Is Age Really Just a Number?

        

The inspiration for this blog came from the dating site I'm a member of. Despite being very smitten with Mr. CT - I'm trying to "keep my options open" (as a friend so wisely recommended) and have not closed my profile. I'm not on the site searching through other people's pages, but am leaving mine up for others to contact me (I know this isn't the way to find a date but really I'm more interested in seeing what happens with Mr. CT than anything else at this point). 

Anyway. I've noticed that either mostly men over 40 are looking at my profile (you can see who has viewed you recently on this site) or there are only mostly over 40 men on this website.

Is it because by 40+ men don't feel the same pressure as younger men to conform and date "super model" looking woman? Is it because they're looking for a younger woman to make them feel young? Or is it just something about me that appeals to older men?

Not that I want to judge all older men based off my first-first date experience but I think that date showed me that there might be an age limit for me. Someone who hasn't experienced everything I've yet to (marriage/divorce, traveling, etc) or at least wants to do them again (i.e., have children).  I understand the benefits of the "older man" - ready to settle down, done with the "bachelor lifestyle", secure in job/finances....but I think for me ten years older is really my maximum. Anything over that and I start playing the mental "Are you closer to my age or my mother's?" game (fyi Mr. 1st 1st Date was closer to my mothers....eek)

On the reverse side I definitely feel that there is a limit to how young I could/would date. 

Yesterday I saw a 20 year old had viewed my profile. Now he didn't make contact but the first thing I thought when I saw his age (age mind you not profile/picture) was "Oh hell no!".

Mostly because my younger sister is only 20 and since I helped raise her after my parents divorced I some how can't get the Baby C's Age = Child (I still call her and her bf "The Kids")... which brings me to her boyfriend... he's 22 and I still don't think I could date someone that young. Sure they're old enough to go to the bars (where a 20 year old can't even do that!)... but I'd forever thing Mr. X = Same Age as Nick-Nick.

No thank you.

I think the youngest I could go... probably only a year or two younger than myself... or at least for now. I've been out of school for five years, have worked at a number of businesses and organizations as well as moved around a bit. Just like I don't want to be with someone who has experienced much more life than I have I don't want to be with someone who is still discovering who they are. (Not to say younger people haven't "lived" more than I).

However, as a general rule of thumb I don't (or at least try not to) prejudge based on age. I'll engage in conversation, reply to an email, but I can't help but wonder how much farther than a "hello" it will go.

What about you? How much older/younger have you dated?

A Thrisis?

20 Somethings - Get ready for a "Thrisis"

By Andrea Lavinthal and Jessical Rozler

(CNN) -- Despite lackluster reviews and declining ratings we're holding out hope for "$#*! My Dad Says," the new CBS comedy starring William Shatner. No, we're not particularly big fans of the 79-year-old actor, but we do appreciate the prime-time sitcom's realistic portrayal of adulthood.

For those who don't know, the show is based on the wildly popular Twitter feed of Justin Halpern, a comedy writer who moved back into his parents' house in his late 20s and started documenting the hilarious -- and profanity-laced -- musings of his father.

With more and more adults living under the same roof as their parents -- 85 percent of college seniors planned to return home after graduation, according to a recent poll) -- one thing is for certain: For most 20-somethings, and a lot of 30-somethings, the road to becoming a genuine grown-up, minus the air quotes, is an increasingly long one.

Sure, delaying the onset of adulthood isn't exactly breaking news, but here's what is: People are finally paying attention to the late 20s and early 30s, that gray zone when you're not young enough to be young and not old enough to be old.

Forget the quarterlife crisis -- that post-college moment of clarity when you realize that working at a job actually requires -- you know -- work.

This is a "thrisis" -- an uneasiness people experience as they hit the big 3-0. Or the big 3-uh-oh, as we like to call it.

These feelings of anxiety crept into our own lives as we left our 20s. Our peers -- whether single or married, with or without children, unemployed or climbing the corporate ladder -- had to two primary questions as they neared 30:

• Is this what it feels like to be an adult?

• And am I normal?

(Spoiler: The answer to both questions is most likely "yes.")

While a discussion of 20-somethings inevitably turns into a lament about the younger generation, with their buffet-of-life choices, lack of responsibility, and refusal to grow up, here's the truth: This isn't your mother's 30.

These choices come with the pressure to not only have it all, but to make it perfect -- the HGTV-worthy house, gifted children, high-powered career, and soul mate. A tough current economic climate has made it difficult for people of all ages to mark the "traditional" adult milestones, making adulthood even more complicated.

In addition to the pressure for perfection, today, we also have the added anxiety of living our lives more publicly than ever before. Thanks to social networking and other forms of digital dishing, not only can we spend hours navel-gazing online, but we can also gaze at each other's navels via social networking sites.

Now you can log onto Facebook or Twitter and find out that your younger cousin is pregnant (again), your best friend got a promotion, and your college roommate is engaged. It's easier to compare and contrast our friends' life trajectories to our own and then blog, tweet, text, and instant message about it.

While the thrisis isn't exactly fun, there is some good news: You'll realize that part of being an adult is understanding that "figuring it all out" is a lifelong task even for the biggest grown-ups among us, not a goal that must be reached by an arbitrary birthday. You'll also gain a lot a more out of a thrisis than you'll lose -- good stuff like maturity, self-awareness, and perspective.

