Why we don't want our children to pluck their eyebrows

I was in the bathroom yesterday evening plucking my eyebrows, as most 21 year old females do, when I began to recall my dream from last night.

I dreamt that my sister, 12 years old, was having sex - not only sex, but continous and repetetive sex. The reason this odd dream came about is because my sister confessed to me the day before that she knew what sex was. How did I manage to scrape this confession out of her? She saw my 'body count' list in my notebook and guessed that it was 'the people I'd slept with', whilst I claimed it was the 'people that I had kissed'.

Why did I alter the version of the truth to make it seem more youthful? Why do we have this urgency to keep children living as naive and young? Life is more beautiful and simpler in some ways when we are younger: we have no responsibility, we are forgiven for our mistakes, which mostly aren't intentional, and we don't tend to make our own choices. Choices inevitably lead to consequences, which inevitably lead to mistakes. Mistakes can be painful: they can destroy families, break relationships, or even on a larger scale, break down a nation.

Yet, we are all aware that the youth become old and that this cyclic cycle of humanity is never ending. Eventually, we will have to accept that our children will have significant others and that they will be a functioning part of the chaotic, and at times cruel world that we live in.

And, now I resume focusing back on my eyebrows. I thought to myself that if I saw my 12 year old sister fixing her eyebrows, I'd be pissed. I'd be pissed because:

1. Why do you care so much about how you look to that tiny of a degree?

2. If you are already trying to fix yourself, and having thoughts about your image - how is this going to progress when you are 17/18?

Yet, there I am, fixing my own eyebrows. This seems contradictory, and even though I am 21 years old, all the reasons that I would be upset at my sister, are reasons that I should be upset at myself.

I'm not preaching that we should completely abolish any beauty regimens, or things that us humans do to make ourselves look better - of course not. But, the expectations we have of the youth to not 'repeat' our mistakes, or to guide them towards this path of enlightenment for adulthood, is not something that ends when we are 18. We must adjust our mentality to constantly tweak and reexamine our habits.

The reexamination of habits is completely under looked, and although habits such as poor eating and continuous TV binges are more noticeable, habits such as, poor self talk, undermining oneself in a social situation or even the habit of saying 'I'll start on Monday' are easier to sit content with.

These are less noticeable especially because they have become a fixed part of the narrative in our own head. It seems that as we get older, we start to believe that we have a permanent narrative, rather than one that is more malleable. It is so much easier said, than accomplished, as almost everything is, but the sooner that we realise that nothing changes until our actions do, we may begin to tackle things head on. “I’ll start next month when I feel better” or “I know I can do it if I just have this, and that” will be statements of the past and an internal navigator will start the route today, instead of next month. Life is lived well, if we cut out these sections, and keep moving. Our DNA is composed of mostly genes that bear no function at all, whilst about 2% is valuable. Let’s not copy DNA - let’s spare ourselves and start making change to our lives beginning today.

And on that note, I’ll put down the eyebrow plucker, in an effort to begin an effort in positive self talk, instead of consistent beauty pick ups to converse with the negative narrative in my mind.