Bikini Waxes for Tween Sleepaway Camp: Yay or Nay?

Things on an average 12-year-old's sleepaway camp packing list: Sunscreen? Check. Bathing Suit? Check. Bikini Wax? Wait, what?

Yes, reports The New York Times, spa appointments, including waxes, hair treatments and facials, are being booked to prep tween girls for sleepaway camp. Elizabeth Harrison, a New York City mom quoted in the article, says taking her 12-year-old daughter for a full leg wax and moderate bikini wax is "about grooming and cleanliness."

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New Jersey mom Jill Greenspan is taking her 11-year-old to the salon for a $250 hair treatment, so she won't have to worry about blow-drying her hair at camp: “It’s just one less thing she has to stress about.”

Makeup entrepreneur Bobbi Brown said, in defense of moms taking their tweens to the spa, that “if she’s going to be in a bunk with all these girls, and she feels insecure because she hasn’t taken care of the hair on her lip or her legs, you know what? You do whatever you can do to make her feel good when she gets there.”

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No parent wants their child to feel out of the loop or insecure, but how does this jibe with a susceptibility to burns on thinner-skinned tweens—pointed out by a dermatologist to the Times—or the exposure to chemicals from treatments at any early age?

What would you do if your tween wanted a pre-camp wax or spa treatment?