Speaking of perspective, let's step back for a moment and not forget that 30 isn't exactly geriatric, for gosh sakes. Plus, more research shows we actually get happier as we get older. We should all be so lucky to have a life re-evaluation at age 100, although "century-is" or "hundred-is" just doesn't have the same ring to it as thrisis does.

Female Beauty is an Abomination

(Guardian Article forwarded to me)

L'Oréal's pulled adverts: This ideal of female beauty is an abomination

The lengths the beauty industry and its ugly sister, the fashion industry, go to sell their products are repellent. - by Tanya Gold 

When curves were fashionable - Marilyn Monroe.
Photograph: SAM SHAW / Rex Features

The advertising slogan of L'Oréal is "Because we're worth it". But it doesn't really mean it. If it did, it might include people who look like people in its marketing campaigns. And so the Advertising Standards Authority's decision this week to ban two L'Oréal adverts for deviousness could be the start of something wondrous.

The adverts featured the actress Julia Roberts and the model Christy Turlington promoting Lancôme's Teint Miracle foundation and Maybelline's the Eraser foundation. (Note the use of the word "erase". It means "annihilate".) Roberts is 43; Turlington 42. In the fashion and beauty world, they are as old as Yoda. So beauty did what beauty does; it examined the photographs, observed the flaws and eliminated them. The women emerged improbably radiant and extremely beige. They looked weird and alien and faintly radioactive, like the Ready Brek kids, but with smaller stomachs and longer necks. L'Oréal, the largest and most profitable beauty company in the world, was pleased.

L'Oréal's ad campaign for Lancôme with Julia Roberts

But after a campaign by Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat MP, who emerges from this saga like Joan of Arc with a Wet One, the ASA ruled that the adverts misrepresented what the products could do to a normal face. The claims literally had no foundation. Roberts and Turlington had been digitally altered, Turlington to the extent that a piece of skin appeared to be shooting out of her cheek, possibly heaven-bound. L'Oréal pronounced itself "disappointed," which presumably means that if it had a face, its mascara would run on to its chin. The company has form in this. It has received complaints for promoting Telescopic mascara with Penelope Cruz in eyelash extensions and Elvive shampoo with Cheryl Cole in hair extensions, because there is no woman so beautiful, her hairs cannot be extended beyond their human capabilities. The Cruz complaint was upheld; the Cole one thrown out.

I am not against foundation. I take no such political position. To have a face like the bastard child of E.T. and Chewbacca is not my goal, even as I await the emails suggesting my opinions about the beauty and fashion industries stem from my own essential ugliness. A No Grooming Whatsoever manifesto is a straw man I would not touch with a blusher brush. But the lengths the beauty industry and its ugly sister, the fashion industry, run to sell their products are repellent and dangerous. In search of profit, they have created a homogenous ideal of female beauty that has nothing to do with what women actually look like. She is an abomination – starved and plucked and ironed and shrunk; she is the doll that looks like no one. Her goal is to sell dissatisfaction because liking your body sells nothing. Surveys say the majority of women are unhappy with their appearance and I blame the doll for almost all of it.

It has been a slow crawl for the doll. In the 50s and even the 70s – the 60s were a tentative audition for today – a size 12, with hips and breasts, could make it on to a billboard or into a movie. Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Ava Gardner – all had flesh and interesting faces and imperfections. Russell's eyebrows looked like draft excluders and Gardner had a cleft chin you could topple into. They looked like individuals. No more. Models and actresses are tiny now, and curiously similar, with every trace of fat melted off, every shadow painted out. This is not just boring and offensive and a nightmare for people who like to see actresses who can act, rather than pout. It is a mass psychosis, where what is real is despised and what is non-existent is desirable. The camera lies, like never before. I await the first Franken-actress, composed of itinerant body parts glued together with CGI. I hope they don't forget the eyes.

When I attended couture week in Paris last year – an event of such monstrous self-delusion and inanity I will never go again – I stared at the girls because their upper arms were thinner than their lower ones. They looked sick in their hobbling heels and, therefore, as remote as ghosts. They were sallow and spotty; they had created the need for airbrushing themselves, for a want of toast and butter. Even so, very thin hands clapped. I thought the audience was mad to applaud such screaming symptoms of starvation, but no. They are simply immune. They have forgotten what normal people look like. In kinder moments, I can see that fashion people are also victims of their own cracked dreamland. Galliano is daft, McQueen is dead and both Valentino and Lagerfeld look as if they've have had enough plastic surgery to suggest they don't like the mirror, either. They look like unhappy, ageing women: they look like their customers.

Valentino (L) - Lagerfeld (R)

When a model leaves the catwalk and dies of heart failure, or dies of anorexia with the whispered death-bed testimony of what the industry requires on her lips, there is always some chat about banning size-zero women from the shows and a suggestion that fat women (size six?) should be allowed to stagger up and down the catwalks in the stupid shoes. Giorgio Armani said in 2006: "The time has now come for clarity. We all need to work together against anorexia." But watch the fall/winter 2011-12 shows online and see if you think anything has changed. The status quo is re-established as the model goes cold.

