Anna Good
Anything to do with parenting methods always seems to get folks up in arms about the “right” and “wrong” way to care for one’s children, especially when it comes to body image and protecting them from bullying. One TikTok mom’s video went viral after she recorded herself waxing her three-year-old daughter’s unibrow, calling it “basic grooming.” Her daughter grimaced at the quick pull of her eyebrow hairs, saying, “Ow, mom.”
Leah Garcia, aka @leah_txrealtor, has 265.2K followers on TikTok. In her video, which has been viewed over 31.1 million times since it was posted on October 4, and Garcia has since faced a ton of backlash.
The video’s text overlay reads, “Idc! Idc! I’d rather y’all call me a bad mom before I let my 3-year-old walk around with a unibrow like my parents did.”
The sentiment behind Garcia’s actions was understood by many commenters, who could tell she was trying to protect her daughter from cruel children (and adults) who would bully her for having a unibrow.
But many others disagreed, saying that the mother was instilling “insecurities” over her body image in the little girl.
One TikToker stitched the video, saying, “Teaching a kid that young that the facial hair that naturally grows on their body is wrong or they need to get rid of it… irreparable damages to her psyche.”
“I hope when she’s older, she realizes her insecurities were imposed on her by the person who was supposed to make her feel the most beautiful in this world, poor baby,” wrote another TikTok user whose duet video has over 1.1 million views.
Garcia posted an update video on October 7 about the “uproar” caused by her video, saying, “I would take the hate and the ridicule from millions of people, like I am now. I would take that right on the chin before I ever allowed my children to be hurt by somebody else’s words for something that I could fix so easily.”
The mother has posted several other videos about the topic since then addressing her critics. She captioned one video, “We teach her self love, but we also teach her basic grooming.” In another video, she said, “GROOMING IS NECESSARY.”
Interestingly, at least in the original video, the response in the comments was overwhelmingly positive, and it was only in stitches and duets that people voiced their negative opinions on her parenting style. Garcia hasn’t let the negativity get her down, however, and continues to post about her life and family.