Ever been frustrated enough to "kill" your project? Then you've contemplated SEWICIDE.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Fair does not mean equal. Part 1.

Why I let Prima wear makeup and her sisters can't...
Our eldest child is going to be 6 this September.  She's all girl: princesses, pink, fluffy, Disney-fied to a fare-thee-well. This was none of my doing.  I declared a moratorium on any "girly" colors for anything when she was born.  She played with trucks and Matchbox cars as often as she played with dolls.  I DID MY PART, HERE.

She also deals with some mental health issues.  Part of being brilliant can be some instability and we love who she is as much as we hate that she has to deal with it.  She has two younger sisters (twins Secunda and Tertia) that are the bane of her existence as well as her closest allies.

As Prima is the eldest, she gets all the fun stuff first and has the dubious distinction of being our Stunt Child.  Also, we have to really pick our battles.  One battle I refused to have when she was a teenager was cosmetics.  Why, with all the sexualization of young girls, am I allowing a typically "mature" privilege?

Because she is still listening to me.  If I want some influence in this milestone, I need to set the groundwork for rules, limits, and expectations around it.  I chose the colors, the types, the styles of makeup I'd accept.  I choose when and where she wears it.  She can paint herself up like a $2 hooker if she wants while we're at home.  

Because she is not being sexualized.  She dresses very conservatively and makes respectful and respectable choices around this.  Until she doesn't, she has the makeup privilege. 

She gets it out of her system.  By the time she's 12 and her friends are just discovering it, she'll be over it.  And no doubt on to something more terrifying for me :).  

Will I allow her sisters to behave the same way?  Absolutely not.  Because they are radically different children.  Because fair does not mean equal.

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