How We Tell Our Children They Aren't Beautiful

“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.