spas

My friend Nora Rocket brought the following article from Philadelphia Magazine to my attention: Pretty Babies by Carrie Denny - a report on a new trend that is honestly terrifying to me. Like, worse than puppy mills.

The article focuses on the new phenomenon of pre-pubescent girls - some as young as eight - showing up with their moms at the spa for treatments ranging from manicures to eyebrow plucking to Botox treatments to dye jobs to bikini waxes. These girls may never see their awkward stage, may never understand that not being perfect is okay, and may never feel comfortable in their bodies unless they are tanned, waxed, and made up.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a grandmother here, inching along in her walker and commenting on kids these days, but I’m pretty sure this is a serious problem for women. I’m not going to quote from the article - it’s too quotable for that - but you should read it, especially if you have kids or are even considering reproducing.

I’ve seen the same types of things in New York, which is probably the world’s motherhive of utterly ridiculous consumerist culture. Just last weekend, as Ben and I were eating at a restaurant, a girl at the table next to us threw a temper tantrum about getting her “mani and pedi.” I’m guessing this girl was seven. And although I know I’m not supposed to judge people or tell people how to raise their kids, but that ain’t right. At seven, your kids should only be throwing temper tantrums for popsicles.

I’m not sure what is worse about the scenario: the fact that these girls are learning to be utterly self-involved and self-conscious or that these treatments are so out-of-this-world expensive that they are learning pampered lifestyles that they won’t be able to support if mom and dad ever disappear. We might be raising a generation of girls that will continue to be dependent on their parents far after they should be and perhaps until they can find another viable source of income to pay for their spray-on tans.

Of course, I’m not exactly a poster child for “taking care of myself.” I don’t wax or pluck or dye, but on the other hand, I don’t brush my hair or require a bra. I might do more if I had the cash, but I’m guessing I wouldn’t do much. I think my awkward phase was an important if not pleasant time in my life when I learned that you should work on being things other than pretty, because pretty doesn’t always show up when you need it. And I think that altering our bodies to look like an airbrushed magazine covergirl and consuming expensive things as a major facet of entertainment in our lives is a slippery slope of emotional and financial troubles that won’t disappear with an hour-long massage.

I know these are old ideas and I know I’m preaching to the choir, but damn. What is even the point of giving an eight year old a bikini wax? The only thing that will accomplish is fucking that girl up for life.

Here’s what I hope: I hope that like all the generations that have come before us, these girls will rebel when they hit 18. That they might realize that looking natural and aging naturally is pretty great (and easy) and that there are scientific and evolutionary reasons that we have hair where we do. They might also realize that they are drowning in spa bills and wasting hours a week on the state of their blonde highlights. They might run rampant in the streets with no eyeliner and no bras, without blow-drying their hair or pumicing their feet, like a new generation of hippies.

And their mothers, who tried so hard to train them to be beautiful, will be horrified - only no one will be able to tell from their faces because of the Botox treatments.