Makeup Madness? Sephora Kids, Dangerous Trends and What Parents Need to Know | S6 E18

Mary Alessi [00:00:00]:
So young. No wonder all we hear about is mental health, mental health, mental health. True. No wonder. That's feeding it. There should be, in my opinion, I'm just gonna say it. I personally feel like you have to be at least 13 to own a phone. Yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:00:13]:
I mean, if it were up to me, it would be 16 just like driving. It's true. Maybe we'll get there one day. What has to happen though in the process, there will be a lost generation. Welcome to another episode of the family business with the Alessis. I am Mary Alessi. And today, I'm not joined by my husband, Steve Alessi. I am joined by our youngest daughter, Gabrielle Alessi.

Gaby Alessi [00:00:43]:
Welcome everybody.

Mary Alessi [00:00:45]:
Today, we are well, I am sporting the Alessi well, the family business with Alessi.

Gaby Alessi [00:00:50]:
I didn't get the memo. 

Mary Alessi [00:00:52]:
Well, we should've told you because I have on the hoodie, which I absolutely love. I would wear it every day if I could because it's not too hot, but it's really cut well. It is. And we're talking about that right off at the top because we have linked all of our merch that you can go and purchase right here on YouTube or wherever you're watching or listening. You can just click the link and go to it and buy it, and we encourage you to do that. Get the word out. We've got some amazing T shirts, hats. Yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:01:15]:
We've even got the little onesies for your kids, And, it's kinda cool. It's got a little bit of a mafia look to it, the family business.

Gaby Alessi [00:01:22]:
It's very cool. And, you know, there's you said it. The the actual full material and the the shape of it. The fit is amazing. It is. The one that I love, I don't think we have it on the table. It's like the just like the sweater Mhmm. The family business, and it's black letters with the gray sweater.

Gaby Alessi [00:01:35]:
That one looks awesome.

Mary Alessi [00:01:37]:
Yeah. I don't know if we have anymore. I don't

Gaby Alessi [00:01:39]:
if It's probably not because that is such a good sweater. Get it. It is amazing. And all the girls that are watching this know that when you have a good hoodie or a good sweater that fits right, you don't care what it says. I don't care what's on it. I don't care how many times I wear. I will wear the same thing all the time.

Mary Alessi [00:01:52]:
I agree. So go get yourself some swag, some merch. These are some legal terms. We never said that. We just said go get a sweatshirt and a T shirt. Update your drip. Really? Mhmm. Raise your riz?

Gaby Alessi [00:02:06]:
No. I mean yeah. No. This could help your risk, but risk has nothing to do with your office.

Mary Alessi [00:02:11]:
Do people even know what risk is if you're

Gaby Alessi [00:02:13]:
Okay. Give me give me your best,

Mary Alessi [00:02:17]:
definition of riz. Cool. Okay. You're so riz. What is it short for?

Gaby Alessi [00:02:24]:
So riz is short for charisma. It is? Yes. But it's turned into a new way of, like, talking about, like, you've got game. So, like, it's saying, like, oh, he's got riz. Like, he's gonna go riz her up. Like, he's gonna go flirt with her, and he can pick up any girl because he's got riz. Well, not much man. Morphed into that.

Mary Alessi [00:02:41]:
What what why do we have to change words?

Gaby Alessi [00:02:43]:
Why do we have to create? Because everybody in this generation thinks they're the 1st ones to ever do it. They're the smartest ever. That's a whole another podcast that just makes me mad. So I know. Let's go to the other topic that makes us mad.

Mary Alessi [00:02:54]:
I I just wanna say exactly. Because we are gonna talk about something out of sheer anger. Yes. And we jumped in this podcast booth because we wanted to talk about this. You work with youth. Yeah. That's your career path. You work with from middle schoolers to high schoolers.

Mary Alessi [00:03:08]:
And, I raised 4 middle schoolers and high schoolers, and I raised 3 daughters. Yep. So this is a topic this is a subject that we know a lot about. Yep. But I did not know about the TikTok trend that's going around. And shockingly, I told you about it. You did. I'm I'm amazed.

Mary Alessi [00:03:27]:
I feel I'm very riz right now. You're you're gonna know.

Gaby Alessi [00:03:34]:
So here's the thing. I I'm not on Instagram. Well, I'm not on Instagram right now because I'm fasting it, but then also I don't have a TikTok. I refuse to get

Mary Alessi [00:03:40]:
a TikTok. No. I don't either.

Gaby Alessi [00:03:42]:
I am a little scared of it. I'm afraid of, like, the tracking stuff, so I am a little conspiracy theorist when it comes to TikTok.

