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Growing up she was mercilessly mocked for her unibrow – so when her three-year-old daughter started sprouting hair in the space between her eyebrows, she decided to take action.
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Leah Garcia from Texas in the US recently posted a video of her waxing her toddler Bliss' unibrow, knowing full well she'd get plenty of backlash for it.
"I don't care! I don't care! I'd rather y'all call me a bad mom before I let my three-year-old walk around with a unibrow like my parents did," she captioned the TikTok video.
@leah_txrealtor My fellow mexicans, y’all understand! ?? #fyp #momsoftiktok #badmom #mexicantiktok #andGO ? original sound - Leah Garcia
In the viral video that has since garnered 3,2 million likes, Leah (31) places the waxing strip in the middle of Bliss’ brows before ripping it off.
"Ow, mom, that hurt me," Bliss says, to which her mom replies, "All right, girl, now you got two eyebrows!"
Having been bullied as a child for her own unibrow, Leah is determined to not let her children suffer as she did.
“Being bullied is something you don’t come back from,” she says. “I'm preventing it from happening in the first place.”
But her daughter’s age has ruffled some viewers' feathers.
"At three though?" someone said on social media.
"If she wasn't aware of her eyebrows, she sure is now," another wrote.
Yet another said, "Yes, because we need to teach our children to care what others think of us."
Leah didn't take the criticism lying down, though.
"I understand where critics are coming from but kids can be cruel," she says. "Waxing her unibrow isn't giving in to bullies, it's preventing them from targeting my daughter."
Other parents were on the fence about the Texas mom's decision.
“How do I find balance with this?” one person pondered. “I’m so worried about them being insecure about their natural selves but I don’t want them to be bullied either.”
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Others considered her to be a great mom, particularly those who’d been in her shoes before.
"I'm very hairy and I remember being younger and none of my siblings were as hairy as me and they would make fun of me," someone wrote.
Leah's not the only parent to put her child through the painful process. Quite a number of parents admitted to waxing their kids' body hair while other parents felt encouraged to try it out.
"You should try the eyebrow shavers," one mom advised. "And if she’s a wiggler, try doing it safely while she’s asleep. I learned this with my daughter when she was 1."
@leah_txrealtor #duet with @morgandeangreen #Stitch Im sorry this is ur story, but it’s definitely not ours. #fyp #momsoftiktok ? original sound - Ohnomayhem
"My daughter has a 'stash and wants it gone," another mom wrote. "This must be my sign that it's OK?"
Leah is standing by her decision because she believes that waxing falls under grooming.
"I'm not training her to be insecure," she says. "I just want my daughter to feel good."
Sources: today.com, the-sun.com, tiktok.com