Sometimes a product such as Dove will use "Real Women" – that means fat, with non-regular features – in its advertising, but this is gimmickry, a shove for the latest campaign. A normal-looking person in a beauty advert equals a global news story; what else do you need to know? In what you might call corporate altruism, although I call it something else, Dove (property of Unilever) has established a Self-Esteem Fund to help women combat advertising and the eating disorders even Unilever admits advertising creates, because "the average person sees between 400 and 600 advertisements per day," some of which are, presumably, Dove's. But go to their website. You will soon see young, thin models as well as "Real Women". Normal abnormality is re-established, even as the Self-Esteem Fund counts the teenage anorexics on its fingers.

The September Issue, the documentary about US Vogue, included a brilliant scene where the cameraman was photographed for the magazine. Well, not his head. He was presumably too ugly to appear with his head, but his body, all in black, was OK if his paunch was rubbed out. That was Vogue's revenge on the truth-teller: make him thinner, remove his head.

When women, and increasingly men, who are, poor things, the latest victims, see the gulf between the ideal and their own nasty reflections, what happens? Their hatred of their own selves grows – read the innumerable statistics – and vomit rises in the throat of yet more consumers. You can ignore the argument that growing obesity is a sign fashion advertising and beauty advertising has no impact. Anorexia and compulsive eating are twins, not opposites, and both, I think, a response to the doll.

I am thrilled Swinson and the ASA stood up to the doll and knocked her down. It could be the start of something beautiful. Or it could be a scream in the night, because she will be back. She is made of flesh and pixels – and money.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011

Portland: Childless by Choice

(Article was the headline news of the Oregonian today).

Fewer Oregon homes include children, new census data show

By Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Oregonian

Susana Holloway is a college-educated foodie who owns a business, shares a cute red bungalow in Northeast Portland with her husband, and loves children.

She just doesn't want any.

In Portland, the 37-year-old can feel at home. The city known for its young creatives should perhaps be known for its young and childless.

Just 30 percent of households in Oregon have children, the lowest rate among all but seven states, according to U.S. Census data released today. The picture is even starker in Portland, where only one in four homes includes a child 17 or younger.

But while an aging population helps explain the dearth of households with children statewide, Portland is bulging with residents of prime child-rearing age. Fully 36 percent of Portlanders are ages 25 to 44, the highest share among Oregon communities of at least 10,000 residents.

Yet the city's population of school-age children shrank over the decade even as the city grew. According to the 2010 Census, Portland is home to about 76,300 children ages 5 to 17, down by more than 2,800 from 2000.

"Young people come here not to raise families but because the urban core is a place with close proximity to jobs, nightlife, good restaurants and having fun," said Charles Rynerson, a demographer at the Portland State University Population Research Center. "Many people who come here either haven't started a family here yet or they will somewhere else."

The past decade, as many baby boomers aged from parents with children at home to empty-nesters, showed a sharp decline in the share of households with children -- nationally, in Oregon and in Portland. Oregon's rate of households with children dropped from 33 percent to 30 percent, paralleling a 3 percentage point drop nationwide to 33 percent.

Clackamas County showed an even steeper decline, from 37 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2010. Clark County was part of the trend, too, with a drop from 40 percent to 36 percent.

Americans gave birth to fewer babies in 2010 than in 1990, according to preliminary census tallies, despite tens of millions of immigrants entering the country. Twenty-three states saw a net loss in children since 2000. Oregon's under-17 population inched up during the decade, but the adult population grew much faster.

Rynerson said a few factors link Oregon with the other states -- Maine, North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Vermont -- with the lowest rate of households with children. They all have a larger than average population of baby boomers. And except for Florida, they are very white states. White women have the lowest fertility rates.

Yet according to the most recent national census study of women who reached their early 40s without having children, education is a greater influence than race or ethnicity on whether a woman becomes a mother. While Portland's population is young, it maintains a thriving creative class that is highly educated and tends to put off or eschew child-rearing.

"This is a city of young foodies, designers and artists, and they don't have the energy or the time to want to start a family," said Holloway, who decided not to have children because of overpopulation and who runs a cooking school called Portland's Culinary Workshop. "It's such a creative city that people feel like they can make a go of it, and that's what they focus on. I joke that my business is my baby."

Portland's Karen Foster published her book "No Way Baby!: Exploring, Understanding, and Defending the Decision NOT to Have Children" this year and said the census reflects a trend toward waiting for or forgoing children.

"Many of these people simply haven't had children yet," said Foster, 43 and childless by choice. "People live here because they want to as opposed to going somewhere because of a job, so the city attracts people who are taking advantage of the lifestyle and may put off child-rearing."

Progressive cities such as Portland apply less pressure to have children, particularly at a young age, she said. But she bristles at the "Portlandia" notion that the city is full of adults who refuse to grow up.

"People accidentally get pregnant, but they don't accidentally not have children. That takes planning," she said. "Sometimes it's a very grown-up decision."

PSU's Rynerson said having fewer households with children carries positive and negative effects. Fewer children relative to adults means fewer tax dollars spent on children's services. But it also means fewer people to pay into Social Security to care for an aging nation and to take jobs to fuel the economy as earlier generations retire. Locally, a dwindling youth population leads to school closures and other upheaval.

But if Portland is unusual in its childlessness, one need look only a few miles away to find very different landscapes. More than 50 percent of households have children in Bethany, Cornelius and Sherwood. In Happy Valley, it's 49 percent.

