We are barely a month into the long school holiday, and already, social media groups for parents are filled with complaints.
Parents are worried about children as young as 12 being bullied by their peers in city estates for being fat. Their dilemma? In school, teachers usually handle bullies. But how do parents deal with children who bully others in the estate?
Then there are, particularly girls, who are now barely eating so that they are not called fat. You have a pantry and fridge stocked with food, yet your 12-year-old serves herself two tablespoons of rice and spends the day drinking gallons of lemon water, convinced that if she drinks enough of it, she will get a flat tummy.
Remember, their idea of fatness is shaped by influencers and images they see on the smartphones we have bought them, but we have not taken the time to explain what they see on these devices. Our children imagine the skeleton-thin they see everywhere is what beauty should be.
Other parents are wrestling with a different dilemma: how far should they give in to peer pressure when they are the ones financing and raising these little humans? Do you allow your nine-year-old daughter to wear Boho braids that hang almost to her feet, false eyelashes and hot pants, and apply nail polish and lipstick?
Imagine paying to have eyelashes fitted on a child whose natural lashes are barely developed. At what point does letting children express themselves become dressing them for an audience they are too young to understand?
One mother in a parenting group posed this dilemma: “My daughter is 10. Girls in our estate are wearing fake nails and false eyelashes, and I feel she is too young for these things. But I worry that if I don't pay for her to get these, she will be teased or feel excluded if she is the only girl not doing what her peers are doing.”
I know we raise our children as we deem fit. But how do we strike a balance between setting reasonable boundaries and allowing them to fit in?
Why do we fear telling our children: “This is us; what other families allow their children to do is their business.”
Yes, times have changed. Perhaps we have more money than our parents and grandparents did. We can afford the braids, fake nails, eyelashes and lipsticks. But when did we become so impatient with childhood that we are in a hurry to make our children look older than they are? A child should have the luxury of being a child, without eyelashes that flutter before she has learnt what to do with them.
And for what? So she does not feel left out? So the neighbours do not think we are struggling? We ought to pause and ask ourselves whether fitting in is worth the risk.
The beauty market is poorly regulated, and counterfeit products are common. We may be spending money to make our children look beautiful, without knowing exactly what we are putting on their little faces, nails and skin.
What happened to having open, honest conversations with our children about peer pressure and explaining why they do not have to copy their friends to belong? It is a lesson best learnt early, before they become 40-year-old women who say yes when they mean no, bend over backwards to please everyone, and lose themselves in the process. The ability to stand your ground begins long before adulthood.
Building self-confidence starts with helping children understand that they do not have to look like everyone else to be beautiful or to belong. They need to learn early that it is all right to be different.
Perhaps we have become too concerned about our children liking us. We struggle to teach lessons they do not want to learn because we fear their disappointment or disapproval. But parenting is not a popularity contest.
A child who never hears “No” at home may struggle to accept rejection, respect other people’s boundaries and cope with disappointment outside the home. The world will not always accommodate their preferences, bend its rules or give them what they want simply because they want it.
