I didn't have a "fancy' or "girly" mother growing up. My mom preferred jeans to dresses, motorcycle meetings to sit down dinners, and camping or fishing to laying on the beach and getting a tan. It was I, who taught her, how to put on make-up and style her hair. She focused her parenting energies more on the academic and athletic aspects of my adolescence. I on the other hand, was a "girly" girl. But because I didn't have much guidance in that area, I turned to magazines and other forms of social media to tell me how I should look and act.
My mother let me, she really didn't know any better. She didn't realize just how much a young girls sense of self image can be warped by obsessing over stick thin super models airbrushed to the nines. So now that I had my own daughter I wanted to make sure she knew just how beautiful and perfect she was, how to do her hair, dress up, feel fancy, and to prevent her from ever thinking she wasn't good enough in her own skin. Then the other day I was reading one of her class assignments, and I realized my approach had severely backfired. It started out fine. She listed her name, her favorite thing to do, her favorite color, and then came the very open ended fill in the blank; "People say I'm _________" and scrawled in her little hand writing was the word "pretty".
This innocent little word was like a punch to the gut. I turned the word over and over in my mind, "pretty"...yes, she is pretty, beautiful in fact. But she is also smart, funny, charismatic, a loving sister, always willing to help, kind hearted, the list goes on and on. But out of everything, she picked "pretty". In my efforts to prevent her from ever feeling like I did growing up (and still do at times), I had put no emphasis on her other attributes. What did this say about me as a mother? I should have seen this coming. Watching a six year old posing in front of her mirror in five different outfits before she will leave the house, should have seemed odd to me. But I just thought it was cute. Having to talk her out of a crying fit because her hair didn't look "just right" should have been a red flag. But I just thought she was being moody. Catching her trying to go to Sunday School in full face make-up, should have made me question the message I was sending her. But I just thought she was being creative. This realization is extremely humbling. Instead of raising my daughter to value everything about herself, strengths and weaknesses alike, I have taught her that in life, she is "pretty".
She's a child. She is suppose to get dirty, and look unkempt from time to time. She shouldn't care how she looks, not yet anyway. I know this isn't something that can be changed over night. But my goal is that I will tell her something positive about herself everyday that isn't related to her appearance. Society puts too much emphasis on outer beauty as it is, I shouldn't be feeding it as well. I want her to grow into a strong, intelligent, self sufficient woman that knows she is more than just a face, that what's on the inside matters even more than what's on the outside. I want her to see herself that way I see her, the way everyone else sees her for that matter, as a little girl that makes the lives brighter of everyone she touches because of who she is, not what she looks like.
My mother let me, she really didn't know any better. She didn't realize just how much a young girls sense of self image can be warped by obsessing over stick thin super models airbrushed to the nines. So now that I had my own daughter I wanted to make sure she knew just how beautiful and perfect she was, how to do her hair, dress up, feel fancy, and to prevent her from ever thinking she wasn't good enough in her own skin. Then the other day I was reading one of her class assignments, and I realized my approach had severely backfired. It started out fine. She listed her name, her favorite thing to do, her favorite color, and then came the very open ended fill in the blank; "People say I'm _________" and scrawled in her little hand writing was the word "pretty".
This innocent little word was like a punch to the gut. I turned the word over and over in my mind, "pretty"...yes, she is pretty, beautiful in fact. But she is also smart, funny, charismatic, a loving sister, always willing to help, kind hearted, the list goes on and on. But out of everything, she picked "pretty". In my efforts to prevent her from ever feeling like I did growing up (and still do at times), I had put no emphasis on her other attributes. What did this say about me as a mother? I should have seen this coming. Watching a six year old posing in front of her mirror in five different outfits before she will leave the house, should have seemed odd to me. But I just thought it was cute. Having to talk her out of a crying fit because her hair didn't look "just right" should have been a red flag. But I just thought she was being moody. Catching her trying to go to Sunday School in full face make-up, should have made me question the message I was sending her. But I just thought she was being creative. This realization is extremely humbling. Instead of raising my daughter to value everything about herself, strengths and weaknesses alike, I have taught her that in life, she is "pretty".
She's a child. She is suppose to get dirty, and look unkempt from time to time. She shouldn't care how she looks, not yet anyway. I know this isn't something that can be changed over night. But my goal is that I will tell her something positive about herself everyday that isn't related to her appearance. Society puts too much emphasis on outer beauty as it is, I shouldn't be feeding it as well. I want her to grow into a strong, intelligent, self sufficient woman that knows she is more than just a face, that what's on the inside matters even more than what's on the outside. I want her to see herself that way I see her, the way everyone else sees her for that matter, as a little girl that makes the lives brighter of everyone she touches because of who she is, not what she looks like.
