Is It All America's Fault? | How Young is Too Young?

[The Ed.]

Without doubt this topic has caught your geeky attention and here at Salon Geek HQ we are thoroughly enjoying your comments. So...as the week continues, here’s today’s question.

Is it all America’s fault? There’s no doubt that the child beauty industry is a booming one on the other side of the pond. Salons that cater solely for children are well established and ride off the back of a burgeoning child beauty pageant industry not to mention stars such as Hannah Montana and...well, I can't think of any more but that's because I'm closer to 30 than 13. With stories emerging of eight-year-olds having bikini waxes and nine-year-olds having chemical peels, there’s no doubt that America is a few steps ahead of us when it comes to child beauty and what’s acceptable.

So, can we blame America and accuse it of being our moral saboteur or should we as a nation have more moral backbone and not blindly follow the trends from across the pond? When it comes to these kind of issues it’s very common for people to lay the blame at the star-spangled feet of our American friends but is that just too easy?

Oh, and if you’ve got five minutes to play around with, here’s another article for you...

The Observer – Salons boom as girls yearn to grow up fast

Until then...geek on.

The Ed.

 

[Chickafish]

To blame America and accuse it of being your moral saboteur is a big-time fallacy. I don't think it's fair to blame America for children growing up to fast because it's not like EVERY American parent is letting their little girls get painted and plucked. From the looks of things, it's happening across the pond as well. The only people to blame are the parents. They're too concerned with being the child's best friend, and not spending enough time being the child's parent.

Unfortunately, anyone in business that's out to make a quick buck will target these people. And unfortunately, majority of them are in the media industry. That's why there's dolls on the market dressed and painted up like street walkers, cosmetics that are packaged to appeal to little girls, more shows (on cartoon channels) with girls under 16 dressing and talking like 20-somethings, and patronizing animated shows to further push them into watching the under 16s. If those parents were doing their jobs as parents and exposing them to more children-appropriate things, instead of taking their little girls to salons to be like their tv idol, we wouldn't have mini mani/pedis, waxes, and peels. As professional service providers, those put in that position (some... not all) are obligated to perform the service if they are able to and if it's safe (even when it goes against their morals) because there's a risk these parents will either take them to a hack-shop, or they will do it themselves.

 

[geeg]

To blame America and accuse it of being your moral saboteur is a big-time fallacy. I don't think it's fair to blame America for children growing up to fast because it's not like EVERY American parent is letting their little girls get painted and plucked. From the looks of things, it's happening across the pond as well. The only people to blame are the parents. They're too concerned with being the child's best friend, and not spending enough time being the child's parent.

Unfortunately, anyone in business that's out to make a quick buck will target these people. And unfortunately, majority of them are in the media industry. That's why there's dolls on the market dressed and painted up like street walkers, cosmetics that are packaged to appeal to little girls, more shows (on cartoon channels) with girls under 16 dressing and talking like 20-somethings, and patronizing animated shows to further push them into watching the under 16s. If those parents were doing their jobs as parents and exposing them to more children-appropriate things, instead of taking their little girls to salons to be like their tv idol, we wouldn't have mini mani/pedis, waxes, and peels. As professional service providers, those put in that position (some... not all) are obligated to perform the service if they are able to and if it's safe (even when it goes against their morals) because there's a risk these parents will either take them to a hack-shop, or they will do it themselves.

Some good points!

It seems that the days when parents raised their children seem to be gone and now they are raised by the television and peer pressure to which parents give in under the strain.

Of course there are still parents who take responsibility for raising their children with a good moral fibre and values but we don't often hear about it ... the media prefers to sensationalize everything and they don't really want to print the 'good stuff' as it doesn't sell papers or journals.

So much information is available to kids today that they would never have been allowed to see in years gone by. What's the answer?? Children are exposed to these things and short of depriving them of TV and magazines and therefore making them 'unusual' what do you do? It ¡s a hard one and I don't have the answers.

But I do know that in a great part of the States where life is more simple and family and church and hard working communities pull together and children are responsible for chores and animals and more serious things ... frivolous things like beauty treatments for children would not get a look in, I don't think. Maybe I just hope that is the case. I'm sure that someone will enlighten us though. :biggrin:

 

[Eni]

As I said in an earlier post, its not all of America and I don't think blaming the situation on a country is really....fair. I do think it is a sociological problem worldwide in terms of making our kids grow up to fast.

Thinking on it (and this is on the fly off the top of my head), the real change between the childhood we had, and the childhood of today is, as Geeg and Chicka both said, the exposure that kids have to so much media and the mindset of the older (parents) generation about "things" over "people".

Taking off the rose coloured lenses that we all have about our own childhood, you will see that there has always been a certain "disapproval" about what kids do. Rock n Roll comes to mind, Miniskirts, long hair on men/boys....BUT (you knew that was coming)...the decided change took place in the 1980's from my viewpoint.

That was when money became king, and the individual more important than the whole and it sort of snowballed from there. Divorce became less "taboo" and families were torn apart with parents trying to win their kids affection or keep their kids affection by giving in to every whim (guilt maybe?). These are now the parents of today.

I was raised in a very Old World family, visiting the grandparents on Sundays, shared holidays, family reunions, etc. The majority of my friends were raised the same way. This, to us, was normal. To the parents of today, what goes on, to many of them, *is* also normal. (normal being subjective, all standard disclaimers apply).

So is it America's fault? No. The same thing is happening in the Netherlands and here in New Zealand. (Granted America is ginormous compared to the other two, but its still hapoening).

It is, however, a generational thing and a sociological thing as the world gets smaller. We hear more about the bad stuff (murders, etc), we see more on the TV (wars, etc)....its very hard to shield or protect your kids from the real world (such as we were protected) and if you haven't laid the groundwork with your kids by the time they are 8 or so - they aren't going to know any different. The Telly is not real. A lot of people think it is - they were raised on it as the babysitter and keeper.

Thats my.02 FWIW