Mary Alessi [00:03:48]:
Oh, I don't think it's As conspiracy theorists, I think we will not bounce it out.

Gaby Alessi [00:03:51]:
That's the thing. It's not even a conspiracy. It is proven that they track you, and they use all of your data. So that's why I just don't like TikTok, but it is a massive, platform for, like, information and and trends and all that. So you were telling me how there is this new conversation about and all these videos are posting about it, about 10 year old girls going into Sephora. Yeah. Now thankfully, all the videos are calling out how ridiculous this is. Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:04:16]:
Everybody's upset about it. Everyone's upset. But, yeah, I was just like scrolling through it, and there's so many different YouTubers that are making hour long videos exactly what we're doing right now.

Mary Alessi [00:04:26]:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:04:26]:
Talking about how ridiculous this is. And they're talking about it for other reasons as, like, why are people spending money and Acne. Acne and all, which is a huge thing. But I think there's a lot more to it, and we even said it. This this conversation is not for 10 year olds. This is for the parents of the 10 year olds.

Mary Alessi [00:04:43]:
This is for moms Yeah. Out there who might be struggling with this. I know the moms that are that are in my sphere. It's a lot to even get them to wear let their kids wear lipstick or mascara or anything at all even at 13. So I'm glad that I have a lot of, women in my life that put the brakes on. Yeah. And the truth is from an innocence perspective, the the later your daughter wears makeup, the better off she's gonna be. Her skin, the pressure, keep her what I call the ugly bubble.

Mary Alessi [00:05:14]:
Keep her in that for as long Yes. As she possibly can because here's the thing. Boys can only put suits on like a 12 year old boy. No offense. I know there's some good looking 12 year old boys. But for the most part It's true. You can dress up a a middle schooler in a tuxedo and he still looks goofy. Awkward.

Mary Alessi [00:05:32]:
He does not look good. No. But a girl? You can put a 10 year old in a full face of makeup and hair and a sexy dress, and it's upsetting Yeah. Because she can be beautiful so quickly. It's true. And women and moms need to understand, keep the brakes on that. Delay that for as long as they can. And but what's happening is when you have now a daughter who's 10, who has a friend at school who's 10 whose mom allows her to wear full face of makeup or go to Sephora.

Mary Alessi [00:06:04]:
And here's why we're talking about this. Because when I heard about it through a a podcast. I was just scrolling through reels on Instagram, and I heard it. I went, that's not true. There's no way. And these 2 women that were talking about it were so upset. Yeah. Why is this happening? I mean, in the day today, where all we're hearing about on the regular is pedophilia and young girls becoming sex objects and just being thrown to the wolves.

Mary Alessi [00:06:28]:
Yeah. And this is even a thing well, it just so happened that I went to the mall, like, the next day with your sister Lauren. Mhmm. And she said, oh, mom, I've gotta walk into Sephora. I hate Sephora. Sorry, Sephora. It's too much makeup for me. It confuses me.

Mary Alessi [00:06:44]:
I I all that gets me confused. I don't

Gaby Alessi [00:06:46]:
people have overdone it. It's like spin over done.

Mary Alessi [00:06:49]:
Plus it's very sexualized. It is. It's very the gender roles have been confused because you see pictures of men in full face makeup and I'm I'm just not gonna go in there and see that. I'm sorry. No. I'm not gonna buy your makeup. But, I happened to walk in because she was looking for something and I've forgotten. And I look around, Gabby.

Mary Alessi [00:07:07]:
There are 10 and 12 year old 10, 11, 12 year old girls all over that store Yep. With in little gangs. Yeah. And with their mothers. And I honestly, instinctively, I wanted to say, get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. There needs to be an age limit in this store.

Mary Alessi [00:07:22]:
Yes. And I don't it doesn't even the acne part and the retinol on young girls' skin, yes, that's bad, but there's more to it. There's still

Gaby Alessi [00:07:30]:
more to

Mary Alessi [00:07:31]:
it. Dark about it.

Gaby Alessi [00:07:32]:
Well, I think what's happening is you are playing into we're finding parents that are letting kids go and have a social media at a young age. So it started, like, with TikTok. Right? There would be TikTok dances. And their 11 year old, a 10 year old would just do even 8 year old would just do a TikTok dance, and it was innocent, and it was fun, and it was cute. Okay. Do a dance, whatever. Then you'd post that TikTok, and then What people don't realize it's not just your kid is posting things, it's what your kid's looking at on TikTok. So you think, oh, they're just making a cute video and posting it.

