This is probably the most-read post on all of Beauty Schooled, so I feel a little lazy finishing up this Best of Beauty U retrospective with it.* But I sort of love it for all of the weird nerves it touches with everyone.
Are Nine’s parents crazy abusive and warped? Or are they just taking appropriate protective measures to help their kid survive the horror of her teenage years with a shred of self-esteem intact? Am I, as many commenters have suggested, overreacting because I’m a privileged white chick who doesn’t get how par for the course hair removal has to be for young girls of hair-prone ethnicities? Are Nine’s parents infantalizing their teenager, by assuming she’s too young to make decisions about her body? Am I doing that?
Oh! How can we ever understand it all?
What I do know: This story is both shocking and disturbingly familiar. Last month, ParentDish ran this story on a New York spa touts its “virgin waxing” services. By waxing kids as young as possible, the spa owner says, you can diminish by “almost 100 percent” how much body hair they’ll have as adults. And the pediatrician consulted said the whole thing was perfectly safe, with the possible exception of pubic hair, since docs need to see how much tweens have, to know they’re developing normally.
To which I will just say: Are we so sure it can be considered “normal development” for girls to grow up never even seeing the leg, armpit, or yes, even lip hair, that nature (but not society!) intended you to have?
Anyway. Here’s Nine’s story again. I’m curious to hear what questions it raises for you this time around. Read more…