Eavie comes of age in Claire's Accessories.

She was absolutely insistent we buy her some sparkly clip-on earrings with her pocket-money. Absolutely insistent. They were tiny and star-shaped, in pink diamonte - very pretty, but the clip was quite fierce. After twenty minutes her ear lobes were bright red, and clearly causing her some pain. Having initially tried to tough it out, she eventually tore the earrings off, and threw them on the floor, screaming "I HATE my earrings!"
Then she picked them up again, and said "But they're beautiful, so I'll keep wearing them."
Eavie is four and a half. Today, I feel she had her first intimation of what it is to be a woman.

Comments

[Ehren]

I get clip ons from Claires and make my own. The first lesson in wearing them is making sure that they're comfortable before trying to stick it out. The claires ones are much smaller clips so the surface area pinching the skin is smaller and thus more painful, however, if you A) widen the clip and B)make sure that it doesn't go too far up on the lobe, but stays toward the edge, then it's not so bad. Occasionally you might want to take them off and massage the lobes because they do pinch pretty hard anyway, the spring is just really tight on them, but otherwise they're very comfortable for me.

[Sho]

On the other hand, putting a brave face on things is one of our womanly qualities, isn't it? Luckily for me my daughters know that my favourite, most comfortable footwear that I ever had were my army boots! And now it is my Docs. They're not - yet - keen for high heels or pointy toed things.

Gipsy, I well remember going out in totally inappropriate clothes during winter because coats were an encumbrance. Also because I made a lot of my clothes on the afternoon before I went out - I never got round to checking if my jacket matched.

[Lazy Mummy]

Is it just me who thinks that it's a bit sad that a 4 1/2 year old is already learning that one has to suffer for fashion? I'm hoping to avoid such things with my daughter until she's a bit older, but she doesn't have older sisters to copy.

[Claire King]

Earrings are fabulous, they can make your face light up even if you've been up all night with a teething baby, so when you look in the mirror you feel a little less desperate. They are coffee for the soul. This is a good path.

But don't let her get them pierced until she is beyong rough-housing. Here they get them done at 3 months and ripped lobes aplenty.

[Gipsy]

My love of wearing earings has decreased as my age has increased. I wonder why? In my 20s you wouldn't have caught me at any time of the day (except when sleeping) without something really big, and dangly and preferably complicated in my ears. My absolute favourite for many years were from a fairtrade shop, and were made in Peru.

Now, I can't actually remember the last time I put something in my ears. It may have been ten years ago!

[bushra]

hmm. a strange coincidence that my youngest sister worked in claire's for three years before she recently moved to banking...

[Rachel]

Be careful with magnetic earrings. As the oldest I argued my mother down to 14 to have my ears pierced. My middle sister also had hers done at 14. At 11 my youngst sister wore magnetic earrings and asked my father (scientist,working on something) if he liked her pierced ears, to which he responded they were very pretty. Of course there was not much after that they could do to stop her having her ears pierced aged 11.

[Kim]

Oh, Claire's Accessories. I sometimes think I LIVE in Claire's Accessories.

If you want to avoid the clip-on earrings, they do something neat: magnetic earrings. They stick on just as well and aren't as painful.

[LizG]

Oops forgot to write, my daughter's 'woman' moment was in some of those gold awful Disney Princess plastic shoes when she was 4. If I'd let her she would have worn them until her feel bled, she loved them so much!

[LizG]

We give our 5 year old daughter pocket money, £1 a week and she has to help tidying her room or folding the washing. She loves having her own independance and saving up for plastic crap that I won't buy ;)

We've seen the fall out of not giving them pocket money which is probably why we're so hot on it. My 19yo BIL has never had an allowance, and sees no reason to go to work or college as his mother gives him money whenever he asks for it and it's now running into hundreds a month.

I know it's a bit extreme but it made us very wary about buying our daughter whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. If she earns it she appreciates it more, that said she now wants to get a Saturday job so maybe we've gone a bit over the top!

[j]

I give pocket money in theory but in practice I keep forgetting.
Child A earns his allowance by babysitting his siblings. Now he is 16 I will get a bank account for him and he can go onto direct debit like all the other things I keep forgetting to pay..

Seems to me that it's not the child that needs to learn money management in this house, and me an accountant too...

[Baggofbones]

KM - no high-minded ideals here regarding pocket-money (I'm not sure I do them at all) - just that it has not yet occurred to my son has other children get such things (he's too busy thinking about textile mills to notice that there are even other children in his class, never mind the fact that they might have pocket money). When he discovers this, I shall find it a v useful behavioural incentive!

[bushra]

interesting discussion about pocket money. i didn't get pocket money either, and i wonder now if this is why i was so irresponsible when i first started earning my own wage. i plan to save for my son's future (his wedding, his first home) but when it comes to things like cars i'm going to make him earn it. it seems pocket money would be a way to teach him a few things about money and responsibility.

