I’ve started telling my girls that I think I’m beautiful. It’s been so easy to tell them how beautiful THEY are, because it’s obvious. They are the thing beauty is made of. They are the reason we started worshipping beauty. They sparkle and dance. When they’re sleeping, they turn into soft cloud babies, little perfect tufts of white on the moonlight.
There are a lot of people like me, because we’re all the same. We’re all blood and electricity. We’re lonely under the gaze of god. We’re all wet with dew and swallowing hard against DO THIS, CONSUME, SHUT UP and BE AFRAID to die.
All of you women with lines on your brow, with cracks between your fingers… it’s been a long winter. All of you, you are beautiful and so am I.
The thing is, my children are perfect. I am the grown up, so I’m supposed to show them everything about life. When they wake up in the morning, though, I stare at them and they’re new. They teach me everything. They are babies and they teach me what it means to be a person. It’s easy to see that they’re beautiful.
I am slow and I am tired. I am round and sagging. I am harried. I am sexless. I am getting older.
Feeling comfortable in my own skin: I’ve birthed and breastfed two kids and I’m happy with my body
I have a bucket list. I keep it written in a little journal and I get it out and stare at it once in a... Read more
I am beautiful. How can this be? How can any of this be true?
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.”
I see it behind their eyes, the calculating and impression. I see it behind their shining brown eyes, how glad they are that I believe I am beautiful. They love me. To them, I am love and guidance and warm, soft blankets and early mornings. They have never doubted how wonderful I am. They have never doubted my beauty. How confusing it must have been for them to see me furrowing my brow in the mirror and sucking in my stomach and sighing.
How confusing it must have been to have me say to them, “You think I am beautiful, but you are wrong. You are small and you love me, so you’re not smart enough to know how unattractive I am. I know I am ugly because I see myself with mean eyes. You are my child and I love you, but I will not allow myself to be pretty, for you. No matter how shining you are when you watch me brushing my hair and pulling my dress over my head. No matter how much you want to be just like me, I can’t be beautiful for you and I don’t know why.”
It’s working, a little bit. I’ve even stopped hating myself, a little bit.
I’ll be what they see. They see me through eyes of love. I’d do anything for them, even this.
I am beautiful.
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- How can you find yourself when you’re focused on raising someone else?
- Being a mom isn’t my most interesting feature
This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve read in a long time. Thank you for writing it. I don’t yet have daughters but I often dream of it. I have a fuzzy idea that something will click magically when parenthood comes and I will be a perfect role model who manages everything much better than I do with my solo life now. No? Not gonna happen? Shucks well at least I can learn from you mommas about what will come up. All the best to you and your family.
To the writer, I want to thank you for the honesty in your perfectly written article. You have inspired me to work on believing this for my son.
I read this last week- a friend of mine posted it on FB- I have come back and read it three times since- this is so lovely and a great reminder! I want my kids to exude confidence and not even question their appearance no matter what- I have these expectations for them well then why not for myself? I think I lost some of that sparkle I used to have- that girl who could get air off of any wave or climb and cliff has become lost as I age. I need to find her again- thank you for the beautiful reminder!
Amazing post. I love how its beautifully worded and the positive message it gives people.
I think this will be my affirmation this week: “No matter what, I am beautiful” While I’m not a mother yet, it’s still a reminder that irregardless of the illnesses/allergies, weight gain/loss, etc, I’m still a beautiful person inside and out. =)
:hugs: Thank you for writing this. :extra hugs:
Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m the Clinical Director of an eating disorder treatment center and I read this in group this morning. We were able to have a great discussion about the messages we received about beauty and the messages we give to others when we’re not able to see ourselves as they see us. It gave us an opportunity to define beauty (as not just physical) and why our self-acceptance is healthy for the people who love us. I challenged each of the group members to share how they would tell themselves they are beautiful today.
