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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be cross that make-up is a gift on the front of a childs magazine?

79 replies

QueenOfAllBiscuitsandMuffins · 13/10/2014 08:47

this can't be the first thread on this matter but my daughter is 3 (almost 4) and loves My Little Pony she was allowed to choose a comic this weekend and her choice, no surprise, was My Little Pony, the childs toy on the front was MAKE UP. This makes me cross. I know I'm not being unreasonable, I just needed to rant.

OP posts:

Asteria · 13/10/2014 11:13

vermillionporcupine I have no issue with make-up, I just have an issue with marketing companies targeting children and convincing them that they need it. I also think it is a shame when young girls feel that they have to wear it and are encouraged to do so.
Society does not dictate that boys/men shave and put product in their hair - haven't you seen all the luscious beards that are being cultivated?
Our children have such minuscule windows if childhood nowadays - we should be encouraging it rather than kowtowing to the mercenary marketing companies that manipulate our lives.

Rosa · 13/10/2014 11:16

My dd is allergic to the crap the put in Kids makeup . However she would have chosen a my little pony mag as well .

Don't worry zippy mine draw My little pony pictures with rainbows and stars and then when they started riding lessons and pony trekking this summer they drew brown and grey poinies in fields and stables - no trauma when they saw the horses either

CaptainSinker · 13/10/2014 11:19

YANBU, and you are getting too hard a time!

It is really difficult getting the balance. My DD used to like the cbeebies magazines, now she often asks for MLP or Disney princesses. I don't want to foist my views on her, but at the same time get irritated by the content, gifts etc. dull stories about a prince helping a princess get organised, a prince helping a princess overcome her nerves.. Sometimes I just change the words.

Tbh I would probably 'lose' the make up.

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 13/10/2014 11:24

Y.n.b.u, but neither are the magazine people. No-one was forcing you to buy it.
Make up is a personal choice. I always let d.d wear a bit of lip gloss, by the time she was 11 she would not go out without it!. She gets that from me though.

Archduke · 13/10/2014 11:30

OP YDNBU - I can't believe some of the above posters.

Do you really not get the difference between a child mucking about with mums make up and HAVING MAKE UP DIRECTLY MARKETED AT CHILDREN?

Sorry but why do you not get that this is weird. Why should girls have make up shoved at them? It's a comic about horses - ok sparkly horses but HORSES all the same.

Why not give away something er . . . PONY related perhaps, why shove all this pink make up sparkly shit at girls?

Archduke · 13/10/2014 11:32

Asteria said everything so much better than me.

WorraLiberty · 13/10/2014 11:37

No-one is 'shoving' it at them.

The parents have the choice to buy it or say no.

It's that simple.

Archduke · 13/10/2014 11:42

No Worra, that is not the case.

Young girls are constantly having reductive "girly" crap marketed at them, in a way that boy children are not. As a mother of 2 girls I find it really depressing.

As a parent of course I exercise my right to say no to this bollocks but it's still there. Parents obviously think it's ok that everything marketed to tiny children is pretty or make up or princesses. Make up marketed at children - it's bullshit.

OwlCapone · 13/10/2014 11:49

Young girls are constantly having reductive "girly" crap marketed at them, in a way that boy children are not

No, because boys aren't constantly bombarded with sludge coloured clothing, monsters, weapons and cars at all are they...

OwlCapone · 13/10/2014 11:51

It's a comic about horses - ok sparkly horses but HORSES all the same.

No, MLP is absolutely nothing to do with horses. It's all sparkly princess stuff wrapped up in 4 hooves and a swishy tail. If you are going to get up in arms about girlie crap, don't try to pass MLP off as being something wholesome and equestrian.

Archduke · 13/10/2014 11:59

OwlCapone, I'm really not trying to make MLP out as some kind of feminist icon (and I don't see where I did that) but there is surely a leap (or at least a small patronising step) between a crappy comic about boring ponies to selling make up to children and I think OP is perfectly reasonable to highlight that.

Honestly I do get that children like mucking about with mums make up. I wear make up myself and frankly it makes me look better. I have no beef with it, but I resent girl (ok and boy) children being fed stereotypical images of feminitiy or masculinity. And yes, ok boy children are over delivered the monster/car thing but for some reason it doesn't quite get my hackles raise so much.

trufflesnout · 13/10/2014 12:19

It's not about someone personally sexualising their 4 year old, it's about society finding women so meaningless that the sexualisation of 4 year olds is seen as normal and harmless, and the parent seen as odd for noticing it.

