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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I'm 36 and I never heard of such a thing.
I'm going on the assumption that it was a typo and the writer meant "thong panties".
If not then, maybe like a tupperware party? Who knows.
While waiting in line at the DMV last week, I noticed a masseuse in the building who offered classes in infant and toddler massage. I could not fathom an infant or toddler who would need a massage, outside of maybe therapeutic massage for a condition, in which case, probably a professional ought to be doing it.
My other concern with this is that it's habituating very young girls to an expensive habit. Imagine the cumulative money spent on spas if one starts at 6, instead of 20 or 40.
I have to say that taking your toddler to the spa seems a little strange to me. I'm not surprised by it though, what with the constant negative body messages that everyone gets beamed into their brains 24/7 by marketers.
For me, at least, there it is still a big jump from spa treatments and over-sexualized children, though I can see how some people might percieve it as a slippery slope. My main problem with it is that it's one more thing that girls are learning they need to be concerned with instead of, oh, I dunno, learning physics.
Apparently a "Thong Party" is a night at a club where women wearing thongs are allowed in for free (thanks Google). Sort of like Ladies Night, but you know, without being a lady.
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 (i.e. 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.
Gag. Yes, it happened, about the time I realized the Disney Channel "teenybopper" shows came on much earlier than I knew of. I thought it was an innocent morning of letting my daughter watch cartoons while I slept late.
This is the same little girl who has asked me repeatedly for makeup, doesn't understand why I won't buy her high-heeled wedge sandals, and wants to wear a bikini. She's SIX!!!
I feel like I'm so careful with this kind of thing... she has one Barbie doll, none of the dreaded "Bratz" dolls, and most of her toys are play and fantasy--doll house, grocery store, castle with dragons, blocks, Legos. I think the desire for all things girly and made-up must be in the water. I know if I took her to a spa to get her nails done and have a facial, she would love it. I would gag, but she'd be in heaven.
The hit of Christmas last year was a $1.99 Hello Kitty set of sparkly clear nail polish. All the other toys could have quietly disappeared and she never would have noticed.
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.
Parents have been piercing their baby daughters ears, setting them up for a lifetime of needing to purchase ear jewlery since I can remember. There has always been sparkly nail polish and lip gloss for little girls, yes in Hello Kitty in the 80's; when I was 7 I had a friend who wore the peel off nail polish kind and I wanted to do it to and my mom said no. Plenty of parents buy dresses and shiny shoes for little girls to wear almost every day instead of just on special occasions as they do for boys. Plenty of parents start using their little girls as dolls to dress up in "pretty" clothes. This is just a new way for affulent parents to spoil their children, teach them vain habits that they learned or adopted growing up. Teach them money means status, to prove that status you must spend your money on worthless crap like makeup and designer clothes. Then you get older and you spend a lot on cars and homes and have no taste in art or culture. In short, plenty of parents teach their children to be followers but make them think they are the leaders. Or they throw their hands up in the air and say but she wants it and I'm helpless in the face of her whining and crying. Marketers are just taking adventage of the opportunity vain or spineless parents provide them as they always have and always will.
If women want to waste their money on beauty treatments because they have that much extra I really don't give a shit. If a mom is so vain as to take her child to a day spa, she was going to teach that girl extreme vanity anyway, maybe with beauty pagents or constant you'd look better if... . It does come from a natural state of wanting to look nice, but with everything that's natural, some people do it to the extreme. I will never know these lttle shits and the assholes they will grow into because I don't hang out will people of such affluence they can afford a spa treatment for themselves and their child/ren.
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