AIBU to just not get little girls pamper parties

[Clossaintjacques]

I have seen some young pre teens parties that include face packs with cucumbers for eye relaxation and pretend champagne. I am not saying that I think they are inappropriate I just don't get why 7 and 8 year old girls would think sipping pretend champagne and lying with face packs on could be fun! Unless of course it's marketed to make them think it's cool. But not actually fun.

This is one I have found for 7+ years
Package Includes:

Face Mask- Not only will we apply a face mask but we will also encourage you to have fun by making your own mask, using only natural ingredients
Mini facial-cleanse, tone and moisturise
Hand and lower arm Massage
Express Mini manicure-file, buff and polish
We supply all the latest Barry M nail polish effect colours that crack once applied
Finish by creating your own lip gloss

I am struggling to understand why a seven year old would enjoy this....I noted they do limousine hire as extra......Nice tacky extra

Closs that sounds grim. 7yo being exhorted to "cleanse tone and moisturise" at a party? What FUN!!!!

Why do 7yo need massages?

That sounds like something I would enjoy but stupid for a bunch of 7yo.

GIRLS! Learn how to sit still for a long time, and make yourself pretty! And learn that this is FUN!!!

I cant stand ?pampering? activities myself but my dd who is 9 and very girly loves them. She and my DP had their own little face mask fest the other day. I think it is sort of sweet but agree its not everyones cup of tea.

Oh for crying out loud. Feminists are not opposed to make-up and hair dye! They are opposed to young - tiny - girls being groomed to believe that what they look like is the most important thing in the world. And being trained that for the rest of their life they will have to maintain this image by being good little customers, with nothing in their pretty little heads but shoes and feather boas.
The actual parties - maybe fun beyond the age of eleven, but I think weird for 7 year olds.
A friend of mine has posted a picture of her 6 year old daughter on facebook in her ballet dance outfit - lovely and she's loving her dance classes. Someone has written below that she 'looks hot like her mum'. This notion that small girls dressed up for whatever reason are doing it to please men and be sexy is horrible.

Well I suppose one reason we wear make up is to attract the opposite sex, there is no disputing this. Obviously there are other reasons, to feel good ourselves and to hide blemishes etc. But there's no getting away from the fact one of the resasons is to attract the opposite sex.

I thought women wear makeup to "improve" their appearance (with the underlying suggestion the female faces without makeup are automatically in need of improvement).

I am in need of improvement at the moment sardine, wrong side of 40 an all
However, I wasn't in need of improvement at 7 or 12.

Attracting opposite sex, improving appearance or any other reasons none of them apply to 7 year olds!

At that age make up should be copying mum and having a cheek full of lipstick!

Every time DD (7) has friends over for a sleepover, they ask to have their nails done (and I also say yes!).

YANBU! it is tacky and reinforces gender stereotypes. girls are sexualised at an increasingly younger age - they might not see it and you might no see it but others do. they are tomorrow's glamour girls and lap dancers (which suddenly have become popular job choice for many young women, coincidence?)! what is it with kids parties nowadays? why do they have to be so BIG?: entertainers, caterers, limousines... what's wrong with a homemade cake, some juice (and by that i mean juice and not squash) and a game of pass the parcel or musical chairs with FRIENDS (not the whole year)?!

There's a mum at my child's nursery who runs a business doing this. And obviously having a small girl, she gets lots of business from the school gate. I don't like it personally. And actually blame the little gang of mums who sat at the kitchen table trying to think up a business idea that would work while they look after small children. Hey presto! Childrens pamper parties. Doesn't take much brains, just organisational skills and, admittedly, some social skills (difficult to believe, but mine are quite poor). So they draw up a little marketing plan, and realise that their own children give them "access" to a ready made "market" of small girls. I just think it is grossly cynical. A little money making ploy for mostly SAHMs. And I don't think they give a stuff about what message they are passing on to girls as young as four.

My dd is coming up to four and she will not be attending any of these parties, or having one.

Sorry for the miserablegittishness. Love parties, just not ones that focus on appearance and what passes for adult "fun".

I enjoy a spa day as most people would but I'm an adult and my fun things are generally to help me relax as I don't have the boundless energy of a 7 year old.

What would be the gender stereotyped equivalent party for young boys? Learning how to play pool/ bandits in a pub whilst quaffing pints of non alcoholic lager? Putting together flat pack furniture whilst reciting a series of choice swearwords?

It's just so limiting IMHO.

My DD went to a couple of pamper parties when she was 10. She really enjoyed them, because she was spending time with friends. She is 14 and a MCR Killjoy and wouldn't normally be seen dead wearing make up, not even the emo style.

I'm in the 'rather revolting for eight year olds' camp, myself.

I'm happy with my daughters painting their nails with the freebies leftover from my magazine job, but nothing more.

hangbagCrab "Learning how to play pool/ bandits in a pub whilst quaffing pints of non alcoholic lager? Putting together flat pack furniture whilst reciting a series of choice swearwords? "

Loving your boys equivalents

How about reciting pick up lines whilst spraying on way to much aftershave.

Yanbu.

One od ds's littel (female) friends had one yesterday, but only for girls of course. I balked. I spat through my beard too. Yuk. Wrong on many levels.

Maybe for boys:

A bodybuilding party. Drink pretend high-protein muscle building shakes, lift weights, spray water all over them for fake sweat. Followed by a pretend torso wax while wearing french-style speedos.

I'm thinking they would not think this fun.

Kate2mum

I think you have got the nearest boys equivalent so far...love the image it conjures up. And of course no girls allowed. They could also practice load grunting in a manly manner!!

loud grunting

OR how about a boys tattoo party, love and hate knuckle tats for the aspirational boy! Or MUM on the forearm?

there already is an equivalent for boys! it's football partys (martial arts/other sports) and that is precisely the point: for boys it is all about being active and achieving things, for girls it is about focussing on being pretty...

I agree with your last sentence.
But we were trying to think of an equivalent for boys that focusses on image!