Early on in parenting, it became clear that my daughter wanted feedback on her looks. Simply put, she wanted to be pretty. At age 2, she would pick out beads, hair bows, and fluffy-ruffly skirts, and then prance through the kitchen and ask, “Me pretty, Mommy?” As she has gotten older her tastes have improved and she can now put together a pretty awesome outfit and a very articulate sentence, “Do I look pretty, Mom?”
I pause before answering, hearing my own voice and insecurities in her question. What is the question behind the question? Is she really asking, “Do you like me? Will others accept me? Will I fit in?” I don’t know. She is only six. But I do know I don’t want to miss the opportunity to answer her with advice that I want to fill her mind when she is sixteen and asking the same question (and that I want to fill my mind when I ask the same questions still at 38).
How do we talk to our little girls (and boys) about beauty? Emily’s excellent blog post last week rightfully encouraged us to think hard about what we teach our kids about what’s valuable. She critiqued a popular blog post which had discouraged talking about physical beauty in favor of building up the importance of being smart. Emily argued that pushing us away from physical beauty only to aim for intellectual beauty, just exchanges one fleeting idol for another. I couldn’t agree more. And it’s worth stopping and thinking more carefully about beauty itself so that we cultivate the right persepctive and not make it an idol.
Beauty is a very good thing, but like any good thing, it can be a bad thing if used in the wrong way or with the wrong priority. So as we aim to point our children to a right understanding of beauty, what are some things we can do, think, or say?
