Babygirls with mustaches

This is a topic that hits hard because i was once one, and am still one to this day. Sometimes someone will show me their adorable little baby girl or cute little toddler cousin or pretty 6-year-old girl sister and indeed they are all so precious and such but they will all have one thing in common: a stache #nomovember. Not just a little cute blonde stache that is only visible when covered with milk. I’m talking about a dark fuzziness that lingers over that cute girl’s mouth and is noticeable by everyone except for old people and arab parents. WHY don’t parents notice girl staches. Staches and unibrows. It’s like they are blinded by the love they have for their little angels that they are unable to realize their precious little peaches are actually full-blown marios and luigis. I remember getting teased up until grade 7 for having a stache and basically not looking like the cute delicate girl one expects from a 12-year-old. All the girls around me looked like this:

While I’m out here looking like this:

If it weren’t for my unexplained and unreasonable confidence, the light mustache teasing (the teasing: light, the mustache: dark) could have had an impact that could have been much more worst on my self-esteem. My little cousin was being teased for her fuzzy lip and I didn’t know how to help her without just telling her to wax that shit off, because that will surely cause her to be overly concerned with the way she looks. She shouldn’t have to wax at a young age just to please the hairless white boys (because they are always the ring leaders of this kind of teasing). And how young is too young to get your upper lip or eyebrows waxed? I got mine done for the first time in grade 7 (meaning I was 12/13) because my aunt made me. I didn’t even know what was happening until the actual moment it was happening. She had taken me along with her to get her [insert all body parts here] waxed and when she was done she told me to get up on the wax table. I listened because I’m a good Arab girl and then all of a sudden I’m lying down on this wax table and my aunt and this lady are peering over me while my aunt is pointing at parts of my face and telling the lady to “clean it”.

Next thing you know there’s a hot something being spread above my mouth, some pressing down and all of a sudden..RIPPPP. and I don’t think I knew cuss words at the time but you best believe I dropped some serious F bombs in that moment (still in my head, of course. not tryna get my mouth waxed off too). Next were my eyebrows and all of it happened so fast. When I got off the waxing table my aunt handed me a hand mirror and exclaimed “look! you’re so clean now!”. I looked back at my reflection and  saw that instead of a “clean” girl, I looked like someone had punched me right between the eyes, and slapped up my forehead a bit and even had the audacity to throw a basketball at my mouth. I looked so shocked and confused and red. This was me but with a red forehead as well:

I remember looking at myself for the first time without bushy eyebrows and a mustache. It did look cleaner but the skin was so red and sore I was scared the kids at school would notice the difference. The truth is, when you get teased about something, when that something goes away, you get teased for its disappearance. Kids are ruthless. If a kid gets teased for being fat and then loses a bunch of weight, he gets made fun of for losing weight. YOU CAN NEVER WIN GODDAMMIT.

So anyways I get on the bus to school the next morning and I feel like no one will even notice because all the redness had disappeared and it’s not like these damn kids are on mustache duty, tryna make sure all these hairy brown girls’ mustaches are present and accounted for. Well apparently they were, and apparently my upperlip didn’t pass inspection because this one kid named Thomas (FCKING THOMAS) noticed the change right away and, being the righteous, noble, and virtuous person he was, felt it was his duty to alert the officials immediately.  “Hey sarah…did you…did you..*shocked look* YOU SHAVED YOUR MUSTACHE?!? HEY! HEY GUYS! HEY GUYS LOOK! SARAH SHAVED HER MUSTACHE LOLOLOLOL”

Me:

Needless to say, after that incident, there were only a few more reminders that I had my mustache club membership revoked before the teasing then ended. I could finally get back to being teased for other, normal things, like being fat, dressing like a boy, being bad at literally everything, and not being white. #bliss

But damn, I wish I could say that the solution to this is to teach kids to accept others for their differences and that teasing hurts and so on, and that we need to be more aware and put an end to bullying. And all this is true, but kids are just shitty people and they tease and will always tease. And sometimes…the solution is just to WAX THE STACHE unfortunately. It’s already hard as it is being a kid these days and it doesn’t help when your daughter looks like a son. If I am lucky enough to have a daughter (because lord knows with my luck I’ll end up having 14 sons whilst being virgin mary) I will (because she will obviously  have one with my genes) let her wax her stache at an early age (not too early. Not tryna put hot wax on a baby) if she is bothered by it. Eyebrows and leghair can wait but I feel for my babygirls with mustaches.