Photo: TikTok
Is it a sweet moment between a mom and her daughter, or is it holding a young girl up to impossible beauty standards?
By Alexandra Blogier — Written on May 12, 2023
The mom of a toddler who took her to an eyebrow threading salon is getting criticized online for letting her daughter pretend to get her eyebrows threaded.
The mom posted a TikTok of her young daughter accompanying her to get her eyebrows threaded, a normal parenting action for someone trying to balance their own self-care with raising a child. In the video, the toddler is seen sitting in a chair while a salon technician “threads” her eyebrows, many inches away from her face.
The mom was accused of forcing unrealistic beauty standards on her toddler by letting her pretend to get her eyebrows threaded.
Instead of seeing the video as a harmless moment, in which a young child pretended to do what her parent was doing, some viewers called the mom out for not letting her kid just be a kid. Yet one could argue that that’s exactly what she was doing– being a kid, using her imagination, and playing pretend with her mom.
The whole fake-threading experience takes under 45 seconds. It could be viewed as a sweet experience for the young girl, who most likely wanted to do what her mom was doing.
But some commenters thought by pretending to have her eyebrows threaded, the young girl was learning how to conform to rigid beauty standards. Kids learn by modeling behaviors from adults; one could make the argument that the toddler’s participation in the threading ritual reinforces the idea that she’ll have to conform to rigid beauty expectations later in life.
Yet it’s not so different from a child pretending to shave an imaginary beard with their father or watching their mom put on makeup. Neither activity predicts the future; rather, they allow kids to feel involved in their parents’ daily lives.
The comments beneath the TikTok of the toddler pretending to thread her eyebrows alongside her mom highlight people's initial reactions.
While a majority of the comments on the TikTok post were positive, mentioning how cute and funny it was to watch the toddler pretend to get her eyebrows done, others showed just how quickly the world of the internet ignites when viewers see something that they disagree with.
“I was ready to be a whole Karen,” one person said. “Why was I so mad for nothing,” someone else said.
“Glad I don’t have to call you a bad mom,” stated another follower.
Yet other commenters acted as a voice of reason within the preemptive judgment that the mom had done something wrong. “This is why it’s important to read the articles and/or watch the videos before commenting,” explained one level-headed person.
Young children learn how the world works through imaginative play. Pretend play is essential for children’s cognitive, emotional, and linguistic development.
Children usually begin to take part in imaginative play around age 3, as they begin to realize that they’re part of a larger world. While the toddler is pretending to get her eyebrows threaded today, tomorrow, she might be interested in an entirely different activity, one that has nothing to do with beauty standards, at all.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. As a former postpartum doula, she covers parenting issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.