When I was 14, my mother gave me a personal style choice: I could either bleach my hair or relax it. I chose the bleach. This was going to be my new back-to-school look.
This story is probably the same for many pre-teen and teen girls, whether they’re everyday girls or famous young women like Willow Smith. They want to try new things with their hair, clothes, and makeup. If it’s not a permanent change, girls should experiment with their looks. Why not? What exactly is the harm?
This isn’t suggesting that pre-teen and teen girls should permanently change their appearance. Girls who are 14 years old shouldn’t get implants, tattoos, or other permanent body modifications like a dermal piercing anchored underneath the skin. I’m a fan of waiting until she’s ‘finished growing’ for those kinds of changes. This also isn’t advocating that girls wear club clothes or other clothing styles that make them look old enough to order beer when they’re only in the 6th grade.
However, young girls should be free to experiment with age-appropriate looks. They should figure out what they like and don’t like. Through trial and error, they will find out that the quest for a signature look or personal aesthetic is an endless process. Even as adults, we’re still trying new lipstick shades, trying to get it right.
Just think: When you first started wearing lip gloss, you wore muted colors like mauves and browns. Then you tried colors you thought were fun, or pretty. (Some of them were neither fun, nor pretty, but that was part of the learning process.) It’s still the same for us as adults and the same for pre-teens and teen girls. If she wants to cut or color her hair, she should be able to try it. If she wishes to put blue eyeliner on her hairline, she should go for it.
Sometimes girls have to learn after it’s too late. Maybe the burgundy hair isn’t for her, and neither are the hot pink plaid pants she bought. If she doesn’t like her changes, then she wasted her money on clothes or beauty products that don’t work for her. No biggie. Maybe she has to cut her hair off or get braids. It’s a tough transition, but not irreversible. Lesson learned.
A young girl is her own person, and she needs to learn how to make choices about how she looks. She also needs to figure out how to define and defend those style choices.
She may give off the impression that she’s dead set on some crazy new style. She’ll eventually change it. Makeup gets washed off each night before bed. Shaved hair grows out and gets restyled. Clothes get old and holey. Black nail polish gets chipped and wiped away. The point is that looks change with trends. That lip color she loved—the one that made you cringe—all of a sudden isn’t cool enough for her anymore. Nothing is permanent (Well, except tattoos…).
Teens should be able to try unique looks because they have little to no obligation to fit into a particular mold for a career or status. But it seems that most parents don’t want to let their kids change up their look because they don’t want to be embarrassed or challenged by other adults regarding their kid’s choices. And sometimes, they just don’t want their child to look ridiculous or inappropriate.
But eventually, she’ll grow out of it and opt for a more ‘mainstream’ or ‘traditional’ look. Or, she just might end up as a woman over the age of 30 with green hair.
Either way, she will know how she wants to look for herself, and she will turn out just fine.
