Little girl braided, weaved and ‘botoxed’
THOUGH she was revealed to be just a scam artist on a hunt for money, the world recoiled in collective horror when 34-year-old ‘Kerry Campbell’ — later identified as Sheena Upton — revealed to ABC’s Good Morning America that she had injected her eight-year-old daughter with botox to clear the child’s wrinkles.
Discussions abounded Internet-wide about how a mother could be so cruel, and experts weighed in world over, about the mother’s supposed ‘abuse’. Some things, many said, were better reserved for adults and not children, and mothers should ensure that they allow children to enjoy their childhoods without forcing maturity on them through painful beauty treatments.
Before she was outed, ‘Campbell’ made a startling revelation — “many other mothers do the same thing”. She admitted she fibbed about the story, but she’s right about one thing — painful beauty has been a factor for children world over for years, with mummies dishing out much of the pain.
Many parents allow their young daughters to spend hours sitting in the hairdressing chair relaxing or braiding (with synthetic material) their hair; some bleach their children’s skin; others shoot pain through baby girls’ ears under the guise of beauty; and others dress them in heels so high that they can hardly walk. Still others weave and twist, gluing fake hair on children as young as two, a move that has forced many preschools to add the banning of hair extensions to their rule books.
Are these things too much for our little ones to endure?
“No”, said St Andrew mom Nicole Sampson, who plans to rope twist her three-year-old’s hair this summer.
“You have to move with the times. Just like your mother pressed (hot ironed) your hair ages ago and that was the style, it’s the style now to do different things with black hair. I make sure the extensions aren’t too tight, and the braids will last the whole summer and give me time off combing unruly hair,” she said.
“I know of one woman who started to bleach her baby. She got very annoyed with me when I told her to stop immediately, and she left my office. I often wonder what became of that baby,” Dr Neil Persadsingh, dermatologist, told the Associated Press in an article released last month titled Skin bleaching a growing problem in Jamaica.
Child psychologist Camille Lemonious said children are being overexposed to adult things and are not given a chance to be children.
“I have seen some little little girls with this whole heap of hair on their heads and their scalps are so tender and some of them, instead of focusing more on playtime, school time or whatever, they focus on being mini dolls,” she said.
There’s another more sinister result, as described by hairdresser Anneisha McLaughlin who styles hair in the Molynes Road area.
“I see children come in, and parents asking for creme (relaxer) and sometimes we have to tell them no, the child’s not ready,” she said.
She said she has seen pre-teen girls come in with their hairlines eaten away by years of braiding and weaving that started when they were toddlers.
“I personally encourage the mothers to do canerows instead, but I know stylists who will just do what the parents want, and don’t raise hell until after the mother and child leave the salon,” she said.
Regarding piercings, which many Jamaican mothers see as a rite of passage for their daughters, Lemonious said it is a painful event for a baby to go through, and the torturous screaming they do during the process is testament to this.
She said calling little children ‘big man’ and ‘big woman’ as a number of persons do is also part of the problem.
The psychologist said the transition extends to the several cases in which children are exposed to certain things that are not age-appropriate for them. Some of these including dressing girls in adult clothing which confuses them about age-appropriate attire.
“We really need to think honestly — what do I want my child to become? When I dress my child in this way or when I take my child to a club or a party, what exactly is it that I am really doing? If I want my child to be a musician I introduce him to instruments. If I want her to swim, I introduce her to water and pools and swimming. Now when you dress them up like mini adults, what exactly are you saying to your child? Who am I growing? Am I growing a teacher, a lawyer, a nurse or do I want to grow a go-go dancer? Whatever parents expose them to, that is what they are going to adopt.”