13 year old armpits!!

[Fishcake18]

Does your 13-year old shave their armpits? My girl, just turned 13, has a lot of armpit hair - but has not considered or mentioned shaving it.. My inclination is to wait until she asks - then I could 'show' her if she likes. To be clear -I love that she doesn't care - (not really that interested yet in boys or make up etc) and would be happy if she stayed hairy, happy and nonchalant! I just don't know what's normal 'nowadays' at age 13?

@Runningbird43

No. I did not say that. You are misrepresenting and misquoting me to be controversial.

I don't care what society tells me, I know what I like. There are plenty of things that go against the norm that I like. Why is it so hard for you to believe that I don't like the look of body hair? I love the feeling of newly shaved, smooth legs.

@thedendrochronologist "Some girls are not good a grooming and need a little nudge to realise their choices."
Jesus wept!

And all the "it's for hygiene posters. I assume you haven't heard of washing. And you "nudge" your sons towards shaving their under arms too....

I got my 12 year old some razors and said they are here if you want them let me know and I will show you how to use them. She showed no interest then 3 weeks later went off and used them without telling me!

True that! Immac was horrible!

Thanks for your input all. I think I'm just going to carry on as I am for now and then if she asks I'll talk about it, and get it/show her if she would like.. Though tbh she is quite lazy!! And also is a bit of a mini feminist already so I think she may be horrified! 😂 Definitely made me reflect on my own hair removal..I did it on my own at about her age so I think that's why I'd started thinking about it! I hardly ever shave now..just in the summer really when in swim gear, summer gear and I've found that works for me. 😊

Don't comment on it. Wait until she asks you (if she ever does). It's her choice and even by bringing it up you can put certain ideas/ expectations on her.

Yes thank you that is what I just said and what I have decided. Best wishes mama 💗

@goldenretrievermum5 soz, I'm late replying. You're assuming she needs them? Noone needs to remove bodily hair until they do it by choice. I presume op would of course buy her any products she couldn't herself?

I’m not assuming that she needs them, I simply just said that if she ever decides that she wants to use them then it is better if she has the products to hand rather than having to have an awkward conversation with
her mum in order to get her to buy some.

Speaking from experience with my own DD, I genuinely didn’t think that she was interested in hair removal so just left it at that. It wasn’t until she was 14 that she plucked up the courage to ask me to buy her a razor as she’d actually been feeling self conscious over her body hair for quite a while. She was a very private teen hence she didn’t want to talk about it. I felt awful about it and wouldn’t want another girl going through the same

Far better to raise young girls understanding where the pressure to remove body hair comes from than just supply the products to conform.

At that age I was too embarrassed to speak to my mum and used to snip it with nail scissors. It was very awkward trying to reach it.

I wish I'd had access to a razor to whip it away in seconds.

Has it ever occurred to you that some people just don’t want to be hairy or are you so obsessed with women not conforming to the patriarchy that it never crosses your mind? Not everyone likes being hairy and that’s fine, it doesn’t need to turn into a societal debate

Women and men have removed body hair for thousands of years, evidence of this from Greek, Roman and Egyptian archaeology.

Men, generally speaking, shave their faces.

Its a fairly recent thing in history that men have reduced the removal of body hair, women kept it up to some extent.

Absolutely they have. But that doesn't mean the idea for women to remove body hair came from women.

It is categorically untrue that hair makes you smell more. As long as you are having a shower daily and using anti perspirant, you will not smell.

Where do you get the idea that its pushed/desired from men?

In my experience its often women that view female body hair as shameful or 'disgusting' rather than men.

DD first mentioned shaving her legs at 11, she popped a cossie on and I showed her how to do it safely. We talked about different methods, talked about doing it for you not for anyone else, I prefer to shave as I prefer the feel turns out she's quite happy leaving it and that's quite the norm nowadays. We talked about how if you leave underarm hair it can trap sweat and be more smelly so to make sure to wash really well with soap. Talked about what to do if you nicked yourself and a quick minor first aid reminder and that was it.

Just because many of us were left to our own devices and probably just pinched Dads razors doesn't mean that's the way it should be. Like any other stage of growing up give them options, the skills and then leave it up to them to make their own informed decisions.

Personally I wouldn't leave her to ask, even if you have a great relationship many teens find anything to do with growing up awkward and wouldn't feel able to ask. I personally never felt able to ask anything even though my mum was very approachable but she'd had a hysterectomy young and didn't remove body hair so I found it difficult talking about those things and I think because her mum died before she reached adolescence she didn't really know how to have those conversations as she had just been left to it, ironically I ended up as a science teacher teaching puberty and sex ed as part of my day job. I've always talked very openly with DD about periods, puberty etc and she often asks me questions she says others couldn't ask their parents and ones which I certainly wouldn't have asked mine which is great.

So, I would preempt it, maybe next time you are in the Supermarket together and down the toiletries aisle spark a convo of would you like to try.... Or put her together a basket of various toiletries as a gift, my DD loves anything to do with skincare and looking after her skin so you could put her a little something together with various items, facemasks, maybe some new period pants, selection of sanitary towels, tampons etc so she can try other things and it's just not focused on hair removal.

It is categorically untrue that hair makes you smell more. As long as you are having a shower daily and using anti perspirant, you will not smell.

My experience tells me otherwise. Armpit hair is definitely a factor.

My own experiences tell me otherwise
The hair traps the sweat

actually it wicks it away from the skin, increasing surface area to help it evaporate, and also away from the skin bacteria which metabolise sweat into the smelly waste products.

sweat itself doesn’t smell. It needs skin bacteria.

the skin bacteria take a while to produce those waste products, so as long as you shower and wash regularly you won’t smell, hairy or not.

your own experience is just that. I happen to find using shower gel I smell much more quickly than if I use soap. Doesn’t mean shower gel doesn’t clean properly, it could be confirmation bias, I have no way of directly comparing. Just an opinion.