Pass the judgey pants, it’s time for a bold pronouncement: Little children should not be getting manicures.
It’s an opinion shared by Angela Mollard, who wrote in the News Corp press last week that she found it depressing to see little girls in nail salons.
Ange, I concur.
And I surprised myself by going into a rant about exactly that to Andrew Daddo on This Glorious Mess this week
My daughter is six-years-old, and yes, she has had her nails done.
A friend of mine was babysitting, took her along and my girl thought she had DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN.
So many colours. So pretty pretty pretty. Such fun to have grown-ups make a fuss of you and so lovely to have your nails look so neat and shiny and not painted all over your fingers.
She chose a different colour for every nail, which is exactly what a six-year-old should choose when presented with a rainbow of shiny lacquers.
It was gorgeous fun. But seriously, the only people who should be painting my daughter’s nails are her, me, her friends, and long-suffering grown-up “Friends of The Family”.
Because she is a child, and there is something galling to me about seeing tiny children with grown women scraping around at their feet, putting little buds of cotton wool between their toes and painting their teeny-tiny nails.
This is the only kind of mani a kid should be indulging in. A DIY one.
A beautician once told me she had to quit her job in Sydney's swanky eastern suburbs, because so many of her clients were under 12-years-old.
It was demoralising.
Sometimes, it seems like the dividing line between girls and women is disappearing. Of course my daughter wants to go to the nail bar, she wants to wear my lipstick, and she wants to wear my high heels.
But, she's SIX. And I am an adult.
I would like it better if my daughter never even considered the way she looks. I would love it if the complete natural ease she has in her body, the joy she takes in what it can do - run fast, swim hard, dance and jump and swing - continues to trump her concern about its appearance for many, many years to come.
But I know that window is closing. I can hear it creaking every time she looks in the mirror and strikes a pose.
And as fun as the nail salon is, it's a gateway to that passive world where women spend precious time and money paying other women to make a million tiny adjustments to their natural state in pursuit of something unattainable.
You can paint me a hypocrite, because I do love a nice nail. But when it comes to little princesses being waited on by an army of trained professionals, I am out.
Gee, these judgey pants are comfy.
What do you think?
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Top Comments
Well, let me also don a pair of judgey pants and join you as I couldn't agree more. Urgh, pamper parties for little girls, yuk. No way would I let my daughter have one of those and she's 13. Thankfully my daughter wouldn't actually want one.
I think you have it wrong. Little girls don't necessarily have their nails done etc. because of how it makes them look. My youngest desperately wanted a 'pamper' party, which I fought against as much as I could, until I realised for her it wasn't about anything other than girls playing pretend. It was about the experience of being like grown-ups. After her party, rather than primping in front of a mirror and admiring themselves, my daughter and her friends ran outside and played on the trampoline. During the party itself, they just giggled the whole time. I think we over-think things and put our adult perspective on children's innocent play. If women are going to get their nails done, of course little girls are going to want their nails done, we're their role models. (Having said that, I apologised to all the parents when giving out the invitations)
Just because adults do things, that doesn't mean children should too. Uf you felt the need to apologise to parents when giving out the invitations maybe you shouldn't have done it in the first place!