Six, or: Sixteen

Posted on by ben Alexander

A naani

took my little girl to a birthday party
knew
she would be excited
about the makeup booth

55 thoughts on “Six, or: Sixteen”

  3. Breathe before reading – again, this makes me uncomfortable, here I can put my finger on something: it is not about your girl’s excitement but it seems to me that by not putting it into a grown-up context or frame you are almost appearing as advocating a kind-of sexualisation of young girls.

    1. I don’t quite follow… what would the grown-up context be? she went to a children’s birthday party – it was a make-up activity for children. Personally, it’s not something that I’m into or encourage, but she likes it so I let her do it.

      ❤
      David

  4. So many subtle messages in our society to help our children navigate. Balancing their fun with building their inner self is always a process. I am glad she has you both to help her navigate through this world. She sounds pretty sweet and your love for her very clear. 💗

  5. I’m glad my children did not attend any parties like that. Girls get pushed in culturally approved directions too soon as it is. It’s funny, I was just thinking today about the marked difference in my personality once I turned 12 and was expected to conform to female behavior. I liked myself much better before. (K)

    1. yeah – it’s clearly a mark of her interactions with other girls at kindergarten / preschool – she wasn’t like this just a couple years ago…

  6. The beautiful and perfect princess life, good that the birthday parties are on again 🙂 the chance for an on spot makeup and some tattoos – don’t know if you have the tattoo artists in the parties there David, the parties here all seem to have a tattoo artist who draws little flowers and butterflies on the children.

  8. When I was six, I watched my mother put on makeup. I was never interested until I was a teen… Seems little girls are growing up much faster. I’m not sure if it is a result of peer pressure or a societal influence via TV and other media….

    1. Muri, it’s interesting – my wife doesn’t much like or wear makeup – so it’s interesting that our daughter does. On the other hand, my mother-in-law does like makeup and nail polish in particular – so it’s always a blast for our daughter when her maternal grandmother comes to visit 😀

      Shabbat shalom,
      David

      2. hey David, that would be a thing – try and tell your daughter if she wants make up she has to have a piercing and a tattoo for balance. And you get to choose the motif for the tattoo. That should be an interesting discussion, as clued up as your daughter sounds. 🙂

          1. oops – so where’s the difference to make-up then? (old woman with specs scratching her head), religiously spoken?

          4. not sure what to tell you. it seems like a major difference to me. a tattoo is considered “changing the body given to you by God” for religious Jewish people.

          5. yup I gather that – only if you’re religious the impermanence of the body is more a theme than not, so -…

          6. the way I’ve heard rabbis put it is that we should return our bodies to God the way he gave them to us – without marking them up.

            I don’t really care about the reasoning so much, and I’m not really sure there is much reasoning per se… but it’s been a Jewish tradition for-pretty much-ever.

            if you ever see an Orthodox Jewish with a tattoo, which is highly unlikely, it means that Orthodox Jew was not always Orthodox – either a convert to Judaism or a non-Orthodox Jew in a prior life.

          1. I kind of assumed that after a while. I understand. I’m not a parent, but I have a children’s book and work with kids in a church context. So far, I haven’t posted photos of the kids in my life and wouldn’t without parents’ permission.

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