[j]

Ah its the little mermaid all over again, walking with knives in her shoes to get her man.

speaking of agony- has anyone managed to find a brand of control pants that dont roll down over your tummy creating a kind of rubber ring?

[Jennifer]

I vividly remember clip-ons that killed. Why don't they just make girlie earrings you can slip over the top of your ear?

[Gipsy]

KM - my parent's didn't believe in giving pocket money either. We got given money as and when we needed it. So on a shopping day, for example, we might be given the money to go get a soda and some sweets etc.

I didn't get teased or anything at school. But I did find it really hard later on to work out how to manage my own finances. At secondary school, the other girls were able to say 'I want that jacket' and then save up their pocket money until they got it. Whereas we had to ask mum and dad, and frankly, it is hard to say that you want something that your mother thinks is really overpriced. I would rather have had my own cash to spend as I wanted to. I think that would have taught me more about how to budget and handle cash.

Having said that, stepson was rubbish with his pocket money. He was a sucker for spending it all on something that wasn't worth the cash - a toy that looked all whizz bangy in the adverts but if anyone actually took the time to look at it in reality they could see that it wasn't up to the hype. But he would fall for the hype every time, blow all his cash, and then be left with nothing after the toy or whatever it was ended up broken or finished really quickly. And somehow he never learned from this - the next time he'd fall for the hype again.

[bushra]

*my, obviously. my typing is so off these days!

[bushra]

wait a minute. she got Claire's, earrings, pink diamante, and the whole i'm-in-pain-but-by-ears-look-oh-so-pretty in one day? she's a stronger girl than me!

[Kieransmum]

Be careful with that one, BOB. My parents had all sorts of high-minded ideals about how I didn't need pocket money. I was teased at school because of it, and never dared mention the subject to my parents in case I hurt their high-minded feelings.

I don't give much, but I am going to make sure my kids get a little, just so they aren't embarrassed at the inevitable question "how much pocket money do you get?"

[mumoftwo]

Oh yes, going out on New Years Even in a miniskirt without a coat just so you didn't have to carry one around all night and ruin your 'look'. How times have changed. I went to a 'gig' (do people still use that term?) the other week and me and my husband realised we were the only ones there with macs and bags...how uncool!

[tiredmum]

My 3 year old had some earings that came with her snow white dressing up outfit - absolutely loved them, even though they were a bit tight - If I'd have bought the outfit with her I'd have hidden the earings before she saw them, but she was with her dad (spending her birthday money - no pocket money yet). She also spends most of her time clopping around in dressing up shoes. I'm quite impressed at how much she can achieve in silly heely shoes - climbing, playing football, etc - I never learned to walk in silly shoes myself, but I can see its a useful skill to have - The poor girl was really excited when she found my 2 pairs of slightly feminine shoes (bought for special occasion, worn about once each).

[Gipsy]

I'd never heard of clip on converters!

I don't think my step daughter would ever dream of suffering just for the sake of fashion. I know that I did when I was a teenager, and I know my friends did. For example, freezing to death simply because you had a fabulous blouse but no matching coat or didn't want to cover it up, or killing yourself in heels. In fact, just about every fashion that came along seemed to have some sort of torture to go with it. Pencil skirts for example - any tummy at all stood out a mile so you couldn't eat if you wore one.

Why do we do that to ourselves? Is it a good thing?

[Lucy]

Buy her some clip-on converters (they're like the clasp bits of clip-on earrings, but you can fit them through any little loop, so most earrings designed for pierced ears will fit onto them) and give her those - you can buy them in John Lewis haberdashery department, and they might be less fierce than the ones you describe! Prepare for lost earrings ... but I guess that's part of the fun.

[Annamac]

I started giving my daughter pocket money as soon as she started at school: seemed to help her maths no end. And it certainly helped with getting a grasp on the value of money. It was a tough lesson, but an important one - the first time she insisted going into a toy shop (the need for Claire's Accessories didn't kick in until about 6) to see what she could buy with the 50p clutched in her hot little hand.
As for the lesson about having to suffer in order to look good, hmm, am obviously a totally rubbish woman myself, as I have never been able to go along with that. If the shoes, earrings, strange underwear, whatever, are/is uncomfortable - don't wear it! Er, is it just me, or isn't that common sense? "Il faut souffrir pour etre belle" - bah, rubbish.

[Baggofbones]

A four-and-a-half-year-old with pocket money?!
My six-year-old doesn't get pocket money!!
Maybe we're just stingy oop north...

[Victoria]

I remember mine - aged 5, beautiful red shoes with a bow (I was a big fan of Wizard of Oz) and some glitter.

Blisters. Brave smile.