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AIBU?

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Original poster

To have not put make up on dd?

292 replies

selfdestructivelady · 13/01/2014 10:11

We went to a children's birthday party Saturday. All the little girls had make up on and all the parents were saying how pretty each other's dds make up looked. Dd is 4 yo the others were aged 4-5 they had nail polish eyeshadow and lip gloss on.

OP posts:
RenterNomad · 14/01/2014 10:04

I thought that the issue was not so much the makeup, but the other parents' complacent reinforcement of a norm (ignoring the child who didn't conform), and the fear that they might do it in other ways. At 4/5, parents have a lot of control over their children's social lives.

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:05

booty DD picks her own stuff. If and when she gets swallowed by the pink monster I will be frustrated but nothing more. She wont like make up and dresses atm because she likes to copy her mum. I don't wear make up and I don't wear dresses day to day.

Because if I did I would get far less respect at work than I do now. Because the work I do is NOT FOR GIRLS. So dressing like one makes you even less likely to be doing good work than if you don't act/dress like a girl but still suffer the old IQ lowering uterus.

pictish · 14/01/2014 10:07

No mrsjay neither me. I started a thread about it once and it got slated.

I always thought equality was about offering choices and letting them make their own minds up, not sneering at the parents of girls who want to be girly and crowing about what a right on parent you are, because your daughter likes dinosaurs.

Well my dd likes dinosaurs too, and Transformers and Lego...but she also likes wearing dresses and having her nails painted. Fine by me.

HavantGuard · 14/01/2014 10:08

You really need to change your social circle. I have never seen children that age with make up on at a party.

mrsjay · 14/01/2014 10:08

icebeing you dont know me to be fair my dd works in a male orientated world granted as a part of her degree she gets paid exactly the same as the men and a little girl wearing a bit of sparkly nail polish does not make her any less of a girl than one who doesn't fwiw my dd would have rather had shite in her hands and clap than wear nail polish does that make her a credible female , where as her sister loves all that so who is the better girl does it matter that girls like to wear dresses and do their hair why does it matter ?

FudgefaceMcZ · 14/01/2014 10:09

I've never seen 5yos in make up other than on wanky US child paegent television programmes but then I don't count nail varnish as make up so perhaps I'm looking at things differently. I'd be surprised if anyone even noticed whether one child was not wearing it.

Also how tf do you apply eye shadow to a preschooler/infant schooler without stabbing them in the eye? I have enough trouble putting it on myself and I don't suddenly start jumping around because I really, really need to find a plastic kangaroo right now.

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:09

The issue is certainly re-enforcing social norms. Girls always like X, Boys are always energetic, girls need to worry about their looks. Boys don't.

The only thing I care about teaching my DD in this area is that her value is not in her appearance....not to me and not to anyone whose opinion is at all valid or interesting. Boys don't get this message of looks being all important until they hit puberty and even then it isn't anywhere near as powerfully directed at them as at teenage girls. Girls get it immediately from birth upwards.

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:12

It does matter that we artificially segregate the world into male and female above and beyond the actual biological differences. Because while your DD might get paid the same as a male colleague the majority of women still dont.

Gender stereotypes are very damaging in a great many walks of life. Re-enforcing them sucks.

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:12

also mrsjay I do know a fair bit about you...we are have crossed paths on many a thread.

FudgefaceMcZ · 14/01/2014 10:13

Icebeing, most boys I know have worn nail varnish. I don't know where you're picking up such macho male acquaintances.

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:14

Most boys would not be picked on at a party for NOT wearing nail varnish though...

HavantGuard · 14/01/2014 10:14

Feminism is about choice, not all choices are feminist.

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/10385501/Bosses-admit-they-would-discriminate-against-women-not-wearing-makeup.html
thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/08/adultification-and-sexualization-of-girls-in-french-vogue/

You have to be wilfully ignorant to believe it's not an issue and that's ignoring the idiocy of putting unnecessary chemicals onto young skin.

