You know, I'd love to believe what you said, about a mother and her little girl going to the spa and bonding (rather expensively) for the day. I did all the dress-up and nail-painting and makeup stuff with my mother as a little girl, and those are happy memories even now. And I -do- know about shaving off peach-fuzz: Mother and I had pitched battles about whether I was too young to shave my legs, which is more information than anyone needs.

But there's a couple reasons why I don't. First, waxing is painful, regardless of what they say about "it doesn't hurt." It hurts. Waxing also leaves redness and soreness. (Yes, again, TMI.) If a child has no pubic hair, why subject the child to it? Why subject the child to that degree of exposure to a stranger, even if Mommy is in the room telling her it's okay. I don't think it is.

Swimmers shave all over, but I believe they SHAVE, rather than wax. And they're over 8.

And then there's the question of appropriate: If mother and daughter want to bond, can't they PLEASE go to American Girl Place and have tea or some other age-appropriate place? I can see bringing a sixteen-year-old (which used to be the threshold for the Norwich Inn in CT) to a spa as a special treat, but any younger...there have to be places that are adult-appropriate too.

It's a pretty story, but there is so much sexualization of kids that I can't make myself believe it.

Brightstar has equated reproductive systems with inherited wealth: essentially, he's commoditized them.

So, the resentment comes from having a pocket full of loose change and no slots in which to stick it.

George Bush's wealth = uterus.

Yep. I'm boggled, all right.

I'm sure he meant it to be insulting, but I don't think he realizes how absurd he sounds.

Boggle? Maybe I'll giggle instead.

Tell you what, Dick. Drop hot wax on your namesake and see how you like it.

OMG, what am I SAYING?

Try it someplace else sensitive, like your hand or the sole of your foot.

I have paraffin manicures. I stick my hands into wax. If it's too hot, I yowl bloody murder. Why do I do it? Because I'm a damn fool. But I'm an ADULT damn fool.

Unlike you, I have no hair on the palms of my hands. Therefore, there is no hair to pull off. Try it with overheated paraffin and then tell me who is full of shit.

Unless, of course, you're scared.

If you were at Fallujah, thank you for your service.

Now that I've made my manners, please let me point out that while you can spew bile, "kneejerk" bile is a mixed metaphor, especially since I believe bile is a product of the liver.

Let Lisa fight her own battles: she's probably counting on the misplaced protectiveness of people like you. As for Mommy Wars, absolutely not. I know women who desperately want children or have wanted them, and her kind of smugness would break their heart. On their behalf and on purely moral grounds, I find that kind of "lookyme, I'm perfect, be like me" smugness atrocious.

It is, at the very least, unkind. At the very worst, it is sanctimonious and designed to be hurtful. Some trolls are sickly sweet. You just fell into the trap one set for overly protective people.

Personally, I'd suggest you spend your time protecting or speaking kindly to the people that Lisa's smugness has the capacity to hurt. Not me: childless by choice. But when people are subjected to smugness, I react.

You are not my boss; my parents are dead; my best friends speak respectfully to me; so I see no reason for you to interject a reprimand here. Or do you think you have the male-deity-given right to lecture women?

Think again.

Classy reply, DurianJoe.

But there -is- a point to comparing people's pain. Two points. When done objectively, it's a reality check. Yes, it is easier to be a 33-year-old woman in New York than a kid in Darfur or a PFC in Fallujah or a 12-year-old in Fallujah. That doesn't mean it's easy, pure and simple. Been there, done that, glad I don't have to do it again. However less-life-threatening (unless you happened to be in the WTC on 9/11) the angst is, it's still angst.

The other reason to attempt to make the point is an STFU. If you can play on people's guilt to get them to shut up, you win. It's a nice rhetorical trick, about on par with "eat those peas. Think of all the little children in XYZ who'd be glad of them." One day, you learn to say "send the peas to them, then," accept the WHAP you get, and then you don't hear that one anymore.

So there are reasons. I just don't think they're especially valid.

Treeple, I live in NYC. There are many poor people here. We all live and ride the subway side by side. Your point was?

Is your accusation of misogamy supposed to make me stutter excuses? Another STFU?

Not even a good try.

Forget whether your name is gendered or my name is gendered. That's always a good one, too. If you turn out to be female, so what? I didn't like what Lisa said, I'm not taking what you said as valid, and that has nothing to do with chromosomes, but everything to do with assumptions.

I didn't like them. I reacted to them. That makes me neither male nor female, neither misogamist or misogynist OR a "mother-hater": it means that there are certain assumptions that I -will- take on.

That dog won't hunt either. And meanwhile, you're not making sense.