Today’s screed: Really? “Lip” products for three-year-old girls?

I don’t mean lipstick for pre-schoolers–although, mindbogglingly, such a product does exist, (and I do reserve the right to return later with a separate screed on the subject.) No, I mean lip-themed products. Like, oh, rubber stamps, for example. MJ recently got a gift set that included a heart stamp, a star, a flower, a butterfly and, yes, a “smooch.” Yuck. Why? What possible need for such a thing is there in a pre-schooler girl’s arsenal?

“What’s the big deal?” you say. “Lips are a part of the body. They don’t have to imply prurience.”

I’ll state the obvious. They don’t make stamps with noses on them, or knuckles, or big toes. (I’d actually like one of those. Although I suppose it would, in practice, usually be mistaken for a baby carrot.) They don’t make purses for girls with elbows on the sides, tee-shirts sporting calves (not the bovine kind), or notebooks littered with Adam’s apples. And they never give this shit to boys.

Anyway. I’m not a super-feminist. But I do have some standards. If I had my way, puffed up smoochy lips would be relegated to the faces of Meg Ryan, Madeleine Stowe, and others of their youth-obsessed ilk.

What I don’t want? To spot said lips blowing me kisses from my daughter’s Play-Dough pancake.