Wow, I was.. floored by this post. I’m a deeply insecure woman, for many reasons, and have always been the kind of person who can’t hear a compliment without denying it or brushing it off. Even when it comes from my children. I’ve always just felt that its more.. humble, I guess. But I don’t want my children to grow up thinking that being humble means being secure, and confidence means cockiness. I can’t believe how blind I’ve been to things like this, how I’ve been influencing their idea of beauty. Starting today I’m going to be so much more aware of all the self-deprecating comments I make in a day without even thinking about it
What a beautifully worded post. Thank you for making me think twice about what I do!
Amanda, you are an amazing writer. I have read this post twice and cried like a baby both times. I read it aloud just now to my husband (after forwarding it to a few mama friends) It is such a moving piece. And so so true how women must be beautiful for their children so they grow up different from how we did… With all the fake beauty in all the magazines, we have to show them what REAL beauty is.
Thank you for sharing your brilliance.
Love and blessings,
Pamela
I worry about this. I am not a mother but I want to be, and I worry about how I can avoid doing to my daughters what my mother did to me. Not on purpose, but because that was how she was, how she thought. I know I have the same habits of thought, the same neuroses, the same hang ups, and I desperately want my children not to have them, or at least not to inherit them from me.
So thank you for this post. It gives me hope.
The true beauty of a person is when they smile so deep that it shows into the joy in their heart. That is where beauty lives in love. God bless!
I had to share this ! How wonderful ! I was always fairly thin and after my first 2 babies, my body bounced back in a matter of weeks. After the 3rd though, it didn’t. Along with the fact that I began to comfort myself with food, especially sweets and after 2 years I’m almost 200 lbs and having to get used to my new plus sized self. I still feel beautiful although there are parts I’m not completely happy with. And when my children tell me “Mommy, you’re beautiful !” and “You’re a hot rockin’ mama !” (my favorite !)who am I to argue !? All women are beautiful…even if some of us don’t fit society’s standards of beauty,thank God for those of us who can see past that and see the beauty in ourselves and our flaws and in others.
I have never met you, and I completely love you. Thank you. xoxo
This is such an amazing post!
You ARE Beautiful 🙂
Have you seen this?
http://you-are-beautiful.com/
this makes me cry every time i read it. thank you thank you thank you for your wonderful way with words. my two girls are 6 and 8, amazingly beautiful, sweet, creative….. i want them to always feel beautiful, worthy… and this is how. thank you.
so cute! love it!
Thank you so much for this! Most of my life, ie spent time and anxiety trying to be the most beautiful girl on the room. Why? Having children has changed my body and though my mind has struggled to reconcile the intellectual appreciation for the power and beauty of my female body, my emotions have wrestled with insecurity.
But to and for our children we are all beautiful Mamas. We shouldn’t be a part of the culture that is obsessed & immersed in commercial, unattainable beauty. We should embrace our bodies for all their beauty, which may no longer turn all the heads in the room. But who cares? Why is that still important, if it ever was??
I am beautiful because I birthed children.
I am beautiful because I nurtured them at my breast.
I am beautiful because my body is soft and comforting.
I am beautiful because I grow and sustain life.
I am beautiful because I have glorious stretch marks.
I am beautiful because I love with my whole heart.
I am beautiful.
We are beautiful. We are all beautiful.
AMAZING.
This post has massively opened my eyes to the questionable approach I’ve taken to beauty all my life. I’ve always vehemently batted back any compliment I’ve ever received about my looks in an attempt to remain ‘grounded’ and free from relying on my appearance as a source of self esteem. I’ve even treated attention to my looks as greatly insulting, as though it implies that nothing else about me matters. I had believed that such a stance would in my own small way help to shift society’s focus away from women’s bodies to their brains.
But is it possible to embody the empowering confidence talked about in this brilliant post without succumbing to vanity, or to grant physical appearance more weight than it is due?
Thanks so much for your thoughts and kind words. I feel that, by ignoring the subject appearance and refusing to bring up beauty, we’re not doing our daughters any favors, since they’re growing up in a beauty obsessed world. That’s why it’s so important to me to acknowledge my appearance, and to praise myself for the way that I look. Of course, I praise myself and other people for their other qualities much more often, but I don’t deny that I have a body and a face and that I am beautiful, in their ways. I am, by no means, a stereotypically “beautiful” woman. I want my girls not to ignore the way that everyone looks, but to celebrate the diverse and multidimensional beauty that is all around them, and believe that it comes in all shapes and sizes and ages and races etc.