Jason Gardner, a 35-year-old real estate agent and father of three, moved to Sherwood 11 years ago and has watched it flourish as families planted roots. While Portland is heavy on rental housing -- 46 percent rent -- Sherwood draws families, and 75 percent of residents own their homes.

"People typically don't move here to have babies, but I see people more times than not coming here to purchase when they already have young children," he said. "The biggest reason people move here is because it seems to attract people who want an environment where they can raise their kids peacefully and safely, and send them to good schools. Sherwood is a haven for those types of families."

Just a little Nip and Tuck.

I admit.
I'm a photoshopper. 

Goodbye sags under my eyes. 

Goodbye giant blemish on my chin.

Are there parts of my body I'd like to lift, tuck and suck? Sure. Doesn't mean I'm going to (no offense to anyone but I still don't trust the medical techniques out there). 

I think there is a time and a place for these alterations: i.e., getting rid of that giant red pimple on my nose before sending out the family Christmas cards.

There are some physical body-modifications I have a harder time with. I'm all for freedom of self and you can do to yourself what you want...I just start worrying when parent's are making these choices for their children and when modifications turn to addiction. But then I also know I'm not in any place to make the call for others.

Beauty changes with time and everyone's view of what "beauty" is, is different.

*     *     *

Capturing Beauty, With All Its Flaws

By Simone S. Oliver

May 17, 2011

IN 2010 there were more than 12 million cosmetic procedures — from breast implants to Botox injections — performed in the United States, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Meanwhile, there is at least one mother who has injected Botox into her child, a beauty pageant contestant (as seen on “Good Morning America” last week); a steady stream of models in uneasy relationships with their body weight, and magazine layouts in which skin color and body shapes have been digitally modified.

All of these subjects are examined in “Beauty Culture,” the first fashion- and beauty-themed exhibition to be held at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, the heartland of Hollywood goddesses and plastic surgery. A celebrity-filled gala will be held tonight for the show, which opens on May 21 and runs through Nov. 27.

As visitors walk along the winding halls of the exhibition space, they will find 175 images by more than 100 photographers, from straight-up glamour portraits to more-unsettling images, such as a needle entering a lip.

“We wanted to talk about the ugly side of the beauty industry alongside the beauty,” said Kohle Yohannan, its curator. But, he said, “I didn’t want it to just be a finger wag. This is the beginning of a dialogue. it’s not a statement.”

Patricia Lanza, Annenberg’s director of talent and content, asked Mr. Yohannan to be involved in “Beauty Culture” after she visited “Model as Muse,” a 2009 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that Mr. Yohannan curated with Harold Koda.

Mr. Yohannan said it was important to him to present the pictures in “chapters,” such as “The Marilyn Syndrome,” “Beauty Inc.: The $300 Billion Cosmetics Industry” and “What Color Is Beauty?”

“The story of beauty is complicated,” he said. “Trying to generalize it is lazy.”

Many of the photographs were shot by heavyweights in the fashion industry such as Steven Meisel, and some are by lesser-known artists, including Nino Muñoz, who has worked extensively with the model Gisele Bundchen.

One of the show’s highlights is a 30-minute documentary that will play every hour. It was directed by the photographer Lauren Greenfield, whose prints are also featured.

Ms. Greenfield has covered beauty-related subjects like aging throughout her career, mostly from a cultural perspective. During her research for the film, she said she learned to look at the subject from a biological standpoint with the help of Nancy Etcoff, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, who is interviewed in the film. Dr. Etcoff wrote the book “Survival of the Prettiest,” an exploration of the biological relationship people have with beauty.

Ms. Greenfield said her dialogue with Dr. Etcoff “gave me perspective when shooting things like eating disorders, plastic surgery, fashion.”

For her part, Dr. Etcoff said she thought the exhibition could make people “think again about many issues: about what they consider beautiful and why, why it is part of human nature and what role certain images and photographers and media play in our ideas about the boundaries of beauty.”

Digital photography has made it easy to manipulate how people appear, resulting in unrealistic examples of beauty that may skew some people’s expectations of themselves and others. The exhibition examines this with the Beauty Culture Digital Salon, where guests can alter a photo of themselves and choose a “before” or “after” picture.

It is tempting to think that the digital revolution introduced new levels of fakery, said Zed Nelson, a photographer featured in “Beauty Culture” who has spent part of his career considering the effects of the globalization of Western beauty ideals. But retouching and clever lighting are as old as portraiture itself, he pointed out.

Such manipulation, he said, is “kind of like the apple in the Garden of Eden: it’s so readily available that people use it without thinking. And I think that’s had an effect. Some images in magazines, they’re almost becoming illustrations instead of photographs.”

There has been some backlash against such images. For example, the May 2010 issue of Marie Claire had Jessica Simpson, without makeup, on the cover. In this month’s issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Diane Von Furstenberg, photographed bare-faced by Chuck Close, says she believes that imperfections and wrinkles give a person character.

But such experiments are rare.

“We have a Venus for every era,” Mr. Yohannan said. “And the war that pop culture wages on the female body should be looked at closely. These models are not the norm.”

One current pop goddess, Lady Gaga (on the cover of May’s Harper’s Bazaar), is challenging beauty norms. There are no photos of her in “Beauty Culture,” but she may share some of its goals.

