After we had read our stories, sung our songs, and done our back rub, I was sitting with Benji before he went to sleep tonight when he decided to quiz me about his anatomy. The first ones were easy.
"Why I have eyes?"
- to see with
"Why I have ears?"
- to hear with
"Why I have eyebrows?"
- hmmm, because God gave them to you
Good question! Why do we have eyebrows? From my perspective the only point I see to eyebrows is to make some girls torture themselves by plucking them so they're smaller and have a nice curve. Can you guess, I don't pluck mine. Of course, I naturally have not-bad-too-bad eyebrows, so I don't know what I'd do if they were bushy and unmanageable ... but with my pain tolerance, probably nothing!
Anybody out there know the real answer? Of course, my answer to Benji was correct but it didn't really answer the question.
4 comments:
Laurel,
Jill said that eyebrows keep moisture (like sweat) away from our eyes. A quick internet search confirmed this...
- Ryan
Never really thought about this, but Ryan was right. :-)
The main function of the eyebrows is to prevent moisture, mostly salty sweat and rain, from flowing into the eye, an organ critical to sight. The typical curved shape of the eyebrow (with a slant on the side) and the direction in which eyebrow hairs are pointed, make sure that moisture has a tendency to flow sideways around the eyes, along the side of the head and along the nose. The slightly protruding brow ridges of modern humans could also still play a supporting role in this process. Together with the eyebrows, the brow ridges also shade the eyes from sunlight.
Eyebrows also prevent debris such as dandruff and other small objects from falling into the eyes, as well as providing a more sensitive sense for detecting objects being near the eye, like small insects.
Eyebrows also have an important facilitative function in communication, strengthening expressions like surprise or anger. In African cultures, raising and lowering the eyebrows is used as a confirmation sign (the equivalent of nodding).
- Wikipedia
Thanks guys. Now I can give Benji a reason why God made those hairy things above our eyes!
Thank goodness for google or I will never make it through the "why" stage!!
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