Have you ever wished you could change your eye color, just for an evening or even a few minutes? I imagine any number of young ladies were thinking that a few weeks ago, as they were auditioning to be Disney princesses.
Spokane is pretty white. I don’t mean to be racist or anything, but there are times when I wonder things like: can you have a blue-eyed Pocahontas? I mean, you can always put a wig on somebody, but changing eye color isn’t an everyday thing.
Ah, but it could be! In our increasingly competitive world, 15-year-olds could stand out from the pack (or blend in with it) by wearing colored contacts. Play with different eye color looks at lensshoppers virtual color studio.
Now I’m wondering, since it’s Tuesday and we’re thinking about young people, do you think it’s wrong for parents to allow kids to change their eye color? Does it make a difference if they wear contacts anyway?
As I look at what’s changed in the world just in the recent past, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if colored contacts became as common as body piercing or tattoos.
It’s interesting that you would put it that way, because I think they’re quite common already. I mean, they’ve been around for ages, and unless they’re unnatural colors, they aren’t that easy to detect by casual observation. I can’t comment on anything parent/kid related, but it seems to me that, in principle, colored contacts have more in common with coloring one’s hair than they have with tattoos.
It’s true they are not nearly as permanent!
I do have to agree with Mella DP on this…they’ve been around for a while, and I’ve known people who wear them. And I’d also agree that they are more along the lines of coloring your hair.
But to answer your question, do I think it’s wrong? No…not really “wrong,” but perhaps not preferable. I honestly believe that the Lord has blessed each of us with the appropriate eye and hair color that is best for us, and I just don’t see why you would want to change that! I don’t have teenagers, but I think if I did, I might try to steer them towards embracing what is their’s already! With saying all of that – I can almost always pick out people with colored contacts, and I find that it is many times unnatural and unflattering. I suppose if people chose something that truly flatters them rather than detracts, I would be just fine with it.
If I was a parent of a teen, I wouldn’t mind them experimenting with eye colour.
Having grown up in a very conservative community myself, I have observed a lot of parents and come to the conclusion that it’s foolish to forbid harmless stuff like make-up, nail polish or contact lenses. They are a part of teen experimentation, and does not necessarily mean that one does not accept their body. I’d only talk to my teen if they wore clothes that were way to small, or gave out the wrong message, or were not clean. But generally I’d give them the message that whatever you wear or look like is fine with me, as long as you behave like a good person.
Gala Darling at galadarling.com wrote a beautiful mother’s day post, thanking her parents for allowing her to be different and not forcing her to blend in, and being ok with her wearing all black + silver wings when she went out !
Well, my above post seems a bit moralizing.
I’d love to try coloured contacts myself, I’m curious what I’d look like with grey eyes 🙂
There are moderations and extremes to everything. For instance, I had a friend in high school whose contacts had cat eyes or flames printed on them. (Kind of like this, although it’s a bad example: https://www.insanelenses.com/images/T/theatrical_fire_thumb.jpg) It made me sad that he’d wear them because I thought his mocha brown eyes were gorgeous, but that was his style.
I think it’s different for each kid, too. Some kids can treat it as just another accessory, while others use it to cover up insecurities. My biggest caution, though, would be that even if your child is mature enough to be wise with colored contacts, their friends might not be. And every child wants the cool things their friends have.
Color contacts were all the rage when I was in jr. high back in the mid-80s. I’m not old, but I ain’t really young anymore either. 😉
I’m a big proponent of embracing what God gave you. He made you the way you are for a reason. Some of us get comfortable with that sooner than others. Do I think it’s wrong to change your eye color? Not necessarily. But it could be if your heart is in rebellion to who you were created to be. That’s not something you can tell by just looking. 🙂
Being frugal like we are, unless the kid wanted to kick in the money for the upgrade, I would say no. For purely cosmetic reasons, if they wanted to spend the money, I probably wouldn’t object although we would have a discussion about vanity, uniqueness and wise use of resources. If they seemed to have an ok heart about it, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
I hardly ever see colored contacts on people anymore here in Dallas. Ten-fifteen years ago, yes, but not now. People here are plenty trendy and vain (I’ve heard that Dallas is second in the nation for both retail square footage per capita AND cosmetic surgery procedures per capita!) — so you’d think we’d see more of it here if it was still a strong widespread trend.
You know, I don’t see much of it here either, but then I figured that was because we are so *natural*. 😉