“When everybody around you has had their breasts enlarged, their teeth whitened and their skin peeled, then you become the odd one out, you become the freak,” said Mr. Nelson, the photographer. “That’s the scary thing. And so anything that draws attention to that is a good thing.”

Banning Barbie?

What do other people think about Barbie?

I have to make a confession here. While I understand and am right with folks that she gives a false representation to what women's bodies look like. I also just don't have the fire in my belly to get angry about it. I played with barbie growing up and maybe it was just the way I was raised but I never wished I looked like her or hated my body because it didn't.

*     *     *

Banning Barbie
By LISA BELKIN
Mattel, via Associated Press

Ah, Barbie. Fixation of generations of little girls. And their mothers — but for different reasons.

Rebecca Fitzgerald is struggling with the Barbie dilemma at the moment. Not whether she should buy her 3-year-old daughter the doll; she is quite clear that she would never do that. No, her problem is how to keep her father from showing up with one. And she is looking for advice from Motherlode.

She writes:

I was hoping to get help from you and your readers on explaining to my 60-something father why Barbie isn’t an appropriate gift for my 3-year-old daughter! I know there’s been research on the effect of Barbie on body image in kids as young as 5, but it’s surprisingly difficult to find. He’s a physician and a father of three girls raised to think they could be president — as long as they were pretty, too.

What kind of explanation would prevent him from buying makeup kits, high heels and fishnets when he thinks a busty gal in a tiny dress is a good role model for my preschooler?!

Many thanks,

Rebecca

My first thought was that Rebecca show her father the work of Galia Slayen, now a senior at Hamilton College, who has built herself one big Barbie doll. Hers is a life-sized depiction of how Barbie would look if she were “real,” and by Ms. Slayen’s calculations, poor Barbie would measure six feet in height, with a 39-inch bust, 18-inch waist and 33-inch hips. Made of chicken wire and paper maché, she was a project for National Eating Disorder Week when Ms. Slayen was still in high school. She is dressed, literally and symbolically, in the “size double zero” skirt that “used to slip off my waist when I was struggling with anorexia,” Ms. Slayen wrote in a post on The Huffington Post earlier this year. “I put it on Barbie to serve as a reminder that the way Barbie looks, the way I once looked, is not healthy and is not ‘normal.’ ”

You can see Ms. Slayen’s appearance on “The Today Show” with her mutant Barbie here:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

After Galia Slayen, I thought Rebecca might get some good advice from Peggy Orenstein, author of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture” (who happens to be appearing at the 92nd Street Y in TriBeCa Tuesday night on a panel titled “Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Sponge Bob Ate My Son: The Reality of Marketing to Kids.”)

So I forwarded the note from Rebecca, and here’s what Ms. Orenstein had to say:

Dear Rebecca,

Well, first of all, as with children, you need to establish limits with grandparents in general. The grandparents’ role is to adore the grandchildren, yes, but also to respect the parents and their wishes whether or not they agree with them. So answer No. 1 is your father shouldn’t give your daughter a Barbie simply because you don’t want him to. Regardless of whether he thinks that’s foolish or wise. Anything else overrides and undermines your parental authority.

So that’s the Dear Abby part. Let’s move on to Barbie. Barbie is really a symbol of your larger concern, right? It’s not Barbie in a vacuum. And it would be simplistic to say that A+B=C; that is, that if you play with Barbie you’ll grow up to have an eating disorder. In fact, I wish it were that simple.

But what you’re battling against here is something larger and more complex — a marketing and childhood culture that encourages girls in an unprecedented way from an unprecedentedly young age to define themselves through appearance and play-sexiness, that defines femininity through materialism and narcissism. There’s a marketing notion called kids getting older younger: products are pitched initially to older children, but younger kids, wanting to be like cool older sibs, soon adopt them, at which time the older kids instantly abandon them as babyish and move on to something even “cooler.” And for girls, being cool means looking hot.

Dad sounds like a science-y guy, so lob some hard stats at him to explain: when she was first released in 1960, Barbie’s original demographic was 9- to 12-year-old girls. Now a girl is done with Barbie by 5. Fifty percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls in a survey by a market research group say they regularly wear lipstick or lip gloss, and the percentage of 8- to 12-year-olds wearing mascara and eyeliner doubled between 2008 and 2010 (why isn’t the percentage of 8-year-olds wearing mascara zero?).

I’m sure you saw the recent fracas over the push-up bikini top that Abercrombie & Fitch was trying to sell 7- to 12-year-old girls. That top is still out there; they just changed the name, not the product. The point is, the pressure on girls to define themselves from the outside-in rather than the inside-out is enormous. And confusing. And alluring — because it’s fun. For a while, anyway. I mean, makeup! Sparkles! Fashion! Who doesn’t like that? And it can be creative, but in such a well-worn, narrow way, right?

Meanwhile, a large-scale survey by Girls Inc. found that between 2000 and 2006 the percentage of elementary school girls who were worried about being thin went up far faster, and was much higher, than the percentage who worried about the quality of their school work. The percentage of the same girls who believed you had to be pretty and thin to be popular went up, too. The pressure girls expressed to be perfect (good at school and sports and pretty, popular and thin) went up. And the American Academy of Pediatrics — an organization I’m sure your dad respects — recently put out a memo to its members telling them that eating disorders were on the rise among children under 12 and they needed to be more mindful of the signs.

