DD is 10 years old and wants to go into town wearing make-up - aibu?

[Evelynne]

I have been kind of railroaded into allowing DD (10) into town with her two friends. We live in a city.

The mother of one of the girls approached me in front of both girls and asked whether DD could meet them in town this weekend. I didn't want to embarrass DD so I said I would think about it.

The mother then asked whether DD could go on a 4 hour shopping trip with the girls. I was unhappy with this and said I'd be ok with an hour, providing DD had a mobile and I was in town too....

DD has just told me that the girls wear make-up into town (DD doesn't make things like this up) and I am really regretting saying it's ok. I don't want my 10 year old alone in town with other 10 year olds wearing make up, it just makes me feel uncomfortable. I wouldn't be bothered if they were 13/14 but I do feel 10 is too young.

AIBU?

I'd have no problem with a ten year old wearing a padded bra - why would I? She might look a bit silly but children do look silly sometimes.

'Don't encourage your child to look as if she wants attention from men' - so does make up make a woman look like she wants attention from men? When your child's headteacher, your GP, you MP wears make up, do you think 'she wants attention from men'?

If a 10 year old looks like a 15 year old what difference does that make? Does it mean that men are suddenly entitled to harass her?

If a 10 year old looks like a 15 year old' they are likely to attract the attention of teenage boys. It's not "harassment" it's just teenage boys doing the whole "my mate fancies you" thing in the sme way teenage girls do. Now, a 15 year old girl might well fancy the boy back and be delighted, a 10 year old not so much. I do not want my 10 year old daughter put in that position by an unsuspecting teenage boy (of which I have 2) which is why I want my tall 10 year old DD to look like the 10 year old she is. I think a lot of 10 year old girls would be unable to deal with the innocent attention of a teenage boy.

Teenagers commenting on other teenagers and asking them out is what teenagers do. Great if the other party is actually a teenager, less so if they are 10.

Fwiw, DD has make up as she's done some dance shows. I let her put it on in the house but it comes off before we go out (although she has managed to sneak out with it on before... However, I was with her and we were probably going to the supermarket, she wasn't wandering round town alone)

I would talk my dd out of wearing a padded bra if she didn't need a bra. It seems a ridiculous thing to want to do and a complete waste of money apart from anything else!

My 10 year old dd wouldn't be seen dead wearing make up. Army fatigues and filthy jodphurs! Long may it last!

I'd have no problem with a ten year old wearing a padded bra - why would I? She might look a bit silly but children do look silly sometimes.

You might want to look at the MN "let girls be girls" campaign then. Letting your young DD effectively wear fake breasts is revolting.

I'm struggling not to see you as being deliberately obtuse though so I'm ducking out of this.

I'm not being deliberately obtuse. I just find your reasoning odd.

Surely if padded bras are 'revolting' then women shouldn't wear them at all? Or women should at least hide them from young girls so they don't see them and want to emulate wearing them?

Say if a ten year old boy admires soldiers and so dresses up to look like one - khaki trousers and a t -shirt - would that also be revolting? Or is the case that looking a boy looking like a man is cute and admirable, whereas a girl looking like a woman means she's a sex object?

In fact, a boy dressing like any man would be pretty unremarkable seeing as boys and men don't look much different to each other. It's interesting though, isn't it, that as a girl becomes a woman the behaviour that's allowed and expected changes - it's expected that she'll start making herself look more sexually available.

Sparrow - really interesting point. No one would be getting up tight about a boy wearing a tie or a suit to look grown up.

Of course not Dame, because it's not assumed that a boy who looks older than he is is fair game for attack.

How fucking depressing!

Indeed. What bothers me though is the unquestioning way women will say 'there's no way I'd allow a girl to emulate a woman' as though being a woman, or emulating one, is somehow a shameful thing.

If the trappings of womanhood - wearing make up, wearing padded bras - are so awful that we simply cannot allow young girls to go near them then what does that say about womanhood itself?

