Thirteen years ago, when my best friend and I lived together, our shared bathroom had a few products: soap, suntan lotion, deodorant, toothpaste, air freshener, and maybe, occasionally, a face cream that one of us found on sale. at Walgreens.
No serums, no toners, no anti-aging products.
We never thought we wouldn't be young forever.
Our bank accounts were empty, our pores were clogged, and our mascara wand was dry... but we were 22 and we could be messy.
We were allowed to be young.
Our generation came of age during the toxic diet culture of the 1990s.
Millennials were not taught the fear of aging, but rather the fear of fat.
Butter was our enemy.
When we saw Victoria's Secret
models
on the runways, we despised each other.
Eating disorders may have been a psychiatric problem, but they were also a symptom of a social problem.
And if you had a mother who internalized
diet culture
and projected it onto her children, the damage could also occur from within the family.
Researchers have found that mothers who encourage weight loss or food restriction or even express dissatisfaction with their body weight may cause their daughters to become more susceptible to eating problems.
As my generation grew older and became more aware of the impact of diet culture, we began to openly celebrate and encourage body positivity.
Many of us became aware of our own body dysmorphia.
We began to see clearly how we were manipulated to reduce and hate every part of our body.
And yet, although part of society came to accept natural bodies, the same cannot be said for women's natural aging process.
Wrinkles are the new enemy, and it seems that Generation Z—and their little sisters—are terrified of them.
A recent video on
TikTok
that more than eight million people have seen shows a 28-year-old woman with a “natural” face, that is, without Botox or fillers.
While some women and girls applauded his bravery, others were horrified.
“I pray I never look like this,” one comment read.
Generation Z is familiar with the idea of undergoing treatments early as a way of
“prevention
.”
They're growing up in a social media culture that promotes the relentless pursuit of youth, and at home, some of them are watching their mothers reject aging with every shot and serum they can find.
Beauty author Jessica DeFino recently coined the term “
anti-aging moms”
to describe mothers “obsessed with achieving a specific standard of beauty who foster the same obsession in their daughters.”
For me, the lessons about preventative skin care came from social media, not my mother.
I was a few years away from turning 30 and devoured Instagram content and series like Top Shelf from Emily Weiss' Into The Gloss blog.
My skincare regimen suddenly became a
10-step routine,
each promising beauty and long-lasting youth.
Since then, the rise of TikTok appears to have increased the way anti-aging beauty standards are consumed and internalized.
Many girls and women now have unlimited access to publications on social networks, where they can see skin care routines, and the “before and after” of plastic surgeries.
There's a nickname for tweens and teens who get into skin care after being influenced by social media:
“Sephora Kids.”
(A/N: Sephora is a very widespread cosmetics chain)
Johanna Almstead, a friend from the fashion industry, tells me that in her local moms group chat, almost every mom was “Skincare, skincare, skincare!”
on the Christmas gift lists that their fifth grade daughters asked for.
Johanna's 10-year-old daughter doesn't have access to social media, but she is exposed to this skincare obsession through her friends, who copy TikTok beauty influencers and whose parents buy them theirs. products—acids, exfoliants, and toners—although many of those products are formulated for skin that is truly aging or
susceptible to acne.
Marketing
Representatives of the expensive brand
Drunk Elephan
t (a favorite among teenage girls) posted on Instagram in December a list of safe products for children and teenagers.
Buying a 10-year-old a colorful lip gloss or adult moisturizer may seem trivial, but it seems to me like it could create an avenue for a 15-year-old to talk about forehead wrinkles on TikTok.
We must be careful about the way the cosmetics industry manipulates both mothers and children, and how by supporting it, we as mothers create
a new set of worries
for our children.
The anti-aging fad carries the same
toxicity
as diet culture.
“Whey mothers” did not create ageism, any more than our mothers created diet culture.
But given the speed at which social media is imposing increasingly unattainable standards of beauty on children, it is time for us to consider our moral obligation to minimize the harm suffered by the next generation.
Mothers are both victims and culprits of a culture that sells women the lie that we are not enough as we are.
And yet, if a mother's insecurity can fuel her daughter's self-loathing, a mother's radical self-love could protect and even heal her daughter from a toxic culture.
When I ask the few friends who haven't had
Botox
why they haven't, they tell me it's because they love how their mothers age and how they accept it.
They are not afraid of growing old because their mothers do not (or did not).
Culture may set the tone for unattainable standards of beauty, but mothers and the women around us have the power to change the trajectory of
our daughters'
insecurities and inner monologue.
I still think about my weight every day, but I fear that the impact of anti-aging moms and the culture they are immersed in is worse than the lessons I learned growing up.
I wish I had grown up with women who really fed themselves: mothers who ate when they were hungry;
mothers who ate toast, pasta and birthday cake;
mothers who simply ate.
I look at my daughter's beautiful face, her cheeks full of butter and innocence, and I want her to know that she is enough, just the way she is.
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