Gaby Alessi [00:08:02]:
That has that's just like 10% of the the time that they're on that app. Yeah. What they're also doing is they're scrolling and scrolling and finding other girls wear this and other girls do this and look at my skincare routine. My generation, even at my age, it's like everywhere you go, it's here's how you can get your skin right, and here's the makeup that you need. And as a 24 year old girl, it's very overwhelming where I'm, like, finding your makeup and your skin routine is, like, an achievement now. Yeah. Which is that was never a thing for you.

Mary Alessi [00:08:29]:
No. No. We went to

Gaby Alessi [00:08:31]:
And there's more acne problems today. Let's just talk about that.

Mary Alessi [00:08:33]:
Oh, skin skin problem.

Gaby Alessi [00:08:34]:
Skin care is now everything taking care of your skin. But mind you, there's more people with acne walking around today, including myself, than there ever was before.

Mary Alessi [00:08:43]:
Right.

Gaby Alessi [00:08:43]:
So you you can't say that there's not a connection there?

Mary Alessi [00:08:45]:
No. I I I had acne as a girl. At the and we wore cheap junkie. You would get it from Revlon and it was disgusting makeup. But I knew then instinctively, don't wear makeup, my skin would clear up. Exactly. And I didn't wear makeup fully till I was 16.

Gaby Alessi [00:09:01]:
No. You don't do that. We didn't wear makeup until we were, I wanna say, same age, 16 years old. We were very strict about that. But back to What I'm saying about the TikTok thing, you let your kids on there. They're scrolling. They're scrolling. All of the if you look, mom, and I just did the research, all of the brands they love are TikTok Famous brands.

Gaby Alessi [00:09:18]:
Right. So Drunk Elephant is being bought and everybody knows about it because it's on TikTok. And so all of those things like the Dior I think it's like the Dior Lip lip oil, it's huge on TikTok. So Glossier is huge on those things. So they're buying brands that are just famous and they're seeing them on Instagram and they think they need them because it's TikTok. So to me, I'm like, what's happening is it's not that these girls love makeup and they just wanna wear makeup. No. They're following trends.

Mary Alessi [00:09:46]:
Right.

Gaby Alessi [00:09:47]:
And if you as a parent go look at those trends, are they healthy? Are they helping your daughter's self esteem? We're not talking about 5 year old girls that got a cute little makeup set and and got Christmas and they're doing Just pretend. No. This is not it is you your girls are going and buying bottles that are $20 for 2 ounces. Yeah. For oil on your skin or serums on your skin that are going to hurt your skin because they're following a trend. They don't need it. They have no dark circles. They don't have any blemishes.

Gaby Alessi [00:10:15]:
They don't have any wrinkles. Nothing on their skin. No. But To me, it's more than just buying a product. It's you're letting your your daughter follow a trend and that trend leads to an identity problem Yes. Confidence issues, low self esteem, always trying to find and and trying to fix things on her face, always looking for what she doesn't have and what she doesn't need. I just saw a video of 2 older sisters. They were, like, probably 18, 19 that go into their 10 year old sister's bathroom.

Gaby Alessi [00:10:43]:
She has more skincare and makeup products than I do right now. Wow. And they're like they literally go, we're gonna take you into our to our sister's, skincare routine or her bathroom so you can see everything she has. Drunk elephant products are so expensive.

Mary Alessi [00:10:55]:
Why is it called drunk elephant? I don't know. It

Gaby Alessi [00:10:57]:
doesn't make any sense.

Mary Alessi [00:10:58]:
Well, listen.

Gaby Alessi [00:10:58]:
I did use it last night, but it doesn't make any I gotta guess.

Mary Alessi [00:11:01]:
Don't make us hypocrites on this.

Gaby Alessi [00:11:02]:
Well, somebody gave me

Mary Alessi [00:11:04]:
a gift.

Gaby Alessi [00:11:04]:
I am 24 years old. I need it for my skin. No. But it's the whole thing I feel like it is is that we are playing into a culture of you're letting your 10 year old daughter have too much access to the Internet, too much access to people they don't know, and you're letting them follow those people instead of having your child follow your rules.

Mary Alessi [00:11:25]:
Well And and okay. So the trend used to be a 10 year old would want whatever the latest toy that was out. Yeah. Is it a Tamagotchi? Yeah. Yeah. Tamagotchi

Gaby Alessi [00:11:35]:
is all

Mary Alessi [00:11:35]:
So, like, when y'all were 10, 11, we would take you to the toy store to follow the latest trends. Yeah. To Toys R Us, not Sephora. Mm-mm. So you're taking a 10 year old now following a trend that is for teenagers and and above rather than the toy store. Well, Toys R Us is gone, but what's happening is because of social media and the access to it, even if your daughter doesn't have it, her friend does. Yeah. And that influence is so overwhelming and powerful.

