You want to know something really sad? Today is the first I ever bought lipstick. It's sad because I am 28 years old and I'll be turning 29 this year. I've bought chapstick before and I think I may have bought lip gloss once when I was a teenager but I've just never bought lipstick before. The cool part is that though I've never done this before, I did happen to pick a pretty good shade of color called raspberry freeze.
As you can guess, I'm not exactly a girly type of girl. I don't wear makeup at all. I don't wear dresses at all. I am a jeans and t-shirt type of girl. Growing up, I remember wanting a Voltron toy (points to anyone who remembers Voltron!) and instead I got a tea set. So logically, I used the tea set to dig up the back yard. Those tea cups were great to use as bulldozers. I played with the boys when I was younger cause they had the cool toys like Transformers. I remember being the only girl in the entire elementary school who bravely carried a Transformer lunch box. I've just never cared about being girly before. I've kind of felt that makeup is sort of like false advertising. It's nothing but an illusion really and I don't feel that people should sell themselves like that. That's just my personal opinion. Makeup just isn't for me. Though I do think women look nice wearing it, I myself just look downright odd, I think.
So why the sudden change? I have a daughter. As any parent knows, having a kid is a life changing experience and really forces you to rethink about a lot of the different issues that life tends to throw at you. I don't want the issues that I'm hung up on to influence her. I want her to make her own decisions. Granted, she's only 2 right now but it won't be long before she's demanding that she be allowed to play with either the boys or just the girls. So for her sake, I'm trying new things so that when it's time, I'll be able to introduce her to those different things and let her make her own decision regarding whether she wants to play with Transformers or the Disney Princess stuff.
Mars vs Venus
ReplyDeleteLila, your experience with Transformers and Voltron brought some memories back from my childhood. I always wondered why guys wanted to play with dolls like GI Joe, Superman, Zorro, or other action figures as they call them today. I didn’t, I thought it was sort of “Girly”, might as well play with Barbie dolls. My parents were good parents but didn’t really go extravagnzo, like my daughters have when spoiling their children with toys. We used our imaginations, available sticks, rocks, dirt clods, were our toys. We build forts, ships, airplanes, and rocket ships out almost nothing and would “go outside and play” all day long. We would share bikes, our imaginations turned them into motorcycles, cars, rocket ships, jet fighters, horses or dragons. Depending on the weather and season, the neighborhood gang would play baseball, without gloves, just a beat up old baseball or softball, and maybe two bats, depending on who was playing out in the vacant lot that day, football with very few rules or keeping score, and the same with basketball sometimes with just a fruit basket nailed to a tree and no expensive hoop. Today, since both parents are usually forced to work in order to pay the family bills, the fact that it’s a less safe world, and because of television commercials, the parents tend to show their love for their children by showering them with commercial gifts as often as they can. Do you think that today’s children lack imagination or have lost the benefits of imagination? I don’t necessarily think so.
Honesty and truthfulness are qualities that women enjoy to find in a man. However, I always felt that they are deceiving them with make-up, brassieres reinforced with pads or toilet paper: “Bounty, the quicker picker upper”, nylons, girdles, and perfume. Make up is a lot better today than it was forty years ago, young women have a definite advantage with ease of use and cosmetology advances. I think that it helps build their self-esteem, they have the natural quality of wanting to look nice, they like clean and nice looking clothes and shoes,usually in order to attract potential mates, but it also enables them in their social and personal choices of appearance. Good luck with your adventures in make-up, I sense a little “spring fever” blooming here!
Lila,
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to your childhood experience. Instead of wearing dresses and playing with Barbie, I was decked out in jeans and cowboy boots and riding horses. I can remember going to the lake with my cousin, she brought two of her 'pride and joy' Barbie Dolls with her. I tried wanted to see if Barbie would stay on the bottom of the lake if I stuck her in the mud.... needless to say I was too young realize what a current was! I lost her Barbie and she stayed mad at me for a very, very long time.
I have to say, I have never bought lipstick and I am 38 years old. I don't wear a lot of makeup, never felt the need. I will put on some foundation, a touch of blush and some mascara if I am going out on the town. I have three daughters; 16, 13 and 4! I would never tell them they couldn't wear make up, but I do try to make sure they understand how beautiful they are, just as they are!