CS: nice diplomatic answer.
Many years ago Tzivos Hashem kids’ magazine ran some sort of Mitzvah contest for girls. Among the Mitzvos to participate in was candle-lighting. A friend of mine contacted the magazine asking not to have to complete that one, but was answered something to the tune of “The Rebbe (he was still alive and pre-stroke) asks that all girls light a Shabbos candle to increase holiness and fight darkness.” This girl was NOT Lubavitch and was clear about it.
So while researching this topic tonight I came across this (mods please allow) http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1221742/jewish/Do-Young-Girls-Light-Shabbat-and-Holiday-Candles.htm
and found it “interesting” but not believable. For one I’ve never heard of young non-Lubavitch girls lighting Shabbos candles (even from some of these families I know listed in the footnotes) and two, in my family and many others, an additional candle is added by the mother when lecht bentching for each child born into the family. If candle scarcity had effected our original minhagim, wouldn’t this minhag have been lost as well?
Sorry, but whatever respect any of us may have had for Chabad is flying out the window the more we realize how they have their own doctrine, whitewash their actions and look down at others that don’t share their beliefs.
(Incidentally, that is why IMHO DY has quietly bowed out of these conversations, you and your fellow Lubavitchers are doing a fine job on your own of digging your hole ever deeper. But the truth needed to come out so I’m glad it did.)