Mary Alessi [00:12:04]:
And one thing dad and I would do is if we saw around you an influence of someone in your sphere, your age group that we saw you wanted something that you normally would not want. We would check out that friend. And 9 times out of 10, that friend was excited about having something that we said no to. Mhmm. Maybe it was a movie they could go to or a pair of jeans they could wear or shorts or just places they could go that we said no to. And we didn't necessarily cut off that friend No. But we would let you know. We would sit you down or your your sisters or whomever that you at the different seasons of your life and say, listen.

Mary Alessi [00:12:39]:
That's not what we do in our house. No judgment to her. We're not gonna make her feel bad about it. Her mom has said yes to that, but we are not saying yes. Now if you push us and you don't listen to us and her voice and her influence is more powerful than ours, then you can't be friends with her anymore. Yeah. And we were very clear about that, and we have no problem at that point going to the mom and saying, listen. For right now, it's probably best.

Mary Alessi [00:13:04]:
There's just some things Gabby's not ready for. Yep. You raise your daughter the way you want to. I'm I'm not gonna get in your business because it doesn't work anyway. All you do is offend people. But for us, Gabby's not ready. 9 times out of 10, if I ever had to do that, that other mother would go, thank you. Well, I don't want my daughter to do this either.

Mary Alessi [00:13:22]:
She's got a big sister or she's got another girlfriend that and it would empower that other mother to say, I'm doing the same thing. Yeah. You're not wearing it either.

Gaby Alessi [00:13:30]:
And I think more parents need to be not so, like, nervous or insecure about the decisions they're making for their kids. That's they're making for their kids.

Mary Alessi [00:13:38]:
That's right.

Gaby Alessi [00:13:39]:
Like, I remember we had the friends in our lives. Our friends, they were it was all boys. It was a family of all boys, and they made it a point. They told their boys you cannot watch PG 13 movies, I think, until they were, like, 16 or 18. Yes. And it was a rule to where as kids we grew up together. We kinda, like, joke around with them, like, oh, you can't watch this, but they stuck to their guns. And it was a rule in their in their family.

Gaby Alessi [00:14:02]:
You're not allowed to watch any movie that's rated p g 13 until you're a certain age.

Mary Alessi [00:14:06]:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:14:06]:
And we respected it. And as friends, we knew that when we would go to their house, if they would come to our house, we we wouldn't watch those movies. We wouldn't try to pressure them. We wouldn't try to to to manipulate that. Why?

Mary Alessi [00:14:16]:
Try to convince their parents that you're being silly. They're 13 now. Nope. And That was their rule. One of

Gaby Alessi [00:14:21]:
the reasons why is because their parents were very strong and they were confident, and this is the decision that we're making for our children. And they weren't going to let anybody, try to influence them to change their mind.

Mary Alessi [00:14:33]:
And they were raising 4 sons. Four boys. Yes. There was wisdom on their part.

Gaby Alessi [00:14:37]:
And I think as as parents, you know, we have a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends that are now in parenting and their their daughter before they knew it is 5 years old, and they're having conversations with her. And the one thing we tell them is stick to your guns.

Mary Alessi [00:14:49]:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:14:49]:
It doesn't matter what Your friends say it doesn't matter what other people may be, even if it's your family or if it's somebody a neighbor. Whatever it is, stick to your guns because your kids are watching you, and your kids are seeing how confident you are in the decisions that you're making and how unsecure you are in the decisions you you're making. So be confident. If your kid can't watch those movies, don't let them watch them. Turn it off and tell everybody around. Be confident that your daughter will not be at Sephora, you buying all of these things and and wearing all of this makeup because you as a mom, you as a dad, you know the result of that.

Mary Alessi [00:15:23]:
Yes. You know. And I think it's so important to if if you are a mom of an 8 or 9 year old little girl right now, and this is something that's starting, you're hearing getting wind of the makeup thing. Playing in the room, putting makeup on is one thing. There's some fun to that. There's some innocence. We don't wear it out of this house. That's not something that we're gonna normalize.

Mary Alessi [00:15:42]:
It's just play. We're we're playing dress up. Yeah. You girls did that, and it was so funny. And now we look back at some of those videos of you with, like, burgundy mess Yeah. Of eye shadow and horribleistic, and it was just so hilarious Yeah. To watch that. But you knew it was just play, and you wanted to get it off as quick as you could.

