1. My friend Marci sent me this post “I’ve Started Telling My Daughters That I’m Beautiful,” from the website Offbeat Families. She wanted to hear my thoughts. It’s a bold statement, especially once you’ve hit 40. Or 41. I tell my daughter she is beautiful. Do I tell her I’m beautiful? No, I don’t think I ever have.
2. I feel beautiful. Sometimes. As I told my mother recently, I finally learned to do my hair. (The secret: a fat curling iron.) But as my hair has come together, my face has fallen apart. My the crease between my brows more prominent. The age spots have darkened. The skin is losing its elasticity. Do I feel beautiful? Sure! Not so sure. Not at all. It’s a tornado of emotions, beauty. Sometimes you look in that mirror and rock it, like, Yeah, baby, looking good. Sometimes it’s all, I better shut that light off quickly.
3. I don’t hide makeup from my daughter, and I don’t stop her from putting it on either. Looking pretty or feeling pretty doesn’t have to intertwine with objectification, but it doesn’t have to to get wrapped up in shame either. When my daughter watches me put on makeup, she wants to join the concealer party.
“Little girls don’t need concealer, baby,” I say. “That’s only when your skin gets old and crinkly like Mommy’s. Your skin is beautiful now.”
Oh, I’m a snark fest. (And I love to stir up controversy as well, apparently.) But what’s the message I’m sending in my snarky humor? That only young skin is beautiful? If I’m trying to raise my daughter to accept herself and her body, then what kind of damage am I doing by dismissing my own? I know the answer. I know. I must LOVE MYSELF. I know I’m supposed to feel secure about myself and my body at any age, but sometimes, I don’t. Okay. I just don’t.
4. The blog post that Marci sent me–written by a woman only known as “Amanda”–offers something far more positive than I can conjure on my own.
I don’t want my girls to be children who are perfect and then, when they start to feel like women, they remember how I thought of myself as ugly and so they will be ugly too. They will get older and their breasts will lose their shape and they will hate their bodies, because that’s what women do. That’s what mommy did. I want them to become women who remember me modeling impossible beauty. Modeling beauty in the face of a mean world, a scary world, a world where we don’t know what to make of ourselves.
“Look at me, girls!” I say to them. “Look at how beautiful I am. I feel really beautiful, today.”
5. True beauty comes with recognizing your faults.
6. True beauty comes with neurotic haranguing.
7. True beauty does not have to sound shallow, like Stewart Smalley. “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” Or like a trite children’s poem. I love myself because I’m me. There’s no one else I’d rather be.
8. My almost 9-year-old son asked me today what I was writing about.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
I looked down at my work and thought about my message to him about women.
“Have I ever told you that I thought I was beautiful?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, I think I’m beautiful. And I think you’re beautiful too.”
“Boys aren’t beautiful, Mom,” he said. “Boys are handsome.”
“We’re both beautiful,” I said.
And I said it because, yes, this is a message we both needed to hear.
(Image: Andrea Willa/Creative Commons/Flickr)
Allena
December 10, 2012
I am so proactive about beauty with my daughter, and try to frame it in health when possible. When that’s not possible, I am very positive about the fun parts of beauty- things that I like and it’s OK TO LIKE, such as makeup, getting a manicure, etc. She is not into that stuff, and I frame that as an equal decision. I am a botox-spray tan kind of person, and those things are not easy to put into health (like my workouts and face creams) or fun (like makeup and hair appts), but I try to show her acceptance with her decisions in hopes that she will understand mine. I say that these things make me feel good, but I also give equal time to other things that make me feel good- “I love my career, how lucky I am to find something that I am good at AND like” or “I’m so freaking organized, this house runs like a well-oiled machine!!”
In addition, my daughter will NEVER be “just pretty” (ie per that incredible viral poet/video) and she knows that. 100%. We are contributing, powerful, activists, and she is well on her way to that life.
So, I think it’s all about balance, and modeling acceptance and not judgement.
Allena
December 10, 2012
Another thing- I won’t let her objectify or snark about my body, either. I changed in front of her the other day and she said something negative about my stretch marks. I promptly told her that they don’t bother me too much and sometimes your body has to do great, difficult things (hello, she was 9 freaking pounds, pretty ironic she’s making fun of the stretch marks she caused). I then changed the subject to the time I got a 7 minute mile and told her how, afterward, I had burst capillaries in my things….. “Your body is not like superman. Sometimes you want it to do things, and sometimes those things cause other issues. You just gotta decide if it’s worth it, and for this, it WAS!!!”
Hayley Krischer
December 10, 2012
This is a great point. Tolerance for your own body–as well as others–is a great lesson. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Miriam Novogrodsky
December 10, 2012
“but as my hair has come together my face has fallen apart..” hilarious. thank you. also, allena, i love the idea that our bodies do heroic things and then have, say, stretch marks to show for said deed. i’m sure that our insecurities are not helpful for our children to see — so i’m sure i’ve done some damage in that department. on the other hand, i tell my kids they are gorgeous, both of ‘em and gabe no longer tells me that boys are not. thanks for this interesting piece, i’ll think before i snarl at the mirror, in front of my kids this holiday season.