When blogger Lindsay Cross admitted to letting her 4-year-old daughter wear "a full face of make-up" on special occasions, she may or may not have realized she was stepping into a philosophical minefield.
But the controversy generated by Cross's Mommyish post has propelled her and her toddler all the way to the national news.
In an interview on Good Morning America, excerpted above, Cross admitted to Paula Faris: "When I wrote the piece, I didn't think it was that monumental of a deal."
Cross says she sees these mother-daughter makeup sessions as "dress-up." For her part, daughter Brenna said she likes makeup because "it makes me pretty."
In a reaction piece published on Mommyish after the GMA segment, Cross was anxious to clarify that statement in particular, noting:
Brenna [also] thinks that riding her horse makes her pretty, because it’s “strong and fun and horses are really pretty.” She thinks that dressing up like a pirate with an eye patch makes her pretty, “because you can tell I’m tough.” ... And while it wasn’t shown [on TV], in the middle of all that makeup talk, they asked my daughter what she wanted to be when she grows up. Her answer wasn’t a princess, like you might have expected. She said that she wanted to be a doctor.
The use of makeups by toddlers is highly controversial. In the UK, an organization called Pinkstinks recently launched a full-fledged campaign to remove makeup targeted at girls under 8 from shelves. (Those in doubt as to whether such toys exist will find plenty of examples on Amazon.)
Watch the full interview with Lindsay and Brenna Cross on GMA's website.