When raising humans, inevitably the body hair will come. Although I wanted my daughter to wait as long as possible to start shaving her legs, I thought it was rather progressive of me to buy her a palm-sized electric shaver when I noticed some underarm hair. She was excited when I brought it home. I briefly explained how it works and demonstrated on her open hand that it wasn’t going to cut her. It was nothing to be afraid of. I offered to help her out the first time, or maybe stay and coach her through it. No, she just wanted some privacy and felt confident she could handle it. Wow! How mature. How independent. Fast forward 6 months, when I noticed one day that this child has boldly adopted the natural look. She has notable French-looking underarm growth, and while I support her respect for the natural body, I suspect it’s not a conscious choice she’s making. When I brought up that she might need to find that razor I bought, I unearthed the horrible truth.
Unbeknownst to me, in her first attempt at using the shaver, she nicked a skin tag under her arm. What are the freakin’ chances?! Apparently it had bled profusely and had traumatized her. Completely befuddled, I watched my confident and independent girl release tears of shame. When I brought the device back out to encourage her to give it another shot, she literally cowered and trembled at the sight of it.
Lord, help me. My kid’s never going to shave. What the heck do I do now?
I never thought of hair removal as something frightening. I just shave. You just shave, that’s what we do. But she was terrified, so I wouldn’t force her. But I also didn’t want her to think her only options were bloodshed or hairy. I gently explained that if she had just told me sooner we could have looked into other alternatives, and I could have supported her. Then I introduced her to Nair. I found an applicator that looks a lot like deodorant (that’s a mix-up that would not end well). She just spreads it on, waits 3 minutes, then wipes it off. It was pure magic – totally painless and left her feeling fantastic about her new look. I’m not sure it’s a great long term solution for leg shaving, but we’ll tackle that when it’s time.
The Orlando Moms Blog contributors were recently treated to lovely day at Waxing the City Orlando, where we each had the chance to try a complimentary service of our choice.
Having never tried anything of the sort, and inspired by sisters in the tribe who were going full Brazilian, I hesitantly decided on a modified bikini wax. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought. It wasn’t terribly painful. In fact, I discovered that my groin is super ticklish when you rub it with a Popsicle stick, so I literally giggled like a nut through most of it. Although I don’t plan to use waxing as my own go-to method of staying hair free, it’s another way of getting the job done.
Now that I have a young lady who’s terrified of razors, I have to get creative on ways to help her maintain the level of smoothness she chooses to aim for. I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter to me how often or how thoroughly she wants to eliminate her body hair. I’ll worry about keeping my parts the way I like them and she can do the same. What IS my business, though, is making sure she is informed about all her options – hairy, smooth, painfully and otherwise.
Parenthood is nothing if not unexpected. I simply expected to hand her a razor and she’d follow the societal norm. But not my girl. She and her hair can take whatever journey they’d like.