Alsoflamingo · 13/10/2014 12:22

YANBU. I get furious at the sexualisation of young girls. And the endless focus on LOOKS and APPEARANCE as if nothing else matters. Hugely depressing that we are still force-feeding this on our young girls. Ranting with you, OP…..

TweetingInFury · 13/10/2014 12:29

Think of it this way OP. If you had a boy and had bought him the magazine, and let him put some pink stuff on his face you'd be congratulated for being all progressive and right on!

I remember a thread where a poster shared a pic of her kid in a bikini pouting while doing a pose. Child was male. I reckon she'd have been torn to shreds if it was a female.

OwlCapone · 13/10/2014 12:31

MLP and make up are, IMO, perfectly suited to one another. There is no jarring between the two at all. MLP are not "boring ponies" at all, they are basically sparkly fairy princesses with hooves and you can bet they would be wearing sparkly lipgloss if they had opposable thumbs.

specialsubject · 13/10/2014 12:35

most people look better without makeup. Teaching that makeup improves is a poor life lesson.

don't buy crappy pink tat for your daughter. As someone said, offer a choice of two acceptable things only.

Archduke · 13/10/2014 12:37

OwlCapone BUT I STILL HATE LIPGLOSS AND PRINCESSES AND ALL THAT SHIT

ElephantsNeverForgive · 13/10/2014 12:37

Chill, save your money and buy her a book or an actual my little pony.

Children's comics are absolute rubbish, I've no idea how they keep going.

FreudiansSlipper · 13/10/2014 12:53

YANBU

I see nothing wrong with children playing with make up or having toe nails painted for fun. Making the assumption that girls all like make up is sending out the wrong message, it is telling them from a young age girls should be aware of how pretty they can make themselves look. This is a magazine that will be marketed towards girls should not have a free gift of make up

and shall not get started on the Lelli Kelly lip gloss set

Lovelydiscusfish · 13/10/2014 13:02

I'm really surprised that so many people think make up aimed at 4 year olds is OK. I work with young women (11-18) and find it terrifying to hear the amount of pressure many of them feel they have been under, often from primary age, regarding their appearance and the need to 'look good". The cosmetics industry must take some responsibility for this, surely. So I think, yes, make up lines aimed at pre-teens are a real problem.
Even for teens, it's an issue. When we did some discussion work around this topic, the overwhelming majority of girls in my class said they'd prefer make up to be banned in school - especially the ones that wear the most. They said that as things were, they felt pressured to alter their appearance with make up to try to achieve a certain "standard", but wished that that possibility, and therefore that pressure, wasn't there in the first place.
As for the idea that the OP shouldn't have bought it, well, yes in a sense, but if she's anything like me she's not organised enough to review the magazines on offer prior to promising "you can choose a magazine." When I say this, half the time my dd chooses awful pink ones which present women in a way I'm not really comfortable with -but I don't like to go back on my word, and anyway, it's not as if I can keep her from exposure to these images entirely, however much I might want to. If OP didn't buy this particular magazine, it wouldn't stop her dd living in a world where girls are under pressure about their appearance from a staggeringly young age.

wheresthelight · 13/10/2014 13:14

My little pony magazine is not aimed at 3 year old for starters so I think you were misguided to allow her to have it in the first place.

but yabu for the fact you bought it, the toys are made very clear as to what they are so if you didn't want her to have it you shouldn't have bought it sorry

ChippingInLatteLover · 13/10/2014 13:22

I know I'm not being unreasonable ???

Really? You are being very unreasonable, for all the reasons already stated.

Alsoflamingo · 13/10/2014 13:52

Well said Lovely

Downamongtherednecks · 13/10/2014 14:02

Queen you are absolutely right, it is unacceptable to sexualise little girls and keep normalising make-up like this. Well done for holding out against the societal pressures for girls to look and act a certain way. I would not dream of allowing my 10 year-old to wear make-up (lip salve, I allow) and she isn't dripping with jewelry or painted nails either. Because she is a little girl not a woman. Well said lovely.

ElephantsNeverForgive · 13/10/2014 14:10

lovely makeup was strictly banned at my school, so we had lots of pressure to have '80's flicked hair styles. I got lots of teasing because I have very straight hair that won't do it. Our boys were no better, white socks (against the rules) and gelled hair were the norm.

I'm sure it's always been thus, it's part of growing up.

If girls do it younger, it's partly the media and peer pressure, but it's also make up and clothes being so much cheaper.

As a preteen and as a 13yo DD2 has been able to experiment with the sort of slightly 'rock chick' style that suits her and her need to be dressed for trampolining at all times, in a way my budget couldn't have dreamed of.

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