A Cult of Gone Girls?

plus, swimming against the beauty industry tide

Welcome readers, old and new!

Please hit the ❤️ above to remind us there is humanism to be had, still, among the sadness.

I’m currently in Tokyo spending time with my family—which includes, in M’s own words, “your precious granddaughter”— and am once again privileged to watch her parents strategize their way through the delicate art of raising a child. I’ve made a commitment to keep advice to myself unless it’s solicited. (Well, I’m trying.) Anyway, I don’t feel, even after having somehow produced the remarkable father of said precious granddaughter, that I had much to do with my son’s success. The most useful thing I did was get out of his way.

Childhood in Tokyo seems a much more… labor-intensive experience than in the U.S. which is probably the prime reason for my attenuated silliness around M. She introduced me yesterday to a six-year-old classmate. “Oh,” I said, “are you the dentist M keeps talking about?” Bewildered hilarity followed, and then a gentle reprimand from M: “Grammie, you know kids don’t have jobs.” (I thought to myself, But you guys work harder than most adults I know…)

On the subject of kids, specifically pre-adolescents and adolescents, there seems to be a disturbing trend of younger and younger girls (mostly) adopting elaborate skincare routines that require an arsenal of products. The goal appears to be achieving “glass skin” (perfect to the point of looking inhuman), which is often promoted on social media. I first noticed the trend when a PR person sent me a pitch offering a plastic surgeon’s advice about what young girls should be doing to enhance and preserve their skin, involving an inappropriately large number of steps and products. Then I received this reader email…

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