Fair and Lovely?

We recently celebrated my husband's birthday at the beach. Lethal margaritas, perfect weather and amazing friends made the party a blast and many of us forgot (just for seconds at a time) about the fact that we are supposed to be responsible adults to all the little munchkins underfoot. Not that we weren't all taking care of the little ones--getting them myriad sand toys, making sure they were drinking plenty of water, slathering them with sunblock. To protect them from the sun. Right? Well, that's what I thought. I can honestly say I was shocked when I heard one of my friends telling another mom that she is worried her daughter is becoming too "dark." I was even more shocked when the listener nodded in agreement over this concern. Is this for real you guys? It bears noting that both of the kids in question are little girls and I have a feeling the same issue wouldn't be voiced for boys. (That being said, the beach exchange made me remember more than one comment about how "fair" my son was after he was born--it was said in the same tone that one would say "he is a genius." Which he is, but that is for another post. Ha.) Gender issues aside this, to me, seems like one of the many ways we are doing things we swore to never ever do. A great friend of mine has vivid memories from every summer of her youth, where her mother would tell her to stay out of the pool because she would become black and, therefore, unattractive. Another acquaintance talks with disdain about how her mom stockpiles whitening creams during her trips to Asia and meticulously massages them onto her face every night. Both of these girls swear up and down that they will never be "like that." But I would bet that the dark-police friends of mine at the party would have said the same thing, before they had kids. Why do we do this? Do we really think fair equals lovely?