Mary Alessi [00:16:01]:
It wasn't something that you wanted to wear out. What I'm concerned about is literal, which I I think it's dysphoria, where you have women and mothers who have dysmorphia. That's the word. Body dysmorphia. Body dysmorphia. And these young girls because of all the filters and all the having access to the phones and seeing all these other girls on the phone that have filters on, but they don't know their filters. Yeah. They don't look like that.

Mary Alessi [00:16:32]:
Yeah. It is stirring something in them way too soon that they're not, emotionally or even mentally. Their brains aren't formed yet to be able to handle that. And I think it really opens a Pandora's Box for something a lot darker Yeah. And a lot more difficult. And what if you haven't raised a 15 year old yet, here's what you need to know. 15 is coming. So at 10 Yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:16:58]:
You can have this sweet little girl that is just perfect and obeys, and it does not take much. It's true. It happens one day. One day to the next to stir something in her if you, as a parent, don't have a clear order and vision for your daughter. And I say it this way, let her know. Yeah. One of the things that we would talk about with you 3 girls is, when that day will come. When will dating come? Yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:17:25]:
Well, I'm not gonna put a date on it when you show that you are responsible and you meet somebody that takes that that is a a good young man that is responsible. I don't know. I will know when I meet that person Exactly. If you're capable of dating them. We're not just dating at 13. Yeah. We don't date.

Gaby Alessi [00:17:43]:
No.

Mary Alessi [00:17:44]:
That's not what this is about. I would say the same same the same thing about makeup. I would put a when you're 14 or 15 Yeah. And I read this from a mom. I thought this was brilliant. And we will take you to the dermatologist, and it will be a doctor's prescription. What makeup do you recommend for my daughter? Yes. Because she could be allergic.

Mary Alessi [00:18:04]:
There could be all kinds of problems. There's so many ways around this

Gaby Alessi [00:18:08]:
Yes.

Mary Alessi [00:18:09]:
That if moms would just be strong and be bold with their daughters and say no, but give them that timeline of when they'll be ready. Look. We can't get away from it. No. All of us who wore makeup for years, what will we tell you? We wish we'd started later Oh my gosh. Because it's such a pain. It's such

Gaby Alessi [00:18:24]:
a pain. And before you know it, you cannot I think I told you this the other day, a couple weeks ago. Grandma was in town, your mom, and I I came downstairs, and I was gonna go out that night, and it was like a I was gonna go watch a football game somewhere. And it was, like, around 7 o'clock a Sunday night. I've been wearing makeup all day. And I came downstairs and I had no makeup on,

Mary Alessi [00:18:43]:
and I said, hey. You think

Gaby Alessi [00:18:44]:
you think I don't need to wear makeup? I said I said something about, like, hey. You think I'm good without makeup? And I was having a good skin A good skin day. I was feeling good about myself, like, finally. And you said something like, you're gonna go like that? And I was like, Well, you know, I've been wearing makeup all day. I just wear it every day. And grandma went, I am 82 years old, but I still have to wear makeup every day. That's what women do. And she, like, jumped on me, like, go upstairs and put some makeup on.

Gaby Alessi [00:19:09]:
And I was, like, dang it, and you do. What you don't realize is you you reach an age where it's part of presenting yourself. You have to wear it. You have to make sure that you are presenting yourself in the best way possible. You should make as as a young woman, as a woman, you should be wearing makeup. It it just it's a good representation of you. But if you start too early, it can mess with your psyche. It can mess with your ego, how you see yourself.

Mary Alessi [00:19:32]:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:19:33]:
And you brought it up body dysmorphia. This is the the actual, definition of it. Body dysmorphia disorder or body dysmorphia is a mental health condition

Mary Alessi [00:19:43]:
where

Gaby Alessi [00:19:43]:
a person spends a lot of time worrying about their flaws in their appearance. These flaws are often unnoticeable to others. People of any age can have body dysmorphia, but it's most common in teenagers and young adults. It affects both men and women. So if this is most common, meaning most people are gonna go through it, then as a parent, I think you have to do your part to at least delay that mental battle that they're gonna have. Delay it as much as you can. And I would say, mom, this starts in all the moms. Yes.

Gaby Alessi [00:20:15]:
It does. This is something that I'm gonna throw this in here and maybe we're gonna rattle some moms. But if the mom doesn't have a strong, confidence in herself Yes. And knows she has a she doesn't have a strong self esteem and knows that I can wear makeup or I don't need to wear makeup. I can get fillers. I don't need fillers. I can have my nails done. I don't need them.

Gaby Alessi [00:20:37]:
If the mom is so dependent on my makeup's gotta be perfect, my hair's gotta be perfect, I gotta make sure I'm getting the latest Botox. If she is so dependent on that and only talks about that, then your daughter's gonna be rushing to Sephora. Right. Because they're gonna be thinking through, if my mom needs it, then I need it. Right. I remember growing up, the only times you did your makeup was in the car.

