A delicate question

If you were Madonna, or any mother with an 11-year-old daughter who is somewhat hirsute, would you even suggest depilation or bleaching?

I really am curious what you all think, because I'm not quite sure what I'd do. On the one hand, I wouldn't want such a young girl to already feel huge pressure to change her looks. On the other hand, I wouldn't want her to be subject to the kind of ridicule all that hair would inevitably attract. Tough one, I think.

Comments

[L]

I would rather do some major plucking rather than allow her to wear lipgloss!

[Alice Bachini-Smith]

My 11 yr old recently announced that she started plucking her eyebrows... she doesn't "need" to, at all, and will probably get bored of it soon anyway. To me, not a big deal either way though, compared to the other stuff (eyeliner, tattoos, orange hair dye etc).

Maybe Little Madonna is a bit over-sheltered and has no idea here brows are unconventional? I hope she doesn't find out from the internet (she's probably not allowed on it though).

[Jewels]

I would definately, epilate or something starting early. Nobodies perfect, but there are some things that are easily fixed. Whereas teasing causes untold hurt and damage

[Beth]

My niece is 10 and because she' has lots of dark, gorgeous hair and olive skin, she is prone to a bit of the unibrow action.

So my sister has been taking her to get that area waxed when she gets her haircut for the last couple of years. My sister doesn't make a big deal about it and my niece follows her lead and doesn't feel sensitive about it.

She (my niece) is also allowed to shave her legs because her hair is dark, dark, dark and she gets teased.

Bottom line, I think if you don't make a big deal about it and start when they're young, it won't make girls self-conscious.

[Franziska]

Kids can be cruel so I would do something about my daughter's mustache and mono brow if I was Madonna.

Lourdes is a girl, so you could always say that this is all part of the beauty regime girls do. Like painting your toe nails or trying out different hairstyles with ribbons, combs etc. in your hair.

[Amber]

I had a unibrow at that age (I guess I'd still have it now if I didn't pluck!) and it made me so horribly self-conscious that if I had a daughter with the same issue, I'd defitely teach her to tweeze, without making a big deal of it. As Franziska says, kids can be so cruel...

[em]

But the girl is eleven. Eleven! Why must she have adult ideas of "perfection" (I'm not going to say beauty because that is already a seriously gorgeous child) foisted upon her. There's plenty of time for plucking and bleaching. I hope the kid is allowed to be a kid for a while.

[Taryn]

Hmm, I saw this photo today, but not as a close up, and when people were ridiculing Lourdes' facial hair, I was like "what's the big deal? It doesn't look bad to me." Now that I've seen it close up, I think a little tweezing in the middle is in order. Nothing to change the shape, because her brows are beautiful, but just something to clean up that area.

As for waxing/bleaching the moustache, I'm undecided on that one. It may be a little early for that.

[Jacq]

I think that I'd wait until my daughter mentioned it herself, and then let her know the options, rather than tell her what she needed to do. I agree with Em - she's got the rest of her life to live up to whatever random physical ideal the rest of us subscribe to (usually against our better judgement). Let her be a kid and not worry for as long as possible, I say.

[Jen]

Goodness... that photo will haunt Lourdes through her teen years. Madonna should just have one of her team of stylists take care of it, for goodness sake! 11 is really not too young to begin grooming, right?

[ClareLucy]

God thats a shocker isn't it! Madonna seems to have some weird double standard, on the one hand she will bend over backwards to have the perfect toned body but she doesn't want her daughter to rely on her looks or have her head filled with un-feminist thoughts of personal appearance? I think that it is really short sighted. She takes her to have her hair cut doesn't she? And when Rocco starts growing facial hair, Guy will teach him to shave. It isn't about making a point, it is about helping your children and testing your principles out on your them isn't a kind thing to do.

[MLH]

She looks just like her mother. Madonna used to have thick eyebrows too. Over the years she has gotten blonder and less "ethnic" but in reality she is italian, she used to have big eyebrows and used to be a brunette. I bet she used to have a uni-brow too, just as her daughter.

[lulululu]

I seem to remember Madonna being infatuated with Frida Kahlo when it was trendy, maybe that is the influence....

I joke. I think Lourdes is a wee more wordly than most 11 year olds. She probably knows all about her options and is choosing against it. Or maybe she begs her mom for electrolysis every night and gets a big "not until you are 13" line like I did when I wanted to get my ears pierced.

And yeah. People are commenting on that picture and if Lourdes chooses to google herself, it may be some tough reading. I would like to think her parents shelter her from that sort of thing. And she may get teased at school, like we all did for this or that, but I doubt it because she is Madonna's daughter.

[nancy]

I agree with Beth: if you don't make a big deal out of the grooming, the child won't, either. My mother used Jolene bleach on the dark hairs on her upper lip, and when I started to get some at, I don't know, about 11, I did, too. No big deal.

As for letting the kid be a kid: I recall my daughter's 5th grade teacher sitting all twenty of her students in a circle and announcing, "When you go home today, tell your parents, they need to buy you deodorant." This was not cruel, it was the truth; these kids stank! It never occurred to me that the teacher should not have said this, or that she was giving the kids a complex. I think, she was helping them out.

[nancy]

Just looked at the photo: wow, her eyebrows are AMAZING, in a good way. They look like limpets! And the mustache sort of balances it out, as nature has a way of doing. I think I'd leave them be.

[Elana]

Great area to cover, cause I SWEAR I was thinking the same thing recently when I was browing through a gossip mag. I have mixed thoughts as well. As for teasing and ridicule for allowing her daughter to be au natural...for some reason, I think Madonna can handle the criticism ;)

[Jackie Danicki]

Er, I wasn't thinking of Madonna being ridiculed, but her young child.

[lattegoodness]

I blogged on this as well, and my stance is that though she is 11 years old, the fact that she is Madonna's, a celebrity's, daughter, she should tweeze all that off. Now if she never went out, i.e. out of the public eye, that'd be different. But she was on the red carpet with her family, and hopefully Madonna isn't stupid enough to think that no one will talk about her daughter's proclivity to hair. And it's naive to think the child will not eventually hear all the mean things said about it... sad, but true.

[laura linger]

The child has been ridiculed in the celebrity press. I cannot believe that Madonna would allow a young girl to go out with all of that hair. I used to get teased in junior high because my mother would not let me shave until the 9th grade. IT HURT. TEASING HURTS.

[Henna]

Why doesn't she just get lasered? Madonna can probably afford to get her own machine and hire someone to take it off whenever necessary.

[jennifer tyler]

hell yes, wax that ish off.

[Marade]

Well I had a unibrow as a child. Not a bad one realy but it was still there and I still got teased. But Id say the way Lourdes feels is that If she does everyone would make a big deal out of it and that is sometimes worse than the embarrasment of a joke here and there. She will probably do it soon.She is only eleven...