The Nomad Mom Diary

I'm carrying around a LOT of baggage

Who Will Tell Her She’s Not Beautiful

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“Mommy, come quick!” my daughter shouts at me from the upstairs bathroom. I fly into the room expecting to find a child half-drowned in the bathtub. Instead I find my five and a half year old standing on the stepping stool and staring at her underwear-clad body in the mirror.

“I tilted it down and now I can see my whole body,” she exclaims as she twists side to side and smiles at her reflection. She flexes her arm and comments on her growing muscle. “I’m super strong.”

To my eyes she is perfect. She is perfect in her own eyes as well.

Someday though, someone will tell her that she is not perfect. As this thought crosses my mind, I feel the anger of a thousand voices welling up inside me. Someone, some asshole is going to come and tell my perfect child that her feet are too big and she has her father’s nose. They will look at her skinny torso and suggest that she should eat more or they’ll look at her little thighs and suggest she eat less. Someone is going to come in one day and change the way my daughter sees herself forever.

As she sashays in front of the mirror, my mind is racing as I try and think though who it might be. 

She has a gaggle of girlfriends at school and some of them have older sisters. Will it be one of them? It’s so hard to imagine. She’s at the age now that the worst insult possible is “I won’t be your best friend ever again”, a situation generally resolved within twenty four hours. Telling one another “I don’t like the way that you look” is not even in their lexicon.

It won’t be the TV…Dora dresses like a third grade boy, Caillou practically is a third grade boy and even Minnie Mouse manages to keep her assets covered. No, I don’t think that the nefarious confidence-sucking body image vampire is going to come in on the television cable.

I step over to my gorgeous child and give her a hug. “Look at us, mommy,” she says, pointing up towards the mirror. I stare up and absentmindedly begin fingering the grays in my hair. As she primps and poses, I frown and poke at the bags under my eyes and reach to try and smooth my forehead. I hear a giggle and turn to see my daughter copying my crazy faces. Then she looks over at me and says, “Mommy, you’re beautiful.”

It turns out that I’m the asshole. I’m the jerk that is teaching her about what society thinks. I’m the one introducing the ugly thoughts. She tells me to flex and I start moaning about arm fat. She tells me to wear my black pants and I tell her that my butt is too big. She says, “You’re beautiful, mommy!” and I say no and start pointing out my faults. I will be the one to tell her that her definition of beauty is wrong. I’ll start her second-guessing. I’ll be the one to bring the magazine definition of attractive into the house and tell her every single way I don’t measure up.

“I want to grow up and look just like you, mommy.”

She isn’t seeing the same person I see – a haggard, middle-aged mom who constantly belittles herself. She wants to look like the wild-haired goddess she sees – who scares away the bad men, holds her close and showers her with love and affection.

I extend my mental fingers and claw the negative thoughts right out of my head. I will not be the one that sucks away her self-confidence. I will not subject her to a death by a thousand cuts…the never-ending stream of judgement and doubt that runs through my brain.

I will wake up tomorrow and tell her that we are beautiful. And I will do it again day after day after day until I believe it as firmly as she does. Someday, someone may tell her that she isn’t perfect. But dammit, I swear that this person will not be me.

addybeauty

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Comments

  1. You are so RIGHT about that! Beauty is generally in the eye of the beholder, but magazines, TV and the little friends at school do count an awful lot when you’re young, insecure and want to fit in. It must be our mission as Mums to boost our child’s confidence in that respect.

    You both look cute with your blonde curls.

  2. I know that someday she’ll be exposed to all of that…and I already hear from her “I don’t look beautiful today because my clothing isn’t right”. I’d like to keep it at clothes and headbands for as long as I can…no need to rush into physical imperfections on her own body.

  3. Beautiful post. And you’re so right. It’s so important for us to model that we love ourselves to our kids. Especially our girls. I’m guilty of making self-loathing comments too and I gotta quit!

  6. I love this. Yay that it won’t be you. I have boys and thought I was exempt from this, but they have even picked up on tiny things I’ve said about my weight or looks so I really had to stop, even things about ageing. You both look so pretty and so happy in that picture. What a lucky girl she is.

