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Thursday, August 3, 2006 12:00 AM

Girls will be 30-year-old women

Younger and younger girls are participating in spa activities like facials, pedicures and highlights.

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  • Thursday, August 3, 2006 02:50 PM

    Why on earth do little girls need *highlights* ??

    All this does is plant the notion, at an early age, that how she is born isn't good enough and should be 'improved' in order to look more beautiful - something easily accomplished by slapping down money to pretend to be something she's not (for example more blonde, more sun-kissed, less gray) for the benefit of the approval of others.

    It IS harmful to inculcate young girls and tweens in the culture of vanity at an early age. They assimilate the idea their faces, bodies and hair are merely canvases for products that 'improve' their desirability. The focus on fixing 'flaws' will be bred in them so early it is bound to be a de facto priority for the rest of their lives. They'll be the first high maintenance generation that doesn't even know it's high maintenance because they've been performing beauty rituals since kindergarten. Encouraging the spa-ification of children will simply inculcate them that extreme self-absorption is both good and necessary.

    If men were encouraging their young sons to lift weights (never too young for a six pack!), wear cologne and gold necklaces the nation would go ballistic - we'd jail parents before allowing them to ruin their sons by sexualizing them and forcing them far too early onto the road of a vain, anxious, self-absorbed adulthood.

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