A month or so ago we endured Britney Campbell the mother who told Lara Spencer that she injected her 8 year old daughter with Botox for her wrinkles. When it first aired I think the whole world was incredulous, out raged and in disbelief. As it turned out, our disbelief was well in order as it was in fact a scheme to gain notoriety. Where most of us were at first relieved our minds quickly went to questioning “What woman, what mother coaches her daughter to participate in such a scheme?” After the truth was uncovered, the idea of injections didn’t seem so bad when we were faced with the idea that a child was in the care of a person who had no compunction as to enroll a 8 year old child in such and outlandish hoax. At least the injections could be stopped, but the mental damage done to that impressionable child’s concepts of morals and values is harder to mend.

There seems to be a rash of questionable parenting choices of late, I would be remiss if I did not mention Sarah Burge the woman known as the “Human Barbie” who gave her daughter Poppy a voucher for breast augmentation surgery as a birthday present. The child was turning seven, (just a year shy of needing Botox).

$10,000 as birthday present. I have to say when I read this unfortunately I was not surprised, after all she is a women who has made it her mission to look like a plastic, unrealistic anatomically amplified doll could you really expect anything less? This was sad but understandable. It has always astounded me that one needs a license to drive but any anyone so long as physically capable can bear, and raise children. When I was a child if I was behaving badly my mother would ask “Why are you acting like you were raised by wolves?” Well upon hearing some of this stories I can only wonder if some of these children would be better of in the wild. There are some very loving and nurturing wolves who take their job of teaching their young to fend for themselves quite seriously.

The latest news to hit the circuit is the story that Suri Cruise, yes the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes , is a teeny tiny Imelda Marcos, due to the fact that she has a shoe collection that is worth at least $150,000. SHE IS FIVE YEARS OLD! reports say that Suri is “a massive fan of Marc Jacobs and she’s had several shoes custom-made, so if they didn’t come with a heel, Katie had them redesigned for Suri. She commissioned a pair of Louboutins for her a while back!”

Tell me who does that? Who allows a child of 5 wear heels on a daily basis? who actually ORDERS shoes MADE with a HEEL for a FIVE YEAR OLD? Where it is not injecting your child with Botox or implanting the idea of implants in her head it is creating an idea and concept of beauty, of woman, of what it is to be a woman. I have seen many pictures of Suri Cruise in her kitten heels, I have seen her inappropriately dressed for the weather carrying various things like blankets and dolls, and penis shaped Gummie treats, ( Ok Katie explained that one… sort of) but I have never seen her carrying a book. Not to say that she doesn’t have them, or that she doesn’t love them but I am not hearing how Katie Holmes if ordering first editions for her daughter. Just sayin’
And another thing What does a 5 year old know of Marc Jacobs, she should be fan of Dora the Explorer. Who is the parent here? Wolves, I tell you wolves may just be the answer, because we are surely going to the dogs.

The article continues:
They added that Suri is insistent in her fashion choices, turning to tears if she doesn’t get her way.

‘Even when she’s going to play dates or walking on the beach, she cries if Katie reaches for anything but a little pair of sandals with some sort of heel.’
Really?

It seems to me that some the issues we are talking about here stem from a warped sense of beauty, femininity and the trappings of luxury. Yes I say luxury because the edicts of beauty of late have been reformed by what money can buy. No longer is the concept of natural beauty lauded. Where natural beauty is acknowledged and rewarded, in the new millennium, the real modern beauty embodies the aesthetic of Bionic Woman. She is a made woman with a beauty that has been bought. It is somewhat required as an upgrade of sorts. Through augmentation, tailoring, tapering, filling, plumping, reducing, and defining, you can buy the “look” you desire, or the “look” of the moment. If your physical re-sculpting doesn’t do the trick then you can always wear your beauty, with the right shoes, bag, and drag you can, by proxy of your vestments be considered a “beauty” and granted monikers like “Fashionista” and in time graduate to “Fashion Icon”. These are important titles as they have the magical power as liberators, they free the women branded from bearing the cross of having to be “beautiful”, or talented, and even wait for it…thin!

The connection between beauty-luxury/money is important to recognized because on a level it eradicates the luck of the draw factor of the gene pool, you can be the child of two homely people, and even be homely yourself but if you parents are two people of stature or means then you have the possibility of being considered a “great” beauty. Where genes made beauty an inheritance in the souped up hyper-linked society we live in you can go from obscurity to international infamy in days, be branded within months and be a millionaire inside of a year and be elevated on the beauty scale almost immediately. The way it works and the speed with which it works is mind blowing. The adage “Dress for the job you want not the job you have” applies here. If you you look like a stripper porn star that Charlie Sheen might crown Goddess, you’re half way there…

The thing about this link between beauty and luxury/money is that it is truly American, because you only have to create the illusion of wealth,it matters little if it is real. To have the trappings, to create the “look” of luxury, therein beauty is often enough to make people feel better about their actual circumstances. It sounds like the root of our financial crisis to me… Fake it until you make it or break it which ever comes first!

So Suri and her ridiculous shoe collection, (and the fact that we know about it) and the mother who wants to be famous so much that she would coerce her eight year old daughter to go on national television and lie about worrying about having wrinkles and being injected with botox (in hopes of what? getting a reality show?) to the “human barbie” who gives her “Skipper” daughter breasts in a box as a pre-pre teen birthday gift (that just reminded me of the Skipper doll I had that when you rotated her arm she grew breasts- I digress)) it’s all about the look of things. Clearly Tom and Katie have the obscene amount of money to afford such trifle but for most of the people who are trying to “keep up with the Jones” they can’t afford it (and t’uth be told neither can the Jones) The larger issue is that it starts the cycle that begins with I am not enough, I need x, y, or z to be better or feel better. It creates a superficial relationship to Self by only addressing the external, by putting the emphasis on looks, and what one wears. In a way having body image issues it is a natural by product of living in our society and bombarded by the media and it’s commercialized images of the body, albeit those issues used to be something that evolved and developed as we did, generally picking up speed and power in junior high, high school. But to have parents who somehow aid in creating these ideas in the heads of vulnerable, impressionable young girls as young as 8,7, and 5… well this is unconscionable. The t’ruth is that sooner or later we are going to end up with body image issues, but when parents start giving them to children as if they are gifts, we are better off being suckled by wolves.

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