Mary Alessi [00:20:58]:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:20:58]:
And it showed me that was the last thing you cared about. I hated it. You need to make sure.

Mary Alessi [00:21:02]:
My makeup all the way today.

Gaby Alessi [00:21:03]:
You did it in your makeup right when you

Mary Alessi [00:21:05]:
came in

Gaby Alessi [00:21:05]:
the car. Yeah. I remember growing up, it was you didn't really wear a lot of makeup when you were at the house. You didn't hear how you look, dad loved how you looked with without makeup, and he always made it a point to compliment you in front of in front of us. But whenever we wanted to wear makeup, you were like, y'all don't need it. You weren't so obsessed or hyper focused on girls. You need to wear makeup or I wear makeup and I have my nail. You liked having those things, but that wasn't a priority to you.

Gaby Alessi [00:21:32]:
No. And I would say for all the moms out there, if you're noticing your daughter's like, oh, but I need to have this and I didn't wanna go. Look at yourself. And maybe I'm not in the place to say this, mom, so you can back me up if this is right or wrong. But Say it and I'll tell you. Yeah. I would examine and sit back and say, okay. What how am I talking about my own appearance? Right.

Gaby Alessi [00:21:51]:
How am I talking about how what I look like and my hair and my Skin and my nails and my makeup. Absolutely. Because if the mom is hyper focused on it

Mary Alessi [00:22:00]:
That 100%. The girls

Gaby Alessi [00:22:02]:
are gonna be hyper focused.

Mary Alessi [00:22:03]:
100%. Where else is She learning that, but from her mother Yes. She's not getting that from anyone else. The mother is the greatest influence Yes. On that young girl's life in her self image. Yeah. 100%. So we've got a lot of single moms out there, and it's very easy to struggle with your self image when you're single.

Mary Alessi [00:22:21]:
Sure. Very difficult that you talk about an uphill battle. Mhmm. And you go back and forth between, I'm still a young mom and I have no one in my life. Would that complete me? And I've got these kids that need me. You have to sift through a lot of junk. True. Emotionally, that takes a lot of of, mental stamina to get through that if you don't make a decision in being confident in who you are and where you are.

Mary Alessi [00:22:48]:
And right now, the most important thing are raising those kids.

Gaby Alessi [00:22:50]:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:22:50]:
And that's the decisive mindset you have to have. I my marriage didn't work. That's the a fact, but I can't stay in this place of feeling insecure Yep. Paranoid because my daughter is watching me. Yes. So is my son, but it's very, very different. I I go back to body dysmorphia because when I was a teenager, teenagers were so different. Middle schoolers were so different.

Mary Alessi [00:23:19]:
Yeah. We were still outside goofing around. I remember even when y'all were teenagers, when Chris would come home at 15. I mean, I would make him take 2 showers. Yeah. You know? Because he was outside all the time running around and just like, you're gross. Go clean up. And you girls followed your older brother.

Mary Alessi [00:23:36]:
You know? We weren't we weren't dealing with the pressures of social media and the perfection pursuit. You girls, I would have to say go wash your hair. It's true. And there's something about that now that I slightly miss. Because you see in the culture, so many pressures on our next generation Yeah. To look like something and to sound like something and to come across and they're losing the innocence of their youth. And and I'm not talking about just from a sexual perspective. No.

Mary Alessi [00:24:09]:
I'm talking about being a teenager and a middle schooler, and if you're a little chubby, it's okay. And if you There's

Gaby Alessi [00:24:16]:
not a care in the world.

Mary Alessi [00:24:18]:
Not a care in the world, and what they're doing with these trends is placing in the hearts of these 10 year olds who aren't ready for it cares Yeah. And desires and needs and ins and that just leads to insecurity so young. No wonder all we hear about is mental health, mental health. That's true. No wonder that's feeding it. There should be, in my opinion, I'm just gonna say it, I personally feel like you have to be at least 13 to own a phone. Yeah. I mean, if it were up to me, it would be 16 just like driving.

Mary Alessi [00:24:47]:
It's true. Maybe we'll get there one day. What has to happen, though, in the process, there will be a lost generation.

Gaby Alessi [00:24:52]:
There will be.

Mary Alessi [00:24:53]:
We'll look back and say we lost that whole generation. Yeah. There's so much mental health crisis issues. We're there. Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:25:00]:
We are there. Well, and then you're also gonna see a lot of self absorbed people in this next generation Oh. Because everything's going to be how do I look, how am I seen, In how. See it. You, yeah, you already notice it with young people today.

