‘My daughter has a unibrow… I worry she’ll be bullied if I don’t shave it’

“I think she’s the most beautiful kid, but I don’t want her to look back at photos and be embarrassed,” the mum reveals.

As adults it’s hard not to project our conditioned-by-society nonsense on our kids.

But we have to remember, kids aren't born with that conditioning.

So it’s not an affront to feminism if your toddler girl sometimes plays with the toy vacuum at playgroup, for example, and if your son has more girl friends and than boy friends, it doesn’t mean he’s flirtatious or that he has a "harem" (a preschool teacher actually said this about my child).

Kids move around the world with pure innocence and curiosity; they only care about appearance, or societal norms when adults and other children teach them to.

That’s why Serena is so conflicted about her five-year-old daughter’s facial hair, namely her unibrow.

The mum took to Reddit, wondering if she should shave it off or leave it alone.

“Her eyebrows are light so it isn’t something you’d notice across to room, but when you’re close to her, you can certainly see it,” she wrote.

“We recently had some family pictures taken and I could see it very clearly.

“I honestly don’t notice most of the time and she’s the most beautiful kid… but I wonder if I should help her with it to reduce the chance of bullying.”

Serena took an honest look at herself – was she really worried about bullying, or was it her own superficial aesthetics?

“I’ve consistently told myself she’s too young to care, and I do honestly feel that way, but I’m worried if she looks back at photos she’ll be embarrassed.”

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Serena wondered if she should shave her daughter's unibrow. Photo: iStock

Mum asks Reddit community if she should shave daughter’s unibrow

The mum was inclined to leave it until her daughter actually asked her to do something about it, and considered modelling her and her husband’s grooming to her child so the little girl could see what was possible.

“I talked it over with my husband and we’ve agreed to leave the doors open when we do our own facial hair removal. She will inevitably come in and watch… we can talk about what we’re doing.”

RELATED: I let my 12yo wax her armpits and facial hair

Commenters on the post included people who had had unibrows as kids, and they overwhelmingly advised Serena to do something about it, but maybe not while her daughter was five.

“I was a ‘pretty’ girl as a child and I had a unibrow,” one person said. “Super light hair, pale skin. When I got to 13 I started to get picked on by boys and it was so awful. My mum refused to let me do anything.

RELATED: Woman shaves her face on Facebook to raise awareness of PCOS

“I came home one day and got my dad’s razor and shaved clean down the centre, taking most of my eyebrows with it. Please for the love of god, take her to get them shaped professionally when she is older, 10 to 12.”

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 “My mum would shave it for me when I was younger, and I’m so happy she did,” said another. “Probably one of the better things I actually remember.”

“I had opposite experience,” one person said. “I lived with my dad and there was absolutely no talk ever of hair removal. I think he didn’t like the idea of me growing up.

“I secretly used his razor and was inevitably found out and he told me off. I was getting badly bullied at school and I would have liked to have an open, no-embarrassment line of communication around these things.”

RELATED: ‘What fresh hell is this?’: Mum’s hilarious facial hair discovery

“Another unibrow kiddo here: I had mine waxed until it finally died when I was around 16,” a fourth person said.

Originally published as ‘My daughter has a unibrow… I worry she’ll be bullied if I don’t shave it’