Amanda Peet is a 44-year-old actress and thus well acquainted with the pressure on women in the public eye to magically halt the aging process. And as she explains in an essay at Lenny, she's not above taking some extra steps toward that goal. “It’s painfully obvious, but I’m still ashamed to admit this: I care about my looks," she writes. "I’ve bleached my teeth, dyed my hair, peeled and lasered my face, and tried a slew of age-defying creams." But there's one place she won't go: "For me, it would be crossing the Rubicon to add Botox and fillers into the mix." For one thing, she's afraid of looking like one of those people who obviously have had one injection too many. "What's the point of doing it if everyone can tell? I want the thing that makes me look younger, not the thing that makes me look like I did the thing."
But a more complicated reason has to do with her young daughters, and what they may think when they grow up. Her imagined argument in the future: "You're nothing but a foot soldier for the beauty industrial complex," to which she can reply, "But at least I didn't do Botox!" Given her profession, Peet writes that she has no right to get "on a soapbox" and preach about what women should or shouldn't do. By contrast, she has a younger sister who is a doctor with prematurely gray hair, "vaguely orthopedic" shoes, and no interest in fashion or even makeup. Which is why Peet asked her to speak to her daughter's class on career day. "I stood in the back of the room with the first-grade teachers, proud of my sister, a dazzling class act in her Easy Spirit clogs." Click for the full essay. (More Amanda Peet stories.)
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