Growing up

My almost 13 yr. old daughter is furious with me because I won’t allow her to dye her hair. I can’t believe she wants to. Especially after I told her about the damage dye can do to hair and bodies. I said that when she is eighteen, she can choose for herself.
This is one of many “discussions” we’ve had about this type of thing. I am consistently dismayed to see her classmates with dyed hair, false nails, professional pedicures and waxed everything. Girls in her class have bras and underwear from stores whose wares used to be peddled from brown paper wrapped catalogues not in TV commercials.
My dismay is the fact that these “perks” used to come with being grown-up. When I see little girls like this, I wonder what they have to look forward to. Aren’t we depriving them of important “rites of passage”? We spent years waiting for the right to do some of these things! And it meant something when we passed each milestone.
I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was 18. My first sexy underwear when I was 21. I was already married! I was in my 40’s when I had my eyebrows waxed and my 50’s before I had a pedicure. These were privileges that came with aging. We didn’t change things about our looks until we’d had a chance to get comfortable them. I fear that today’s girls are changing who they are before they even know who they are.
And when do they get to be just kids? Being a kid is in itself an important “rite of passage”. We have eighteen short years to experience childhood before we have to spend the rest of our lives experiencing adulthood. It happens soon enough- parents, please, don’t rush it!!! Don’t let your children rush it!
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?