Mary Alessi [00:25:13]:
100%. We're seeing that play out. It's like the handicapping of a generation. Yeah. And it sounds good to be on your phone. I'll I'll give you an example. A few weeks ago, I really worked at I'm not looking at my phone.

Gaby Alessi [00:25:30]:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi [00:25:31]:
I put my ringer on and I said if anybody needs me, they can call me. Yeah. I'm not answering my text. I turn all my notifications off, so nothing came to my home screen. Mhmm. Nothing. I noticed by doing that, my screen time was literally like 2 hours a day Mhmm. Which is low.

Mary Alessi [00:25:51]:
It's It's

Gaby Alessi [00:25:52]:
very low.

Mary Alessi [00:25:52]:
When you check emails on it and I would my family as much as we all text and work and all the things that I was doing, I was like, I feel so good. I could literally measure my mood. Wow. I felt so phenomenal. And at the moment, I didn't quite link it to that. Yeah. But I just was proud of myself for having no screen time. Part of it, though, was I turned off those notifications, and it did it on its own.

Mary Alessi [00:26:19]:
Yeah. So if I needed to check my text, I'd have to sit down and go, has anyone texted me? Because I noticed with my notifications, whatever it was, Apple News. I would click on it and before I knew it, I was automatically on Instagram and I'm like, how did I get you? Okay. Because it's a habit. Turning those off made that happen. Well, last week, I for whatever reason, I turned those notifications back on. But we were doing something and I didn't wanna miss any notifications so I turned it back on. Saturday of last week, I was feeling, not myself.

Mary Alessi [00:26:53]:
I was feeling really down and I thought, oh, is it my hormones? I don't feel good. I'm moody. And I was having very dark thoughts that I don't normally have, and I know what triggered it. I had read something about children on social media, and it's so burdened my heart and I could not shake it. Yeah. And I would go to sleep at night worried about the plight of children and babies having dark thoughts Wow. Waking up having dark thoughts Yeah. Worried about children and babies, and I can normally throw that off and I, You know, okay, god, what do I do? And I start praying.

Mary Alessi [00:27:26]:
I my screensaver I mean, sorry, my screen time popped up to let me know what my screen time was. Gabby, I was embarrassed Wow. To see how much time. Yeah. I had been on my phone. Yeah. And it was because I'd spent a lot of time reading. Yep.

Mary Alessi [00:27:44]:
Yes. I had had a lot lot of work to do, but I wasn't going to my iPad or my laptop. I was just on my phone. And it's very different when you're on your iPad or laptop. You you just you know, in an adult world, your kids don't have iPads and laptops. They're not checking emails. No. They're just on social media.

Gaby Alessi [00:28:00]:
You're playing games or watching something you should yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:28:02]:
And YouTube and Yeah. All those ads that pop up. I said that to say, I can absolutely connect the dots of not feeling really great emotionally.

Gaby Alessi [00:28:14]:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi [00:28:14]:
And I don't wanna say mentally. No. But emotionally, I I could feel like a darkness. And when I saw that I went, that's it. Mhmm. Done. Yeah. That's it.

Mary Alessi [00:28:25]:
And I knew then that I had it back to back. I could link to having such a happy glass half full. The world is shiny. It's rainbow. Not having those dark thoughts, I wasn't on this this horrible Yeah.

Gaby Alessi [00:28:41]:
Which you do not try, by the way. You you going on your phone, you're not helping babies.

Mary Alessi [00:28:46]:
Wow.

Gaby Alessi [00:28:47]:
You're you're not helping them. That's very true. You're literally just you're just learning about how they're hurting, and you're learning about the problem. Anything about it. No. And I think if anything if We can learn anything from the beginning of time is that too much knowledge. There's a reason why God told Adam and Eve, stay away from the tree. That's right.

Gaby Alessi [00:29:01]:
Knowledge of good and evil. That's right. Too much knowledge hurts us. That's right. It does not help us. It brought sin into the world. That's it. We don't need to know about all the news happening in the world.

Gaby Alessi [00:29:08]:
We don't need to know about the details of everything. We need to be more concerned about our 10 year old daughters.

Mary Alessi [00:29:13]:
That's right.

Gaby Alessi [00:29:13]:
The 10 year old girls in our church, in our community that are really going through it in their room at night or in their bathroom and searching and trying to find something rather than what's happening in all these other places. And I'm not trying to be insensitive and say, oh, don't worry about what's happening in the world, but don't be that person that is so consumed with happening outside of the country and the No. People need America, what's happening in politics and the campaigns and all of that, and your daughters are are having, like, a crisis.

