My daughter and I like to treat ourselves to a random eyebrow wax after a few hours of shopping or having lunch together. As she’s blossomed into her teen years, the amount of time she wants to spend with me isn’t as great as I wish, but I get it–when you’re in high school, your friends and social life trump your parents. That was true for me and I expected nothing less of my kids. But ouch, sometimes it still stings.
Last week after a much-needed shopping trip to Target, we went to our appointment to get a good brow job. As we were walking in and my daughter was sucking back the last of her blueberry Slurpee, she asked me if she could get a slit shaved into the side of her eyebrow.
I Want My Daughter to Feel Good About Herself
Without hesitation, I said yes. It’s her body and pretty much whatever she wants to do or wear is fine by me. Being a teenager is hard enough without your parents trying to dictate your personal style. My daughter has always liked to experiment with hair color and clothing and has never been one to follow the crowd. I admire that and certainly don’t want her to lose that part of herself.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t struggle with feeling insecure about her looks, and wanting to do whatever it takes to fit in. Being a teenage girl is no joke and all it takes is one event to send their self-esteem spiraling.
So, when she asked the woman doing her eyebrows if she could shave a slit in it, I wasn’t please with the woman’s reaction. She told my daughter that she’d do it but, hated the way it looked, thought it was super dumb, and she didn’t understand why anyone would want to do that to their face.
I couldn’t help myself even though my daughter gave me a look saying, “It’s fine. Mom leave it alone and keep your mouth shut.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you aren’t having it done then. Also, maybe it would be a better idea if you kept negative opinions about what other people wanted to do to their body to yourself.”
If she is rude enough to comment about how “dumb” she thinks something my daughter wants to do is, then I felt comfortable sharing my opinion on how inappropriate it was for her to offer her negative opinion when no one asked for it.
I think people forget how impressionable young kids are. Their self-esteem is so wrapped up in how they look. They are as fragile as a glass of red wine teetering on the edge of a coffee table with a wild toddler walking around looking for some action.
With one word, one comment, one unsolicited opinion, they can go from feeling pretty good about themselves to wanting to hide out in a cave. Not only is it unacceptable to say anything to anyone about how they look, or choose to style their body, we need to take into consideration how impressionable teenagers are and keep our traps shut about how they want to wear their hair, and what they want to put on their body.
The lady who did my daughter’s eyebrows had nothing to gain by dropping in with her unsolicited opinion. And the fact my daughter wanted to have a section of her brow shaved off because she’s into that look, has zero bearing on this woman. She managed only to make my daughter feel bad and never want her to wax her eyebrows again.
We need to support our teenagers through many things in life. They need our direction when it comes to school, sports, relationships, and learning how to perform basic life-skills. What they don’t need is someone, especially a stranger, telling them what they think looks dumb, criticizing their style, or telling them they shouldn’t wear something.
When people offer their opinions they don’t stop to think just how personal this really feels to a teenager. When it comes to how our teenagers look we should be lifting them up and commending them on their style, not tearing them apart.
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