  7. What a great post. So well said. I am guilty of this, but in a different way – I am afraid to let my girls see my body. I ask them to leave when I’m getting dressed or I hide in the bathroom. It started when my then 4yo started pointing out my “ugly belly” – I got so self-conscious! From a 4yo’s words! So silly. But I hated it that she thought I had ugly body parts. So I don’t let her see them. Sigh. I need to get over this and be proud of myself and my “ugly belly” that’s ugly because I gave birth to my girls. 🙂

  14. I think about this often, although I am a mother to a sweet little boy. I think about how, if I continue to hold myself with dignity and confidence, he will look for a young woman who is confident and dignified. I want him to find a wife one day who doesn’t look to him for validation; a woman who holds herself to a higher standard, and thus, keeps him in line.

    So relevant. So important. Nice work! So glad I found your blog!

  15. This was amazing, Lynn. The first day I heard my six year old ask ‘Do you think my tummy is fat?’ my heart dropped to the floor. I couldn’t figure out where the hell she had heard that– the ‘F-word’. I’m certain it had to of come from me. Where else would she have learned that? I’d have much rather her dropped the actual ‘F-word’ on me. I make a conscious effort to not talk about anything related to my body in her presence–except it’s beauty. She turned 7 just recently and I told her the other day how marvelous is it being a girl/woman! She replied ‘Yeah, but you get a period. That doesn’t sound like fun. AT ALL.’ haha. Great post! Thank-you for sharing!

  16. This is really moving. We are so hypocritical wanting the best and highest self esteem for our children, but don’t display it ourselves.
    I hope your daughter has really encouraged you to accept and be happy with yourself because we are all beautiful!!!!

  17. Guilty! I too have looked in the mirror WITH my daughters and praised their beauty while criticizing myself in the same breath. My 11 year old daughter actually called me out on it one day. What a slap in my face. We need to embrace our beautiful souls so that our daughters will embrace their own. Great post. By far my favorite you have written! <3

  18. > who scares away the bad men

    Which ones are those exactly? What a strange interjection into a nice article. Teaching her to hate and fear men is a distraction to you planting fears in her mind about her looks, perhaps?

  19. My daughter STRUGGLES with exzema and a sever peanut allergy. Shes had adults tell her to go wash her face or say something like oh somebody’s had spaghetti… (as the rash is sometimes on her face). The schools here are not peanut free so most nights she has nightmares and anxiety about having an allergic reaction at school. Shes not been able to attend d birthday parties or other outing as we xan not be sure of the safety. she is 6 years old and feels ugly! She is 6 years old and worries about the safety of her life as if someone near her eats something with peanuts ot could trigger her to have a reaction. We were able to find a school that is peanut free although its a lot of travelling every day at least shes safe. Now to work o her feeling as beautiful as she is!
    Thank you for this story!

  20. Well said, and the message is reverberating in my head even though my beautiful daughters are grown… I wonder what damage I did with my own negativity about my lack of beauty and brains. Hopefully they are well adjusted young women who have always believed it when I’ve said they are beautiful – and hopefully I will learn to simply believe it when they say the same to me.

  21. The doctor is the person that told my then 8 year old daughter that she wasn’t beautiful. She didn’t say it in those words, she just implied she was Fat. Having your 8 year old ask you if she was Fat was the hardest conversation to have.
    Be aware it doesn’t come from the mean boys and girls they go to school with, it can come from doctors, teachers and other adults as well.

  22. Bad men could be any number of things….she could have seen something scary on tv, or witnessed something she didn’t understand that scared her. She could have been a victim of abuse, or simply is afraid of the boogeyman or things that go bump in the night. The thing is, YOU don’t know, so keep your snarky comments to yourself and quit being a jackass. I don’t see how that statement is an indoctrination to fear or hate men in any way.

  24. HECK YES! Thank you for helping others recognize we are perpetuating the problem. I didn’t even realize I was feeding the negative self-image cycle in front of the little ones until reading your post. Great observation!

  25. heres one thing i always tell little girls! you are smart you are kind and this is what makes you beautiful , i also deal with the princess prince issue by telling them that Cinderalla always tells the prince when he ask her to marry him, no way first im off to collage to get some more knowledge!! the truth about beauty is that it is used to oppress us through out our lives, millions of dollars wasted, to many hours of self doubting! self loathing, its not worth it we are all worthy of love n respect,