If you are the father of daughters, I want to tell you something really important: tell your daughter she is beautiful, often. Say it with feeling. It is so critical to her emotional well-being.
I grew up hearing a lot of conflicting voices about myself and what I looked like, and it's only been in the past few years that I have been able to process what I heard and put it all into perspective. As a child, I was a sponge. I had no perspective. I just always felt inferior.
My grandmother told me many times that I looked like Princess Grace. I had no idea who that was or why I supposedly looked like her, but I figured if she was a princess, that she must be beautiful. Mom told me I was beautiful too, on occasion.
I don't remember paying any attention whatsoever to my looks until about first grade, when I realized that I didn't look like all the other little girls. I was taller than everyone else. I looked like a third grader amongst my smaller classmates. It's bad enough feeling like you don't fit in, but feeling like everyone else is pretty and you aren't is pretty devastating to a little girl. Kids at school made me feel awful about my looks.
I don't remember my dad ever telling me I was beautiful. He likely did. I just don't recall the words ever coming out of his mouth unless Mom was standing there goading him, saying things like "Tell Dee how nice she looks!" -- usually after I was dressed for church, or some special occasion.
Meanwhile, my brother told me very often that I was ugly. Little boys at school told me I was ugly and fat. There were very many male voices telling me that I was ugly -- a sea of voices -- and there was no counterbalance telling me I wasn't.
It seemed to me like beautiful girls looked very different than me. They had long hair that their mamas would fix up with hair ribbons. My hair was always short because Mom decided she didn't have the patience to fix my hair every morning before school, so it was cut short, in a pixie cut, until I was old enough to fix my own hair.
Little girls on TV and in movies didn't look like me. They weren't freakishly tall. They didn't wear their cousins' or brother's hand-me-down clothes that didn't quite fit right. I always had skinned knees. My hair was usually a mess. I hated wearing shoes and had to be threatened with spanking to get me to wear shoes when it was warm outside.
I was pretty shy and quiet at school, but at home I was loud and rambunctious and completely different.
My dad appreciated pretty females and was not shy about complimenting a woman and telling her she looked beautiful. He said it to friends, relatives, neighbors, work colleagues, you name it. I don't recall him saying it to my mother very often, however.
To be fair, Dad grew up in a family with two brothers, and a mother who didn't believe in expressing strong emotions in front of her children. She told my mother that she always went in a closet and shut the door when she had to cry. So all three of her sons were freaked out when they got married and saw that their wives would occasionally get overwhelmed and cry. Mom and her two sisters-in-law had to try and educate their husbands that women just cry sometimes, and the best response was not to tell them they were being overly emotional or crazy.
I grew up feeling ugly. No little girl should grow up feeling like that.
Dads, tell your girls they are beautiful. Tell them daily. Say it with feeling, meaningfully. Tell them what makes a girl or a woman beautiful has nothing to do with her looks and everything to do with the look in her eyes, and her smile, and how she treats others. Help your daughter to understand that it's best to ignore what the world says is beautiful, because most often they will always feel inferior if that's their measurement.
Point out examples of beauty that defy convention. Make sure they see you admiring females who are not conventionally beautiful, like an older woman, or a heavy woman. Point out beauty elsewhere in the world too -- a beautifully ripe melon, a beautifully polished piece of wood, a beautiful sky after a storm, a beautiful piece of music.
Dads, you are your daughter's North Star. She will always look to you for guidance. Help her to understand and be confident in a standard of beauty that's real and healthy.
