08/13/2026
I don’t know if I will call this a culture shock because I honestly don’t know if this is the culture in the U.S.
As y’all know, my first daughter, Kendra, graduated elementary school and started middle school last week. On her very first day, she missed her bus coming home, so I had to go pick her up.
Mind you, in all my years living in the U.S., I had never stepped foot inside a middle school. I had no reason to, I had children in elementary school all this time. So this was my first real glimpse into the middle school world.
Tell me why I walked into that school and immediately got confused! 😭
For a second, I thought I had walked into a fashion show, a university, or some sort of beauty show . 😂
The girls had frontals, full sets of nails, lashes, perfectly done hair, some age appropriate braids and some not so age appropriate, I mean, they were looking good ! BUT…….Not just a little lip gloss and painted nails. I’m talking FULL GLAM.
I stood there looking around for a few minutes thinking, Wait… am I in the right place?
But after I saw more than five girls dressed like that, I realized this was apparently a normal thing.
And honestly, I didn’t know how to feel.
This is not how we were brought up. Where I’m from, you were going to school looking like a CHILD because… YOU WERE A CHILD! for God’s sake
So now I’m genuinely curious: Is this a normal thing in American middle schools? Do schools have rules about this? And are parents really okay with their 11 and 12 year olds wearing frontals, full sets and lashes to school?
Because I’m damn sure it’s not happening in my house.
Kendra already knows there are certain things she can do at certain ages, and I’m big on letting children enjoy being children.
My concern isn’t even about looking nice. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with looking cute and taking care of yourself. I just don’t want my child seeing certain things every day and starting to think, “Well, everybody else is doing it, so there must be nothing wrong with it.”
I’m not judging anybody, I’m genuinely curious because this was a whole new world for me.
Middle school parents, please educate me! Is this the norm? 👀👀
