Don't I Look Pretty?
Words by Jenn Norrell // Image by Sarah Hartley
I pull my sweater tight, wrapping it around me as a cool spring breeze picks up. My daughter runs up ahead on the dirt road. She stops to feel her blonde hair blow, then twirl in her pink skirt adorned with glittering unicorns before noticing a lone flower growing along the side of the road.
“Mama, come look. I’m not sure what kind it is, but it’s so beautiful.”
As I pick up my pace to meet her I see her bend down to examine the flower more closely. She breathes in, closes her eyes, and a smile widens on her face. She is fully enjoying its beauty.
I’ve always been the kind of mother who has encouraged my daughter to “stop and smell the roses.” Together we take in, admire, and enjoy the beauty we see in the world around us. This comes naturally to me. What doesn’t is encouraging my daughter to take in, admire, and enjoy the beauty of her own appearance. It’s not because I don’t want to. It’s because I’ve realized I am not sure how. It feels more complicated than it should be, than I thought it would be. Or maybe I am just making it that way. Maybe like many things in motherhood, it’s really about me.
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Lately my five-year-old has been obsessed with being “pretty”. She spends what I consider an abnormal amount of time picking out the perfect outfit that meets her requirements of pink, unicorns, or sparkles in dress or skirt form, preferably all of the above. I throw on the same jeans and t-shirt I wore the day before in less than five minutes. Despite her hatred of having her hair brushed she often can be found admiring her long, blonde locks in the full-length mirror that adorns the inside of our only closet, the one I often forget is even there. I thank Little House in the Big Woods for her belief that “blonde hair is prettier than brown hair” and friends/family/strangers for reinforcing it with gobs of attention in the form of “look at that gorgeous blonde hair” or “aren’t you so beautiful with that blonde hair of yours.” All of a sudden it feels like my little girl is way too focused on her appearance. I try to tell myself this is just a phase, but it feels like I’ve lost a fight that I didn’t know I started.
I don’t have any strong memories of truly feeling pretty. Not as a young child or even on my wedding day. Not in the way my daughter appears to feel it. I don’t remember looking in the mirror and feeling joy, feeling at ease with myself and my body. Even at 40 years old I see imperfections - some the same as when I was 13, some new. I don't focus on them like I did then, I don't allow them to pull me down, but I see them, they are always there. Sometimes I wonder if over time I intellectualized beauty, took the emotion out of it as a defense mechanism. If unconsciously I deemed personal beauty unimportant because I never felt I lived up to society’s standards. If I have been in an unconscious battle all along, and motherhood just brought it back to the surface.
Last summer I stopped shaving my armpits. At the time it wasn’t an active choice, just a necessary one after an unfortunate experience with a new deodorant. But time healed and a whole year went by. Maybe it was laziness at first that led to the continued fluff beneath my arms, but gradually it became a choice. An experiment. A defiance. I’m not really sure why. What I do know is I had moments where I felt self-conscious, where I kept my t-shirt on over my bathing suit like I used to when I was in middle school, but for totally different reasons. I had moments where I allowed society’s norms of beauty make me feel less than. I hadn’t felt those feelings in a while, I thought I was secure enough in my own skin, but I realized I am still fighting. And in those moments all I could think was how I never want my daughter to feel this way.
When I see her admiring herself in the mirror I wish I could feel happiness for how much she loves herself. Instead I anticipate her future disappointment. I equate her current love of her beauty with a fall, with a future fight. I see my 12-, 13-, 14-year-old self in the reflection. I give cliché lectures or heart-to-hearts about how “looks don’t matter” and “it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” She begs for make-up at the store, and I explain that I don’t wear any, that she is beautiful without it. I try my best not to cringe when she asks, “Don’t I look pretty?” which seems to happen at least once a day. “If you feel pretty that is what’s important” I say. Although it never feels like enough. I want her to know she can be herself, but sometimes I am afraid the message she gets is to be more like me. What I really want to do is figure out the recipe for her ease, to bottle it up so she has it forever. So she has no fall, no fight.
I can feel how our conversations on beauty are invaded by my past, by my middle school and high school self, by my hormonal acne, by how my brain associates human beauty with disappointment. I wonder if I will ever know the right thing to say, if what I say will ever feel like enough. I wonder if it’s possible to teach your daughter to love herself when you haven’t fully learned it yourself. I wonder if we can learn together.
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I finally catch up to my daughter on the side of the road. “Do you know what kind of flower this is?” she asks.
“I don’t, let’s look it up.” I pull my phone out of my pocket. She leans up against me as I search the plant app for an answer. “It’s called houndstongue.” I say. “It’s actually a noxious weed, an invasive species.”
“But doesn’t it look pretty, Mama? I wonder why so many weeds are beautiful,” she says.
I bend down to take a better look at the flower. “I guess maybe beauty is more complicated than we think.”
About the Author:
Jenn is a homeschooling mama of one. She lives and travels full-time in an Airstream travel trailer with her small family. When she’s not out exploring a new place you can find her with a cup of tea in hand while reading, baking or rediscovering her creativity through writing.
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