"Mom. I don't like my brown hair, I want yellow hair."
Anna stood barefoot in the kitchen, twirling a little plastic Repunzel doll in her right hand, pulling at her own chin-length curls with her left. "And I don't like short hair. I need long hair."
Breathe. Inside my head I'm screaming: NO!!! YOU ARE TWO YEARS OLD. ARE YOU REALLY HOLDING SOME DUMB DOLL THAT SOMEONE ELSE GAVE YOU WISHING--NO NEEDING--TO BE SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE WONDERFUL CREATURE YOU ARE? Where is there any hope? How can I help you see that you are enough? What words do I say in this kitchen right now to help you understand? YOU ARE TWO YEARS OLD.
Then today, walking through the grocery store past a make up aisle
"Mama. What's that?"
"It's make up. "
"What is make up?"
"It's stuff some people put on their face to make their face look different than it normally does. "
"Do we need some makeup mom?"
"No. I don't really like to wear it. I think it feels kind of yucky and it costs lots of money." Then I pictured her spouting off that exact sentence to some of the perfectly lovely women in our life who do wear makeup, and realized I need to make sure she got it wasn't a bad thing to wear make up. Except I kind of do think it is a bad thing in many ways.
"Some people we know and love really like to wear make up. Grandma Judy likes to wear it."
"And Beezus!!!"
"Yep. And that is their choice, and that is just fine for them. They are really great people huh? But grandma Julie doesn't wear makeup, and she's really great too."
How do you explain that the beauty industry runs on making women feel like they need to change themselves, in any number of ways, to be seen, and that I don't EVER want her to buy into that. She is all that she needs to be to do some really great things in this world. But that so very many women do choose to beautify themselves in a wide range of ways and that it is fine for them to do so and we are in no place ever ever to judge or tell others how to live? That every woman deals with vanity and insecurity and the constant stream of feedback and advertisement and instagram feeds and is just doing the best they can?
"I want some makeup mom."
"Ok. Why is that?"
"I think it is beautiful. I want to be beautiful like the makeup."
I knew that self worth, self confidence, body acceptance would be something I would need to proactively and mindfully deal with in raising a girl. But I thought she'd have a few more innocent happy years. I remember being four and feeling like I was pretty awesome. I can remember and can miss that feeling of my body being so great and my worldview so uninfluenced by other's thoughts about me. I can't remember feeling bad about or wanting to change my appearence until Becca Cunliff told me my teeth looked like a rabbit in fourth grade. I was truly lucky to have had so long. But it is such a shame that we ever have to feel less than grateful and in awe of all our body is and does.
To the fashion bloggers, women in painful (but cute!/sexy) shoes not designed for actually walking, women taking and posting picture after picture of themselves in different outfits and poses, teenage girls with hair extensions gluing fake eyelashes on each morning, my own two year old daughter, I want to say in a way that can be understood: You are more than this. You may or may not have a beautiful face, or a perfect arrangement of body parts, but that is not what is most important. Stop focusing on your role as a sight for others or yourself to see. Be. Do. The world needs you to be more.
Women are just so good at watching. They see and internalize what is good in others, lacking in themselves. You cannot not see that beauty gets attention, has power. But you can choose and recognize that maybe there are other kinds of power more worth seeking after. You can decide not to place such a high value on appearance in your own self-worth measurements, and genuinely spend time and effort cultivating, working other other aspects of your self. You can reject the idea that women's most significant focus should be how she dresses and the shape of her body. You can stop viewing your life as a series of pictures, imagining how many likes or comments you'll get based on how you are presenting yourself visually. Seek out and learn from real women who have managed to get beyond the image obsession, don't fill your head constantly with images and words of those who have not.
But it is so hard.
So hard that with all my best efforts, with only one tube of (old) mascara in the whole house, no T.V., limited princess stories, no barbies, intentional reading of many books about girls and women doing really great things, compliments to Anna consciously being about things other than how cute she is (though I mean, with your own kid, you're bound to tell them how cute they are from time to time), she still wants long blonde hair and makeup. So hard that even in writing this, I cannot say I feel 100% comfortable with myself and never worry about how I look or what others may think of how I look. I get it: the shame, the comparing.
But I recognize this is not where I want to spend my energy. It is not where I want to seek my value. I am trying to be brave and confident and genuine and useful. I believe and hope that both Anna and I will be able to do amazing things with these minds and bodies we've been given, as free as we can from the pressure to appear as anything to anyone. I think we are meant to be here now together, learning.