Beyond that, when we were children (or at least when I was) Barbie was a doll. Basta. She was not a lifestyle. There were no Barbie toothbrushes, Barbie tricycles, Barbie scooters, Barbie breakfast cereal (I don’t know if there’s really Barbie breakfast cereal, but there are now Disney Princess grapes, so there might as well be, and believe me, if you haven’t started fighting with Dad about Princess, that is coming). Do you really want your child to be subject to that kind of training: that her role in life is to advertise and consume licensed products to the hilt? Forget the girl stuff — your child does not exist to be a marketer’s land grab.

O.K. Now I’ve scared you. I’ve scared him. So what’s a mom or grandpop to do? I say, fight fun with fun. I’m wondering why your dad is so obsessed with Barbie. Because he liked watching you play with her? Because he thinks she defines cute, innocent girlness?

If it’s the former, why not suggest a present that would involve the three of you doing something, making some memory together? If it’s the latter, well, I get that. Girls are adorable when they play with Barbies or Princess. And little girls also have a developmental need to find a way to assert that they’re girls (more on why another time) in the most extreme way with whatever tools are at hand. When I was a child that mean baby dolls, strollers, doll houses. Now it’s spa makeovers for 4-year-olds.

That means, though, that countering with generic toys is really not enough. Besides, it’s hard to convince your daughter (or your father) that you’re giving her more choices by saying no all the time. So you need to offer her other ideas, playthings, books, movies, clothing that signify girl and signify fun yet broaden her idea of femininity. I have an evolving, idiosyncratic list of resources for this on my Web site (and if you have others, by all means let me know). Maybe you could suggest one of them to Dad as an alternative. If he’s looking for a doll companion, how about a groovy girl or a go-go sports girl? Or troll eBay for a Mulan doll (they’re out there; hard to find, though). You know what my daughter adores? Her Lennon Sisters paper dolls. I kid you not. Tell him that she will have so many messages beamed at her every day of her life that only a particular look and a particular body are acceptable, and you don’t want them to come on her birthday from one of the men she loves most in the world. In fact, you could just leave it at that.

Full disclosure, I’m personally harder core on other issues, so a few Barbies infiltrated our home. I just got ridiculously picky about which Barbies. No Barbie Basics No. 10. Not even those dopey fairytopia Barbies. We had Wonder Woman Barbie. Indonesian Barbie. It was ludicrous. But there was one of my (many) compromises. And then I put a dollar in the therapy fund.

But again, it’s not Barbie per se that’s the issue, it’s the whole culture coming at your daughter. Barbie is just the symbol.

And hey, maybe for her birthday you could give him a few presents: “Packaging Girlhood” by Lyn Mikel Brown and Sharon Lamb; “So Sexy So Soon” by Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne; “Pink Brain, Blue Brain” by Lise Eliot; “Consuming Kids” by Susan Linn; and, of course, “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” …

Good luck,

Peggy

Let Children be Children!

A friend had this link to this article on her facebook this morning. I had no idea that I would be sitting at my desk holding back laughter and nodding my head, in agreement with the author, as I read. LZ Granderson hits it on the head when he asks the question about what is going through the heads of marketing teams creating these products and what is going through the heads of the parents purchasing these items for their little ones!

*     *     *

Parents, don't dress your girls like tramps

By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor

April 19, 201

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) -- I saw someone at the airport the other day who really caught my eye.

Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie "10" (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her "Xtina" phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.

You can tell she had been vacationing somewhere warm, because you could see her deep tan around her midriff thanks to the halter top and the tight sweatpants that rested just a little low on her waist. The icing on the cake? The word "Juicy" was written on her backside.

Yeah, that 8-year-old girl was something to see all right. ... I hope her parents are proud. Their daughter was the sexiest girl in the terminal, and she's not even in middle school yet.

Abercrombie & Fitch came under fire this spring for introducing the "Ashley," a push-up bra for girls who normally are too young to have anything to push up. Originally it was marketed for girls as young as 7, but after public outcry, it raised its intended audience to the wise old age of 12. I wonder how do people initiate a conversation in the office about the undeveloped chest of elementary school girls without someone nearby thinking they're pedophiles?

Push-up bikini controversyVideo

What kind of PowerPoint presentation was shown to the Abercrombie executives that persuaded them to green light such a product?

That there was a demand to make little girls hot?

I mean, that is the purpose of a push-up bra, right? To enhance sex appeal by lifting up, pushing together and basically showcasing the wearer's breasts. Now, thanks to AF Kids, girls don't have to wait until high school to feel self-conscious about their, uhm, girls. They can start almost as soon as they're potty trained. Maybe this fall the retailer should consider keeping a plastic surgeon on site for free consultations.

We've been here with Abercrombie before -- if you recall, about 10 years ago they sold thongs for 10-year-olds -- but they're hardly alone in pitching inappropriate clothing to young girls. Four years ago the popular "Bratz" franchise introduced padded bras called "bralettes" for girls as young as six. That was also around the time the good folks at Wal-Mart rolled out a pair of pink panties in its junior department with the phrase "Who Needs Credit Cards" printed on the front.

