The Disturbing trend of Baby Skin-Bleaching

There is a disturbing trend going on amongst new mothers in Nigeria, and it emanated from the glorification of light skin. It comes from the fact that many people elevate people will light skin over those with darker skin. It has always been an issue amongst black African adults, but many of us never guessed that it would be such a cancer that would permeate into the choices we make when we raise our children.

As a mother to a fairly light skinned baby, you get to hear comments like "Oh wow, he’s light. That's nice." To be honest, that is not an issue for me. The issue is when people start to compare their babies’ skins, with inference that the lighter the baby, the more beautiful.

This menace has gotten so bad that mothers are toning bleaching their babies’ skin. Oh yes. We now lie to ourselves saying things like “we are maintaining the colour of the baby’s skin. We don’t want the baby to lose the light skin, and be darker.” But who really are we kidding?

Firstly, if the baby is truly light, why does the skin colour need to be maintained? We know that to maintain the shine and true tone of a skin, what you need is to bathe the baby well, oil well, or moiturise well. A dash of Shea butter here, A teaspoon of Coconut oil there, and you will be maintaining the skin colour well. But when we begin to act like science students, using our innocent babies’ skins for experiment, mixing shea butter with Funbact-A, we are no more “maintaining” jack. Some mothers even mix the shea butter with other bleaching ingredients, while others outrightly use “toning” serums and bleaching creams. What is wrong with us?

Five selfish traits babies reveal in humans

Before I had a baby, I was never really a fan of babies, and have never really observed how grown up adults react to babies, apart from saying they are so cute, and wanting to carry or play with them. As for me, I just congratulate you, and walk away. When I saw a baby, I didn’t see a human being, I just saw a time-guzzling creature with limbs, and time was a commodity I never had to give to a creature whose communication I couldn’t grasp, lol. The only baby I ever cared for was the last born of my family.

Of course, that changed when I got pregnant. I began to take interest in the biology of creating a new human being, and when my baby arrived, I saw things from a totally different light. More importantly, I began to observe the way adults behave with babies, and handle baby issues. I found it amusing the things a new baby in a family can cause. Most importantly, I observed how self-serving adults could be when it comes to baby matters, and here are some.

1. Everyone wants the baby to look like them
The argument about who the baby looks like is always the most common. You start hearing things like he has my grandmother’s nose to he has my uncle in-law’s toe nails. Every family member desperately wants the baby to look like them or someone in their family, such that they share the baby’s body parts into pieces and attribute different parts to different family members. The worst case is when couples fight because