Four years ago, a friend talked me into visiting a department store to get a makeover.

This was not my idea of a good time.

Why would I sit in a grown-up highchair — in public, no less — so that a stranger could tsk-tsk over my middle-aged face as she plied, plucked and poked? To me, this ranked right up there with a colonoscopy for whoo-whee fun.

My friend knew this, but she also knew my makeup tips gleaned 30 years ago from Seventeen magazine were a tad dated. She coaxed me to think of our little outing as purely exploratory.

"Just to get some new tips," she said.

So there I was on a Saturday morning, my friend forcing a smile as the clinician plastered me with enough spackle to alter my identity. Then she had the nerve to suggest concealer, too. The only debate was whether she should dab it on with a sponge or surrender to reality and hook up the hose.

Just as I was about to blow, I heard the sweet voice of an 11-year-old girl I've known since the day she was born. She and her mother were out shopping, and she "just had to say hi." She was trying really hard not to giggle, but just the sight of her made me smile.

To me, she looked pretty, as only a young girl can.

To the makeup clerk, she looked like a potential sale.

"See what I mean?" she said, gesturing under her eyes as soon as the girl left. She frowned at my clueless face.

"That girl already has dark circles," she said. "She needs concealer."

"She's 11 ," I snapped.

"I know," she said, shaking her head. "It starts so early."

With that, our session was over.

I still stew over that exchange, but I have to admit that it looks almost tame compared to what pubescent girls are subjecting themselves to these days — usually with their mothers' consent, often at their urging and always at the expense of their self-esteem.

Philadelphia Magazine recently ran a lengthy piece about the number of young girls who not only are getting facials and highlights but also eyebrow and bikini waxes.

Yes, bikini waxes.

Janice Hillman, a doctor who specializes in adolescent medicine, told reporter Carrie Denny that she jokes about writing a book titled "Where Has All the Pubic Hair Gone?"

"It's such a rarity to find it these days in 10- and 12-year-old girls, and older girls," she told Denny.

"I need to check for it at that age — it's an indicator of puberty and development, how much there is, where it's growing. And now I need to ask girls, if it's not there, 'Do you wax? Do you shave?' Because so many of them do."

A spa director quoted in the story said these waxes aren't just for special occasions, either.

"It's like, 'Okay, you're becoming a woman now, here are the things you'll need to do as a woman,'" she said.

And we wonder why so many Americans still can't imagine a woman as president.

Now, many of the same spa owners who claim a lot of hand-wringing over the impropriety of coaxing a child to emulate a porn queen aren't exactly turning her away, either. They don't want to lose Mom as a customer, and you know, it's tough running a business where the profit margin is tied directly to a woman's level of insecurity.

Some spas, though, really have put their feet down, insisting that mothers can't just drop off their children for full-body waxes and then pick 'em up hours later. Nosiree. They have to sit there for the whole screamin' session.

That'll show 'em.

Other spas assuage their collective guilt by coming up with waivers making it clear that they think this is bad idea, but OK, if you insist, sign here.

I think it's safe to say we aren't going to see the spa industry blazing a trail for social justice anytime soon.

What we can see is the damage yet to come when mothers who refuse to grow up deprive their daughters of the right to be young.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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