A mum has defended herself for saying yes to her six-year-old daughter when she asked if she could shave her legs.
Lynn Adams and her daughter Margot both have a condition called hirsutism, which creates a male-pattern of hair growth in women.
When Margot asked her mum if she could shave them, Lynn did it for her that very night.
“Margot was born hairier than most babies, with a fine black down on her back and legs,” she told Cosmopoliton.
“It was the kind of soft wool hair invisible to a casual observer but noticeable under a bathroom’s harsh light.”
Hirsutism affects one in 20 women, and it affects both sides of Margot’s family.
“I regularly wax a patch of hair on my neck that is too low to be a goatee, too high to be chest hair,” explains Lynn.
Lynn is defending criticism that her daughter is too young to shave, saying that she herself first shaved her legs at the age of 12, but she wanted to do it much earlier than that.
Lynn’s own mother was initially opposed to the idea when Lynn asked her as a young girl. “I wanted some relief, but my mother thought I was growing up too fast.”
When she did shave, she “instantly felt prettier. Stronger, even.”
Lynn wanted the same for her daughter, but was adamant she’d never pressure her.
“I wondered, though: If I let Margot shave her legs, would I make her more self-conscious later on? Would her friends notice? Would my friends notice?,” she said.
“None of that mattered. When it came to beauty, Margot’s own opinion was the most important. To this day, I wait for her to ask every time I shave her legs.”
“I don’t do it if she doesn’t ask. That turns out to be about every four months.”
“By shaving Margot’s legs, I gave her the power I lacked as a young girl. I don’t want to add to the social pressure to be beautiful.”
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