I’ve even treated attention to my looks as greatly insulting, as though it implies that nothing else about me matters. I had believed that such a stance would in my own small way help to shift society’s focus away from women’s bodies to their brains.
I totally have to reply to this, because I am the adult daughter of a mother who took this same tact! In an attempt not to crush me with beauty issues, my mom worked hard to model NOT CARING AT ALL about how she looked. With the exception of one ill-advised perm in the ’80s, I can’t think of a single time she expressed caring about her appearance at all.
While I totally respect and applaud her decision, I also turned out to be kinda a froofy/girly girl who had zero modeling for how to deal with, well, CARING about how I looked. For me, caring about appearance isn’t always about caving to societal pressure — it’s always been a bit theatrical, as much about sub-cultural costuming and expressing yourself through personal style as it is about “looking good.”
I think there’s a huge opportunity for parents to cultivate showing kids the fun & joy of personal style and dressing up, without feeling like they’re caving on their feminist values or sending the message that kids will only be judged on your looks.
With my three-year-old, I use a lot of language about “extra sparkle” and “getting fancy” as a way to make beauty about adding and having fun, instead of caving to pressures.
I could go on and on — but I’ll stop myself now. 🙂
i just got my newsletter from lunapads and there’s always a section of articles from around the web listed – this is the first one they recommend. i love seeing how this has taken off <3
How about telling your SONS that THEY are beautiful? In my work with youth, boys grow up feeling that only girls can be beautiful and they struggle silently with bodily shame and feelings of being unattractive. If you truly want to parent “against the grain”, stop following stereotypes. Treat your sons with the tenderness, love, compassion and affection that you treat your daughters.
Yeah, I don’t have any sons.
This one something I addressed a bit up-thread — this message is relevant for all kids, but I think Amanda’s point is crucial: she wrote this from her experience, and she has daughters.
Amanda – totally valid point and thanks for helping me to look at the whole issue with a new perspective! It’s really food for thought.
@Laurie, the consensus throughout these comments is that this post is equally, if not more pertinent to raising sons, but the author can’t help the fact that she only has daughters! As a consequence the focus is on how beauty is perceived through the eyes of young girls, but nowhere is it implied that the concept applies to females only, and I’ve no doubt that the sentiment would enhance any human’s appreciation of beauty.
This is amazing! The world needs more women like you, who inspire the best in children, and who want to create and cultivate more beauty! I’ll share this with my friends for sure 🙂
Lots of love <3
Last week I was trying to convince my 7-year-old daughter that she needs to wear her glasses when she’s reading. I wear glasses and was using that to try to get her to wear them.
Finally she says, “…but you are BEAUTIFUL…”
Wow. I’d never considered that she felt that she WASN’T nor that I WAS!
I have tears in my eyes as I read this. Thank you. This is so important and beautiful. Thank you
Absolutely amazing.
I’m crying. All I can think about is a moment in the summer when I was maybe 7. I BADLY wanted to go to the beach and was in my parents’ bedroom begging them to take me.
My mom grumbld and my dad said mom doesn’t want to go. I boggled (why would ANYONE EVER NOT want to go to the beach?) and she looked embarrassed and upset. I pressed.
Dad said “your mom doesn’t want to wear a swimsuit. She thinks it doesn’t look good.”
My eyes must have been huge, I was so confused. “REALLY?” My mom said she hadn’t taken good care of herself nd she wanted to look better.
I furrowed. I looked at my dad. “but… mommy’s beautiful!”
He laughed and said “Well that’s what I keep telling her, but…”
I’ve never forgotten that. My mom instilled a lot of good stuff in me related to body things, but never seemed to really like herself and be kind to herself.
I don’t plan to have kids but this post reaches so deep.