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:17

I would like my DD to be her own person and not feel limited by stereotypes. The whole world is screaming CONFORM at her constantly through pretty much every interaction she has with it. I feel the need to yell the opposite message as loud as I can just so she has a chance of finding her own way.

Of course I wont hate her when she turns pink, or disparage her for wanting to wear make up. But I want her to have the chance to identify her favourite colour before she decides to wear pink anyway just for a quiet life....is just that sniff of independence really too much to ask?

IceBeing · 14/01/2014 10:18

Or what Havant just said

mrsjay · 14/01/2014 10:19

ime the best way to raise girls is to let them choose and grow and develop their own personalities and let the choose the toys the want too the clothes they want to wear the subjects they want to do at school (with guidance of course) that is how young women develop

, there is many a woman i have read on here their mothers were feminist and ridiculed them for wanting to wear make up or whatever and these women were miserable
, I was raised in the 70s and 80s where girls had to be girls and boys had to be boys I know what it is like to not want to wear frilly clothes and like boy things but i also liked the tinker bell perfume etc etc, I was not seen as a normal girl by my parents because i used to watch X men on a saturday morning , I just let my girls develop how they wanted to be,

pictish · 14/01/2014 10:21

I am going to remain completely unapologetic about what my dd enjoys.
Choice is offered, nothing is off limits regarding gender, and my children's choices about what they like or dislike, are entirely theirs to make.
No one can tell me I'm doing wrong. Well...you can say it, but I'll gaily ignore, because I'm happy in the knowledge that I have let them decide for themselves.
And it's nobody's business but our own.

Weelady77 · 14/01/2014 10:27

I think your wrong there ice, boys now care so much about there appearance and hair cuts from a young age, my dd is 8 I still pick her clothes she hates getting her hair done but she plays with makeup she watches YouTube to see how to put makeup on like her monster high dolls,
Whereas my son is now 15 but when he was her age and even younger he picked his own clothes knew how he wanted his hair styled asked me to buy him gel and deodorant from a young age, I remember him and his friends where in p5/6 and they bought fake tan applied it and went and played football!!! They looked bloody stupid and it made me laugh but he's never done it again (thank god) and he is very much a boy and still beauty/style mad!

mrsjay · 14/01/2014 10:30

YY about boys pass a group of teen boys and you are overcome with lynx fumes

Weelady77 · 14/01/2014 10:37

Or you can see a cloud of aftershave fumes!

mrsjay · 14/01/2014 10:38

Or you can see a cloud of aftershave fumes!

Aye , dd walks to school with a boy and some days he wont walk incase the rain upsets his hair,

Weelady77 · 14/01/2014 10:41

Does your dd walk with my ds Wink

mrsjay · 14/01/2014 10:41

oh she might Hmm

Weelady77 · 14/01/2014 10:44

This is the boy who will wear ugg boots on a Saturday but pull his football boots on on a Sunday, his dad hates the uggs but I say whatever he's comfy in I don't care

DeWe · 14/01/2014 10:45

I had a tinkerbell set. I loved it, but dm hated it.

I haven't worn any make up in 15 years now. The last time I bought makeup I got such a face from the lady serving as my 8yo told her it was for her. However when I said it was for performing she changed her whole manner.

All my dc (yes, including ds) wear make up for performing. Foundation (except ds as he's younger) blusher, lipstick, eye shadow (not ds) and eye liner.
However they don't wear it other times. In fact dd1 (who's 13) dismissed those in her year who were putting makeup on for going out as "silly".

When aged 4/5 my girls wouldn't have lowered themselves to wear blue or engage in boy activites like football or cars etc. They definitely thought pink and girlie things were superior.
Now they are older, they will happily wear all colours.

pictish · 14/01/2014 10:45

and that's ignoring the idiocy of putting unnecessary chemicals onto young skin

Please...do tell me what dreadful fate will befall dd by letting her have a scraping of kiddy eyeshadow on. I'm listening....as I'm keen to know more about my idiocy.

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