Some men maintain their nails by getting manicures and pedicures, but what happens when men start painting their nails with shades of black, gray and even neon pink?

About a month ago, J. Crew‘s brand manager Jenna Lyons was ridiculed for this ad, where she’s featured painting her young son’s toe nails pink. The caption reads “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”

“Not only is Beckett likely to change his favorite color as early as tomorrow, Jenna’s indulgence (or encouragement) could make life hard for the boy in the future,” said Media Research Center‘s Erin Brown told FoxNews.com. Please take Brown’s comments with a grain of salt. The Media Research Center is, according to their Web site, born of “a group of young determined conservatives set out to not only prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene.”

Jo B. Paoletti, author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America, stated “Lots of kids, say seven and under, might ask their parents for something that would seem to be cross gender, and I think most parents, especially in the privacy of their own home might think, what’s the big deal?”

That’s just the thing—it wasn’t exactly in the “privacy of her own home.” It was in a nationally distributed catalog. One must wonder, if Beckett grows out of his love for pink nail polish in a few years, will he be happy that his mother put it out there like that?

Then I came across a site called Mothering.com, which contains a forum about nail polish on kids and countless parents had comments like this: “My boys (ages 5 and 7) love to wear nail polish, and we (bf and I ) let them! My oldest likes black polish and the younger one just doesnt care what color. They don’t do this ALL the time, but when they want to, we let them.”

Does it become more acceptable if a boy or man wears dark nail polish, in shades of black, blue or gray, such as Seal does below? I mean, we’ve seen musicians like Ozzy Osborne do it for decades, and since these days it seems like everyone thinks they’re a rock star…

Seal

Ozzy Osborne

Personally, it doesn’t surprise me to see this becoming a growing mainstream trend among men. But nail polish on young boys? I’m not a fan, especially if they are not the ones asking for it. I’m all for kids expressing themselves freely but, to me, that’s just a little extra.

What are your thoughts?

Source: FoxNews.com

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