Underlying all of this is the unspoken idea that keeping a child young and 'innocent' (as opposed to older girls who are 'guilty' of being sexual?) will somehow protect them from male violence, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence for this. A boy/man doesn't attack a girl because she's wearing make up and believing that he does is extremely naive and worrying.

God you are looking for an argument when there isn't one. If you are happy to let your dd plaster herself in make up and wear a padded bra so she can fit some sort of cartoon idea of womanhood then go right ahead.

I'm a woman, flat chested and wear very little make up

There was a survey done some years ago of pre teens and teens who wore padded bras and interestingly the vast majority who wore them said they preferred padded bras to non padded ones as they felt that the thicker fabric covered them up better/was more of a barrier. So not so much about trying to look they have bigger breasts than they actually do.

My dd started going into town with friends the summer before she started secondary school. Five years on she still rarely bothers with makeup.

That makes sense wherethefuck. Definitely less sexy than a flimsy lacy number. More t-shirt bra. My friends DD has got one. She's just coming up 10.

You seem to have missed the point of what I was saying entirely hewl.

Where did I say I wanted my child to fit a 'cartoon idea of womanhood'?

What I said was wearing make up and padded bras is associated with being a woman. People on this thread are saying girls should be kept away from these things as though they are somehow shameful. I'm asking why that is.

I hardly ever wear make up, I have no interest in it. What I do have an interest in is why, in our society, things that women do, such as wearing make up, are automatically associated with wanting male attention or looking for sex, even when those things are done by a child.

The reason I would have been unhappy with my 10 year old wearing makeup is principally because I wanted my daughters to feel that they way they looked was enough: I have quite enough complexes around my own looks and really don't want to pass them on to my lovely girls.

I do not see a link with booze and/or tattoos and/or sex.

My DD is almost 8. She has no idea what sex and sexy means although i expect 3 yrs down the line she will. She's heard the words from popular songs - she dances. Makeup for her isn't about enhancing her looks and I don't know if it is any different for older girls. It's just fun, a bonding activity. And something to do with her friends at home.

I think it's very wrong to talk about preteens in terms of sexualisation and would be very reluctant to talk in these terms about any teenage girl approaching womanhood. I personally wore a ton of makeup when I was 14 - 16. At 15 I was wearing outrageously short skirts, laddered tights - I was a disenfranchised goth. When I was 18/19, I had the piss taken out of me by some random dick I'd known for 3ish years for being tight for not sleeping with any of the people I previously socialised with every weekend from the age of 16. Down the pub as it was in those days. I Know times have changed but I don't know if what girls themselves think has that much. I didn't think very much in terms of sexy really until I was about 18.

So a genuine question: Have girls attitudes changed or are we as adults assigning the sexualisation or glamification of girls in terms of clothing and makeup from an adult's perspective, not a child's?

Timelytess, Im almost 60 and my childbearing days were over way more than 10 years ago you pillock
I'm sorry, were you trying to make sense? You didn't quite make it.

I wouldn't encourage an 8 year old to wear make up. I think it's terribly sad actually.

Who said anything about 'encouraging' an 8 year old to wear make up?

I'm pretty sure that if a feminist started a thread in the feminist section about how make up is a patriarchal issue there would be post after post after post telling her she was 'overthinking' it and claiming 'I wear make up purely because I want to.' Yet here there is almost a 100% consensus that make up has meaning - that a child should not wear make up because of the social significance given to it by a world that views mature women as sex objects. The viewpoints on this thread is very close to radical feminist thinking yet I seriously doubt many of the posters would identify as radical feminists.

The radical feminist viewpoint would take the view that make up has meaning and examine why posters here say that girls shouldn't wear make up rather than saying that boys and men shouldn't assume that a girl wearing make up is sexual fair game.

I didn't encourage DD. She was given some on her 7th birthday. Not from me. For the last year, it sat on the shelf and recently she and her friend have put it on each other a couple of times. I don't doll her up every week lol!!