Gratuitous Domestic Posting - "Not On Our Watch" Division

Last evening, in the course of a call from the mother of one of the Llama-ettes' little friends, we were extended an invitation to a birthday party at a place called Club Libby Lu.

The Missus very politely but firmly said that she was sorry, but we don't allow the gels to go there. Period.

I could almost hear the sound of consternation at the other end of the line.

You may have heard of this place. It's a dress-up birthday shop in the mall that caters to the 5-12 year old little girl set. But rather than costuming them as, say, storybook characters, ballerinas or princesses, this place specializes in turning the little darlings into skanks:

Mostly it's birthday parties at Club Libby Lu. A girl turns 6 and she wants the Tween Idol makeover for herself and her friends, complete with makeup, punky hair and a pink headset like Britney Spears might wear onstage. All the girls get to borrow party costumes. Many choose low-slung pants and sequined spandex tops cropped just under where their breasts would be, if they had any. Sometimes, the girls are so small their pants legs drag under their sneakers.

After the makeovers, the club counselors, as they're known, lead the girls in a dance, teaching them to "shimmy down" and to "shake it, shake it." Sometimes they arrange a fashion catwalk. The girls walk down the aisle of the store till they reach the front, where mothers hold cameras. Here, the girls fling one arm theatrically toward the ceiling. The song on the store stereo says: "Wet your lips/And smile to the camera."

(What this WaPo article doesn't tell you is that men strolling around the mall sometimes loiter around the place to watch these "shows". If that doesn't creepify you, you've got some serious problems.)

The parents who do take their daughters there sound as if they need a healthy whuppin' with a cluebat:

The mothers are ambivalent. Some say their daughters would be trying on makeup at home if they weren't trying it on here. Some say this is okay, but only on special occasions. Some say this place troubles them, but so does the notion of banning something because that might cause their girls to want it more. ("I wish they were excited about a Lego party," says mom Rebecca deGuzman. "Do they have to show their bellies?")

Some of them, like Leigh Wilson, say, "Oh, Natalie! You look beautiful!"

Natalie Wilson is 4. She's here for the birthday of her older sister, who's turning 6. Earlier, she had her makeup done: blue eye shadow and lip gloss. For a while, she keeps rubbing her lips together, feeling the strange stickiness. She holds her hands out from her sides to keep her blue nail polish from getting on her clothes. She wears a tight black sequined top.

Her grandmothers are here, too, admiring the scene.

"I would've loved it as a mom," one of the grandmothers says. "Somebody else does all the work."

What on earth is wrong with these people? I tell you truly, there is very little that reduces me to snarling, spitting anger more than the way in which our culture attempts to sexualize girls at younger and younger ages. Unfortunately, Club Libby Lu is just a symptom of a much larger malignancy:

Club Libby Lu sells the particular fantasy of a culture that has given itself over to klieg lights and red carpets, to cheap celebrity and expensive childhoods, to girls who dress like women and women who act like girls.

Meanwhile, "Who Let the Dogs Out" plays on the store's stereo system, and a little girl holds her freshly painted nails out and sings feebly, "Who-who-who-who."

Who, indeed. I dunno, but they better stay the hell away from my children.

UPDATE: I see that I have fumed about this place before. Sorry, but I'm getting progressively crankier about this sort of thing, what with the need for ceaseless vigilence. (I've recently had to put the kybosh on the four year old saying, "Shake yo booty.")

(Just you wait, Mr. Wookie!)