Mary Alessi [00:29:39]:
The most important thing is your world, and that is your children. And I would

Gaby Alessi [00:29:43]:
say your world. And I would say this because I love this topic that we're talking about with, like, makeup because even a couple Wednesdays I think the last 2 Wednesdays, I've hit this in in the youth, message. Like I've specifically talked about girls young girls in makeup. And my own process with makeup and, like, my own life with makeup you could say, I've recently had to this sounds very Christianese, but give it to God. Yeah. Because even I found myself so obsessed with getting the right products, getting the right, brand. Should I choose Victoria Beckham or Tarte? Like, what am I doing? What's the best for my skin? And then I started going down skincare, and my skin doesn't look the way that I want it to look. And And again, it's I see all of it.

Gaby Alessi [00:30:29]:
People don't even notice it, but I see it, and so I'm getting all these acne serums and under eye serums and and, scars and I I wanna prevent wrinkling because I don't wanna wrinkle, and so, like, I was can I tell you I was spending so much of my money and time on these things at the end of the day, don't add to my confidence? Don't add to my self worth. Values. Don't even make my personality better. That's it. They don't even help me or benefit anybody else. And I really had to to put it aside. And, yes, I'm not gonna say I've never stepped into Sephora. I've been into Sephora more in this time in my life than I ever have been because I'm trying to update, you know, put good products on my face, but I'm not as obsessed.

Mary Alessi [00:31:07]:
Right.

Gaby Alessi [00:31:08]:
And I don't walk in burden, like, I gotta find the best thing in here. I use it for what it's made to be. It's just to enhance your life. It's just to make sure you're keeping yourself. You're taking care of yourself. But if it starts to get past a certain point where it's unhealthy and you're idolizing it and you're if you don't have if you run out of that product, you're freaking out because you don't have that product. You gotta really consider some stuff about yourself, and I'm saying that as a 24 year old girl.

Mary Alessi [00:31:32]:
Right.

Gaby Alessi [00:31:32]:
I've graduated college. I'm a full time staff member at a church, and I struggle with the idol of makeup and identity. So your 10 year old daughter is gonna do the

Mary Alessi [00:31:42]:
same and worse. 1 or worse because she's of a different generation. Listen. My grandmother would say to us, you don't you don't need to buy makeup. Let me show you. And she I kid you not, Gabby. She would come over and she'd pinch our cheeks real hard. Yep.

Mary Alessi [00:31:56]:
And she would say, just pinch your lips real hard. Just pinch them. Pinch them. Pinch them. And there there you go. There's your makeup. And I remember going, I have blush and look look at my lips on and the truth is that's the old school way of just feeling like you've got a little color in your

Gaby Alessi [00:32:10]:
face. It

Mary Alessi [00:32:10]:
primp. Yes.

Gaby Alessi [00:32:12]:
Go to the bathroom and primp up whatever.

Mary Alessi [00:32:14]:
And if I didn't have my favorite lipstick as a even an adult. I didn't care. I grabbed whatever I had and just make use. I put literally I put lipstick on my cheeks for blush. Yes. Because and now now, okay, they sell something that's like $50. That's 1 stick for your eyes, your cheeks and your lips, and I'm like, give me a break.

Gaby Alessi [00:32:38]:
I know. Give me I think I think we know a mom that said she forgot I I can't remember who this is, but there's a story. We gotta wrap up soon. But there's a story of a mom that we know that she had no makeup in the car and she was on her way to a big event, and she forgot her makeup bag and she looked to the back and all she had was crayons.

Mary Alessi [00:32:56]:
Oh, I've listen. Let me tell you something.

Gaby Alessi [00:32:59]:
And she did a full face of makeup. Crayon

Mary Alessi [00:33:03]:
and a black crayon.

Gaby Alessi [00:33:04]:
That's all you need. That is all the crayons are in makeup anyway. Honestly, the lipstick we're making, we should be more concerned about that than Well funny.

Mary Alessi [00:33:16]:
I wanna say something to the dads out there. I wanna tell the dads, just say no. Keep saying no. You don't have to understand the world of makeup to just tell your daughters, not in my house. You are not wearing makeup. And moms, take the lead. Make sure that you are watching what your kids and your daughters are looking at, who they're around, and being too needy and having too many cares when they really just need to be little kids. But true.

Mary Alessi [00:33:38]:
That's it for this episode of the family business with the Alessis. We hope you've enjoyed it. Please share and like Yes. This episode. Help us get the word out, and Go buy some of our family business merch. You can click on the link, and it'll take you right to it and buy any of our merchandise. Please wear it. And, thank you for listening to today's

Stephanie Muiña [00:34:03]:
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