on beauty

First, do you read Rage Against the Minivan?  Add it to your list.  On one of the recent round ups, I found this gem: I’ve started telling my daughters I’m beautiful.

I’ve read the books that claim that a father-figure is more important in the development of self-worth for a daughter.  I have no doubt that it’s true – I can still remember the things my dad did well and not well.  If only he’d uttered “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” about french fries and not pancakes, I’d still be a size six.  I totally know he was joking, but to this day I won’t touch a pancake.

But I don’t think it’s just dads that have a role to play in self-worth building.  And here I am, just sitting around waiting to impress my daughter.  As I get dressed in the morning, she sees me sighing.  She sees me – unattractively, I might add – grab at my sagging belly, stuff deflated breasts into a pulley system, pull on the skin under my eyes.  Yeah, she’s six months old – but she sees it now and she’ll continue to see it.  And that is something I do not want.

Amanda King writes, “I want them to become women who remember me modeling impossible beauty.”  Of course, I want beauty to originate from the inside, blah blah blah.  We all want that — but I want my daughter to delight in the beauty of her earthly body.  Her arms and legs, her smile, her nose that crinkles when she laughs.  We have bodies – and our bodies are beautiful.