My high school reunion is next month, and this week I received a few e-mails about who’s planning to attend the festivities. After spending 15 years together at the same school, I can still remember the birthdays of some of these classmates — even though I haven’t seen them since graduation.

While cleaning up my apartment a few days ago, I came across my high school yearbook, and with the reunion approaching, I took it out and began to flip through the pages. What struck me most was not how much older we look today (although we do), or how warmly I still feel toward so many of these people whom I haven’t seen in many years.

What struck me was how innocent and pure we look compared to the high school students I see milling around the city today.

Some of the teenagers I see have highlights in their hair. They have manicured fingernails. Their eyes are lined. They have perfectly tweezed eyebrows. They have thong underwear peeking out of their low-slung jeans to avoid panty lines.

In my high school yearbook, my friends and I look like cavewomen. Our brows are downright bushy; some form the dreaded unibrow. Our hair is definitely

au naturale. I see acne in plenty of the pictures. And as for the thongs — well, let’s just say that until I was in college, the only thongs I knew of were flip-flops.

“I treat plenty of teenagers,” a beautician at an upscale Upper East Side office told me. “These girls have laser treatments and facials; they have their eyebrows waxed and their eyelashes dyed. Often their mothers come here, and have had the very same treatments that the kids are now having. At first I thought it was a bit odd, but now I have so many of these young clients that I’m starting to think it’s normal.”

One mother of three girls says that it’s hard to know when it’s appropriate to allow her daughters to have some of these treatments. “My girls have hairy arms,” she said. “Dark, hairy arms. They complain about them and want me to take them to have the hair lasered off. At what point is this okay? When they’re 11? 15? 21? Never? The lasering is expensive, but it’s quick and permanent. What girl wants to have hairy arms? I took my oldest when she was 15 and am thinking of taking my second daughter, who’s 13.”

One dermatologist I spoke to said that some parents demand that their children be given much stronger acne medicine than they actually need. “Some mothers walk into my office convinced that their children need Accutane, which is a very strong drug,” she said. “If a kid needs Accutane, that’s fine. But you’ve got to try some other things first before you bring out the big guns. Some of these parents just want to make everything perfect for their children as quickly as they can. Plenty of us suffered through our share of pimples. Acne isn’t fun, but it doesn’t kill you either.”

A mother of four said that her dermatologist helped her negotiate a touchy subject with her daughter. “My daughter’s 16 years old and last year I noticed she was developing facial hair,” she said. “I didn’t want to make an issue of it, but at the same time, I didn’t want to ignore it. So I called my dermatologist and at the next visit to check on my daughter’s acne, the doctor brought the issue up, lasered the hair, and my daughter, it turns out, was so relieved.”

There are plenty of parents, though, who resent these expensive treatments.

“Remember Nair?” a mother of four said. “That’s what I tell my girls to use when they complain about their arm hair.”

“My 15-year-old daughter wants to have her leg hair lasered off,” a mother of two said. “I imagine she wants other parts of her body treated as well, but I won’t let myself think about that. I told her I’d be happy to buy her a razor and maybe even pay for some waxing. But treatments that cost $1,000 — I think she’s out of her mind.”

One mother of three thinks that women who are short on time are more likely to take their daughters along for the beauty ride. “In New York, it’s so hard finding the time to get the nails or hair done, so busy moms take their daughters with them when they go to the salons,” she said. “These women choose to focus on the time being spent together, not the message being sent.”

One veteran high school teacher says that she has adjusted to seeing her students look rather coiffed. “I’ve gotten used to the hair and nails,” she said. “But not the underpants coming out of the pants. What kind of look is that anyway?”

sarasberman@aol.com