I guess I've been out-of-the-loop and didn't realize there's been an ongoing stampede of 10-year-old girls driving to the mall with their tiny fists full of cash demanding sexier apparel.

What's that you say? Ten-year-olds can't drive? They don't have money, either? Well, how else are they getting ahold of these push-up bras and whore-friendly panties?

Their parents?

Noooo, couldn't be.

What adult who wants a daughter to grow up with high self-esteem would even consider purchasing such items? What parent is looking at their sweet, little girl thinking, "She would be perfect if she just had a little bit more up top."

And then I remember the little girl at the airport. And the girls we've all seen at the mall. And the kiddie beauty pageants.

And then I realize as creepy as it is to think a store like Abercrombie is offering something like the "Ashley", the fact remains that sex only sells because people are buying it. No successful retailer would consider introducing an item like a padded bikini top for kindergartners if they didn't think people would buy it.

If they didn't think parents would buy it, which raises the question: What in the hell is wrong with us?

It's easy to blast companies for introducing the sexy wear, but our ire really should be directed at the parents who think low rise jeans for a second grader is cute. They are the ones who are spending the money to fuel this budding trend. They are the ones who are suppose to decide what's appropriate for their young children to wear, not executives looking to brew up controversy or turn a profit.

I get it, Rihanna's really popular. But that's a pretty weak reason for someone to dress their little girl like her.

I don't care how popular Lil' Wayne is, my son knows I would break both of his legs long before I would allow him to walk out of the house with his pants falling off his butt. Such a stance doesn't always makes me popular -- and the house does get tense from time to time -- but I'm his father, not his friend.

Friends bow to peer pressure. Parents say, "No, and that's the end of it."

The way I see it, my son can go to therapy later if my strict rules have scarred him. But I have peace knowing he'll be able to afford therapy as an adult because I didn't allow him to wear or do whatever he wanted as a kid.

Maybe I'm a Tiger Dad.

Maybe I should mind my own business.

Or maybe I'm just a concerned parent worried about little girls like the one I saw at the airport.

In 2007, the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls issued a report linking early sexualization with three of the most common mental-health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. There's nothing inherently wrong with parents wanting to appease their daughters by buying them the latest fashions. But is getting cool points today worth the harm dressing little girls like prostitutes could cause tomorrow?

A line needs to be drawn, but not by Abercrombie. Not by Britney Spears. And not by these little girls who don't know better and desperately need their parents to be parents and not 40-year-old BFFs.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson. 

Editor's note: LZ Granderson writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, he has contributed to ESPN's "Sports Center," "Outside the Lines" and "First Take." He is a 2011 and 2010 nominee and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism and a 2010 and 2008 honoree of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for column writing. 

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While I am a big supporter of freedom of expression. Freedom to dress yourself however you want. I am also a big(ger) supporter of letting kids be kids. They grow up quicker than we realize without social media and marketing pressuring them to get their faster.

Beauty at a Price.

At What Price Beauty? Check Today’s Deal

By Tatiana Boncompagni

Jasmine Chess had long wanted to try eyelash extensions, but the high cost had kept them off her beauty shopping list. Then Ms. Chess, 25, saw an offer to buy the service at a reduced rate ($225 instead of the usual $450) on Gilt City, an online portal that sells vouchers to fitness boutiques and spas (along with restaurants and other attractions).

“I wouldn’t have bought this on my own,” said Ms. Chess, an actress who had previously bought a juice cleanse, hair blowout and makeup on the site. “I did it because it was a deal.”

Thanks to the rise of social coupon Web sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial, beauty consumers are able to bargain-hunt for goods and services that were once rarely, if ever, discounted. Recent sales include an oxygen facial at Bliss Spa in South Beach for $112 (30 percent off) on Gilt City and two 60-minute massages at Balanced Health in Boston for $95 (53 percent off) on LivingSocial....

“It used to be, ‘Fifty percent off a haircut, what’s the catch?’ ” said Andrew Unger, a founder of Lifebooker, which began offering deals in late 2007, though it took two years, he said, for consumers to become comfortable with the concept. Since then, “every month has been better than the last,” Mr. Unger said.

According to Yipit, an aggregator of online daily deals, the number of sites offering health- and beauty-related services has nearly quintupled in the last year, to 341, while sales of these services (including spa treatments, dental whitening and hair salon services) reached $78 million for January to March of this year and are on track to reach $312 million for 2011, representing 31 percent of total daily deal sales.

Shopping for beauty services online isn’t something Barbara Fisher, a sales associate for Coach in Manhattan, ever imagined doing, but since hearing about Lifebooker and a half-dozen deal sites through friends, she has bought vouchers for waxing and dental whitening trays and signed up for a free boot camp class...

But are beauty consumers really spending less or just buying more? Jessica Israel, a buyer of television commercial space for an advertising company in Westchester, recently purchased spray tanning, a haircut and a few massages for a discount online, all splurges she would not have tried otherwise....

Yvette Rose, the founder of the Kickstart Diet, said she had more than 5,000 views on her company Web site the day that her deal, 40 percent off a five-day food cleanse, was listed on Gilt City. “I’ve been in Town & Country and Vogue, and neither of them gave me the visibility that Gilt did,” said Ms. Rose, who sold 100 diet packages for $250 instead of the usual $425.

