding the lily, and would make a child vain and uppity.
My mom cut my hair, as did the mother of every other girl I knew. If your mom used styling aids such as a bowl or tape to get the bangs straight, you were skating dangerously close to “well, la-di-da!” territory.
On haircut day, Mom would line us girls up for a turn on the stool, towels around our necks. We all had bangs, and they were tricky to cut. Mom combed them down; snip, snip, and then stood back to assess her work. Invariably one end was higher than the other. Back she came; snip, snip, and then a new assessment.
This went on until you had about ½ inch of hair sticking out of your forehead. Then you were done. Not because the bangs were even, but because Mom had run out of raw material.
If anyone suggested you take your kids to a stylist, they would be suspected of anti-American subversion. Children didn’t go to the beauty salon, for God’s sake! Only grown women went there, once a week, to get away from their kids.
Having a lousy haircut was seen as character building. Every year’s school picture was a testament to the high level of my character.
My Dad took the boys down the basement to his workroom for their turn with the stool and the towel. Instead of scissors, however, Dad used the electric razor. A few passes over their heads and they were good to go. ½ inch of hair all around was the de rigueur summer haircut for all boys.
We girls couldn’t resist the rough/soft feel of our brothers’ newly shorn heads, much to their disgust.
The basic setup was the same when Dad took the boys down the basement for “The Big Talk” about the facts of life – minus the razor. I guess Dad felt most comfortable taking care of father/son business among cans of nails and half-done repair projects. Mom wouldn’t let us eavesdrop, but I understand “The Big Talk” was short on mechanics and long on responsibility, all summed up by the pithy command to “keep it in your pants”. Words to live by.
Children today might benefit from some one-on-one stool time with their parents.
Botox wears off, $120 highlights grow out, and sexy lingerie is thrown away. Encouraging thriftiness, personal responsibility and an appreciation for oneself that goes beyond the cosmetic may be a better investment.
Good character lasts forever.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
Well said!
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Thank you!
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Be a ★
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First, let me say that you were a cutie, despite the short bangs. Second, I find the whole idea of injecting one’s face with a paralyzing poison solely for cosmetic purposes to be really really sick. To botox a little girl leaves me dumbfounded and I hope child protective services is investigating. What’s wrong with people???
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I guess the little girl has been taken away from her mom. Sick, sick, sick!
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As always, great post! It is my feeling that all of this “vanity” stuff lavished on prepubescent girls is so damaging to their long term self esteeem. It seems like the age for makeup, highlights and professional mani/pedis is getting younger and younger.
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I so agree. Sexualizing kids younger and younger creates all kinds of problems for them and for society.
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Love it! Brings back memories of character building – standing in front of the mirror crying because I had no bangs left, but realizing that it was only short lived (hair grows, as my mother would say).
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I think time gilds our memories so we don’t remember how truly awful we felt with those terrible haircuts!
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My mother gave me perms. First one when I was in second grade. Second one three months later.
Yyyyyeah. (My hair was one of the major things about my appearance that my mother couldn’t stop disliking.)
I don’t get it, though. “Society should be less sexualized! Here, honey, try on this bikini even though you’re five. And don’t get fat, but here, wear these sweats with ‘Juicy’ written on the ass.” Don’t get it at all, really. It’s a wonder any of us makes it out alive.
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Behaviour and dress that used to get people ostracized, or at least frowned upon, now gets them their own TV show. It’s a sad but predictable outgrowth of that trend that moms who want their daughters to succeed, now encourage them to adopt the new requirement for success – being sexy.
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I got those Toni perms, too. As well as the haircuts. So, my sister and I had wild ‘fros with burned little match-stick bangs. I honestly didn’t care (except for the chemical burns). I was too busy beating up boys on the playground.
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I’m sure that was character building for the boys.
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You and I had the same haircut, Peggy. I used to like running my hand up the back of the little boy’s head who sat in front of me in Grade 2, so I could feel the bristles…I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to do it to my little brother!
As the mom/stepmom of 4 girls and gramma of one, this news story makes me sad. There is so much pressure on girls today, and bullying is even more prevalent. Hopefully, this little girl will receive psychological counselling to reverse the brainwashing her sick mother is subjecting her to…
Wendy
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Now the mother is saying it was all a hoax. That she was paid by a tabloid to pretend she did this so they could record all the hullabaloo, I guess. That’s almost worse – to expose her kid to all this to make a few $$.
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I’m glad you explained the technique for how your mom cut your bangs. My hairdresser did much the same to my hair last week, and now I understand how it happened…
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My mom never claimed to have any sort of training and didn’t charge me for the cut. Same for your hairdresser?
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No, the hairdresser has lots of training, and has never done anything like this to me before. But she and my husband decided I should have a haircut that was different than anything else I had ever had. It will be fine once the bangs grow back in a bit…
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That will teach you to let your husband in on the hairstyle decision!
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I have a four year old and I shudder to think what will happen when she grows up! I was disgusted when I first read of the Abercombie’s push up bras. And then we wonder why our society is filled with sexual predators?
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I figure it can’t get much worse. But that might just be wishful thinking.
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I rarely wish for people to get struck by lightning, but the Botox Mom? I’d zap her myself if I could. I got a horrendous “pixie” do from my mother when I was six. What looked like a god awful haircut I later learned was a lesson in shaking off insults and the power of headbands 🙂
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How much later did you learn that valuable lesson? Because while I was in the haircut trenches, I didn’t fully appreciate my mom’s genius. Took a couple, maybe 20 years.
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My Dad cut my hair when I was little, and my sisters. I thought I had the shortest bangs in the ’70s until I read this. I feel your pain!
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And I feel yours. Dad was probably worse than Mom at haircuts!
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The more nervous Mom became, the worse the haircut. I finally solved the problem in junior high by telling her that I wanted long hair. I think it was a relief to us both. In my earlier years I was too busy sliding down hills on the seat of my pants, swinging from grape vines, and traipsing through the woods with my brothers to care that my hair was an inch and a half shorter on one side than the other.
Sexy? What was that? I don’t think I even heard the word before I was twelve. But now, foolish parents and the clothing and entertainment industries are robbing America’s children of their childhood by pushing sexual maturity upon little ones who should be playing in mud puddles or building snowmen in the yard.
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Sounds like you were Tarzan as a child.
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This was a good post 🙂 its true society is all becoming obsessed with looks frankly I think its downright unhealthy
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I agree 100%. Now excuse me, I have to get my lips plumped.
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