Does This Diaper Make My Butt Look Big?

So I'm in a fit of emotion right now.  I just read a couple articles, it started with the mother of a 3 year old waxing her daughter's eyebrows.  One of the "Teen Mom" stars... And I use that term VERY loosely.  You can read this article here.  So I go from there to the video showing the 5 year old from "Toddlers and Tiaras" being forced to have her eyebrows waxed.  The mom saying that the girl had a "bad experience" and the wax was too hot and it "ripped her skin off".  You can see that video here.  And then I come across the worst one of all, here.   And 8 year old girl, getting botox injections from her "part-time aesthetician" mother.  An 8 year old, beautiful little girl, who is worried about wrinkles.  Fucking wrinkles.

I am speechless.  I am stunned, and in awe.  Recently, I've been paying more attention to the sexualization of young girls, and I'm not talking about men pimping out underage children.  It's much more subtle, it's much less in-your-face, and really it's become completely normal, completely acceptable.  I'm talking about parading young girls around in tube tops and mini-skirts, high heels and talking about wrinkles, or preschoolers wearing makeup, and it's getting worse.

Source: Total Life Counseling

These things are due to media influence.  You look at the female pop stars from the 80's and you have long flowy skirts and a little blush or lip gloss and some cute high top sneakers.  Then bring on the 90's.  You start seeing Britney Spears and everyone that follows.  We've got midriff-baring shirts, mega-cleavage that I don't have at 25 and they not only had but flaunted at 16.  They are wearing leather pants that may have just been painted on for all I can tell.  Stiletto heels.  Miley Cyrus "pole dancing" at the Teen Choice Awards (yes- I saw the video. And my liberal ass didn't even approve).

Even Barbie dresses sluttier.  Our society is so shallow and focused on the aesthetically-pleasing slim figures, big boobs, flashing as much skin as we can get away with.  When did this become ok?  When did we lower our standards not just for ourselves, but for our children.  Why is it okay to dress up your 8 year old like a "lady of the night" to send her to school?  And the beauty pageant circuit is only making it worse.  They don't promote anything other than the message that a little girl is only as good as she looks, that her entire worth to herself and everyone around her is based on her brow line, her jaw structure, her slim hips and flat belly.  There are 1st graders with eating disorders, for Christ's sake!!!  And we just go on about our business, because this has become the "norm".  This is what our society is- Pimping out our little girls for everyone's amusement, despite the deep psychological problems that are absolutely inevitable for children who spend their entire "childhood" watching what they eat and how they dress and how they wear their hair.

FUCK. THAT.

Let that little girl jump in a mud puddle, don't let her shave her legs before she is even allowed to use scissors without supervision.  Don't worry more about her messing up her hair than if she's enjoying herself, having fun, being a kid.  Maybe I should go to school to become a shrink, because from what I'm seeing that profession is about to experience a serious boom, I mean, how could it not?

We are telling our children that it's okay to care solely about your physical appearance, that everything else should come next.  Is that really how we want to raise our daughters?  To be botoxed up box blond bimbos who can't spell words like "you" or "that" and think that their only value is as arm candy trophy wife and that it's okay if they get knocked up before high school because then MTV will pay them a lot of money and they can go get $16,000 worth of plastic surgery they don't even really need.

I'm freaking out a little.  I like to dress up, I like to wear high heels and too much make up and low cut shirts and dance a little risque sometimes, but I don't want that to be the only thing I portray to my daughter.  My mom was the same way, she spent her summers wearing belly-baring tube tops and short-shorts with high heels and she kept her hair fixed and makeup done and body nice my entire childhood.  I did not start dressing like that until I was 18, and felt like I had the right to do so.  As a teenager, I walked around in big black baggy pants and long t-shirts sporting my favorite heavy metal band.  I read books and thumbed through Cosmo-Girls.  I enjoyed the glimmer and the glamour but I did not let it define me.  I defined who I was and who I wanted to be, through more than just the clothes I wore.  I listened to Stevie Nicks, and I listened to Britney Spears.  I listened to Black Sabbath, and the Backstreet Boys.  I snuck into my mom's room and tried on her dresses, long and short, and her high heels.  I played with my grandma's make up (although it was usually to pretend to be a ghost or a mummy-- the woman was pale...)

How now can we expect our children to come up with that broad of an influence when the vast majority of media is shoving the idea down their throats that they are only beautiful when they are perfectly conformed, perfectly sculpted by whatever means necessary, that "natural beauty" does not exist and what matters is only skin deep.  It makes me want to wrap her up in a poncho and lock her in my closet for the next 16 years.  My heart aches for her that there are so many people in our world that want to strip that innocent childhood away and replace it with "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" and "Really, you're going out in that?"

My heart is heavy.
My mind is angry.
And I just don't know what we can do to stop it,
But I know, we can't do it alone.

Also: Watch this about women who are dressing their daughter's up like Dolly Parton, or Julia Robert's role in "Pretty Woman" - yes, the prostitute.

WAKE UP PEOPLE.... THESE ARE OUR CHILDREN.  Let them be kids, for God's sake, and for theirs.