Oscar Blandi, a Madison Avenue hairstylist, offered a highlight and blowout package ($145, down from $275) at his salon on Gilt City last December as part of what he called a marketing strategy to help his junior stylists and colorists build their business. “This gets them in the door,” he said. “It’s up to me to cultivate the client.”

But merchants like Ms. Rose and Mr. Blandi are looking for more than just exposure. More crucial to them is that customers return, and pay full price....

But at what point does a business risk devaluing itself in the name of finding a few new customers? Dr. Steven Pearlman, a facial plastic surgeon who listed discounted prices for chemical peels, laser services, Botox and Juvederm on Gilt City last year, said he would not work with a deal site again for a very long time.

“I don’t want to undercut patients who have been seeing me for years and paying full price, the majority of whom do,” Dr. Pearlman said. “I don’t want to cheapen the brand.”....

Ms. Fisher, the Coach sales associate, said: “Now going to the salon is like getting on an airplane. You don’t know what someone in the seat next to you is paying.” 

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I have to admit there's just something golden and alluring about the phrase "__% off". Doesn't really matter what the numbers are- 10, 30, 50 - it calls to me.

I also have to admit to subscribing to more than my fair share of online coupon sites - Groupon, LivingSocial, Sharing Spree and Travelzoo. However, while I may receive many coupons and deals in my inbox they usually end up in my trash right away. Whether it's because I'm not willing to travel over an hour to get my haircut or (like this morning's Groupon) have my "alignment checked".

There have been many times though when the deal is just too good to pass up. A restaurant I haven't tried but has got rave reviews (I'm a yelper too, did I mention?), a 2 for one spa treatment (Mothers Day - check!), a 50% off coupon for a tea shop (perfect give-a-way gift for the tea party themed party I'm hosting)...no they aren't things I would have bought anyway.

In some ways I think of that as the point. Not looking for that "alignment check" deal because I need one anyway and just have been putting it off. It's a luxury. An opportunity to do something nice for myself (or someone else).

What do you think?
Have you bought anything from an online coupon site?
What was it? Was it for you or someone else?
Did you need it or was it a special treat?

Age Descrimination

New York Times: Social Q's

by Philip Galanes

"Long-in-the-Tooth Teasing

I’m the youngest person at work, and my co-workers tease me about it incessantly. Think how appalling it would be if they teased the oldest person for being old. So why is this all right? I’ve tried laughing it off, changing the subject, and not reacting — to no avail. How can I stop this?

Allison, New York City

Being teased for being young is like being teased for being gorgeous or rich. It’s practically a compliment — since most of us covet the underlying condition. (You must be very young if you can’t see that, Allison.)

Still, if you want the ribbing to stop, head to the ringleader and say: “Not to be a killjoy, but your jokes are getting old. (Har har.) Would you please knock it off?” Bet it stops. And don’t worry too much if it doesn’t. You’ll be wizened old crow, like the rest of us, before you know it."

27 is not 30

So last weekend I'm standing at the checkout counter at WinCo, watching the total go up and up, bagging our own groceries and wondering how three people can eat so much. In amongst our (obvious) carb-addiction was a bottle of Merlot. It was scanned as innocently as a bottle of Yoo-Hoo and sent down the conveyor belt. The woman behind the counter didn't bat an eyelash. No "ums" followed politely by asking for my identification. Not even a glimmer of glancing up to make a quick judgment on the age of the purchaser (Mom was returning the extra cart so there was no assumption is belonged to her - which it did).

So I wondered: Do I look 35?

Correct me if I'm wrong but Federal Law requires that if you look under 35 plan to be carded.

It has been years since I was first legally allowed to purchase alcohol and I've always been mistaken for being older, but do I look that old?

Maybe my hypersensitivity was induced by the fact that the manicurist the day before thought I was my sister's mother. Yes, we're far apart in age but not that far apart.

Anyway I digress.

So the woman finishes scanning my groceries and we pay (Mom has joined me at this point).  As we get into the car and drive away the following conversation takes place:

Morgan: "Be honest. Do I look old?"(Yes, I realize this is a narcissistic question)  

Mom:"What are you talking about? Oh, did you not get carded?"

Morgan: "No. And since the law says to card if you look under 30 or 35 or whatever...I just want to know do I look old for my age?"

Mom: "No, I don't think you look thirty."

Morgan:*Long pause* "I"M NOT THIRTY!"

*     *     *

To my 30-something friends and readers: There is nothing wrong with being thirty. But when you ask if you look older than your age and your sweet mother makes a crack about you not looking over said mile-stone...it's something to get slightly defensive over.

*     *     *

Eventually the freak-out passed.

I stopped worrying that I was dressing older than my age (although FYI fashion designers and distributors need to realize that just because a girl is a plus size doesn't mean she's going to want to wear a muumuu that makes her look like she's a circus tent).

I stopped worrying that I was prematurely wrinkling or that frown lines were developing.

I stopped worrying that I looked old enough to have a nineteen-year-old daughter.

I stopped worrying because I realized this is what they want..."they" being society that floods our media with anti-wrinkle creams, grey covering hair dye, "How to Lose 10-years" articles and makeup tips.

I refuse to be one of those women who lie about their age. I still have three years left of my 20s and plans to embrace every experience that comes with it.

27 is not 30 but when 30 comes knocking on my door I plan to welcome it with open arms.