Photo: Yuganov Konstantin / Shutterstock
Was the mom wrong?
By Sanika Nalgirkar
Last updated on Nov 07, 2023
Parenting can be difficult each parent has a different parenting style. Both parents only want the best for their children but sometimes their ways of doing things can create conflict.
This is exactly what happened when one mom waxed her 5-year-old daughter’s unibrow because she was being bullied.
"So my five year old daughter has a pretty thick dark unibrow, that is very noticeable," the mom explained in a Reddit post that has since been deleted. "This past summer her cousins came over to visit and many of them teased her for her unibrow."
The mother mentioned that her daughter’s school starts soon and she didn’t want her to go through it again.
"At just five years old my daughter already thinks she is ugly," she wrote. "It breaks my heart because nobody (let alone a five year old) should think they are ugly. I reassure my daughter she is beautiful and not to listen to her cousins, but my daughter still believes she is ugly."
The mother wrote how heartbroken she was to see her daughter constantly put herself down despite the mom reassuring her daughter that she was beautiful as is. Her mom knew the negative effect this could have had on her kid so she "didn't shape them or anything just waxed the middle off to get rid of her unibrow."
It made a huge difference for the daughter as she was happy and overjoyed, “My daughter was elated looking in the mirror and calling herself so pretty.”
The dad was furious at the mom for waxing their daughter's eyebrows.
While the mom thought she helped her daughter, the dad was furious about the way she went about it. The dad argued that the mom conformed her daughter to beauty standards and it was “horrible” of her to do it.
“He said it was horrible of me to be subjecting my five year old daughter to beauty standards. And that at such a young age I’m pushing it on her, instead of telling her she is beautiful the way she is,” the mom wrote. “And that my daughter is too young to know what she wants. She should have been able to make her decision to wax it off when she is old enough."
Research shows that kids can become self-conscious at a very young age.
“The dad has no idea how cruel the world is to women about their looks. If he thinks that it's coming from the mom, he's being incredibly simplistic," one person wrote on Reddit in support of the mom — and research has shown that self-esteem can be impacted in children as young as preschool.
In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers "found that as young as 5 years of age self-esteem is established strongly enough to be measured."
“Some scientists consider preschoolers too young to have developed a positive or negative sense about themselves. Our findings suggest that self-esteem, feeling good or bad about yourself, is fundamental,” said co-author Andrew Meltzoff. “It is a social mindset children bring to school with them, not something they develop in school.”
People in the comments shared their own experiences with navigating beauty standards at a young age.
“As a child I had a mole on my face that I hated and everyone could see it. It really messed with my self esteem and I was teased so much. When I finally had it removed I felt AMAZING and there was an instant improvement on how I was treated by others," one person recalled. "I sooooo wish my parents would have just let me remove it at a young age. It took less than 5 minutes to greatly improve my life.”
While parents should always reassure their children that they're beautiful exactly as they are, the mom's openness with and empathy for her daughter should be applauded.
"The daughter is happy. One little tiny bit of hair was removed simply and easily, and the kid has an easier life," one person wrote. "This is not the hill to die on regarding body issues.”
Sanika Nalgirkar, M.F.A. is a writer who specializes in entertainment & news, lifestyle, and pop culture topics.