Why I Tell My Daughter that She’s Pretty Every Day

I make a point of telling of my two-year-old daughter that she’s pretty every day. 

I don’t want her to think that her worth is based on her appearance -- and I tell her that she’s smart and funny every day, too -- but I make a special point of telling her that she’s pretty. Because while I frequently heard that I was smart when I was a kid, I very rarely heard that I was pretty, and I developed a complex about my appearance that to a certain degree still persists to this day. Not only was I rarely complemented on my looks (even though photos prove that I was in fact a very cute kid!), but I rarely heard adult females close to me saying anything positive about their own appearances, either. In short, I had no role models for healthy female body image, and as a child and teenager I spent a lot of time wishing I looked like someone else -- preferably someone blonde with  tan legs, small breasts and an overall Kelly from 90210-type look. 

The fact that I grew up very religious, with strict modesty laws dictating my appearance, didn’t help either. As a teenager in the mid 90’s, I felt insecure about my unstylish attire and conservative appearance, and I certainly never felt attractive.  At that time, teen fashion was heavily influenced by movies like Clueless and Empire Records, films in which the girls wore very short skirts, but I was stuck wearing skirts past the knee and sleeves to the elbow. To me, everything I saw in movies and on t.v. reinforced the fact that I was dressed wrong, that I didn’t look cool enough, or have the right body. 

For all of these reasons, I entered adulthood feeling extremely insecure, and looking back, I can see how that was reflected in the men I chose to date at that time. I was 27 the first time someone told me that I was pretty and I actually believed them. My boyfriend at the time and I were driving down the street in Los Angeles, and when we stopped at a light, I noticed that the man in the car next to us was staring at me. Confused, I told my boyfriend, who was not confused at all. “He’s looking at you because you’re pretty,” he said. When I tried to refute this, he went into this very logical and annoying mode that he was prone to, and proceeded to prove to me that I did not see myself the way others saw me. 

I wouldn’t go as far as to call it body dysmorphic disorder, but at this point I can admit that I have always been my own worst critic, especially when it comes to my looks. Now, at 33 and as the mother of another female, I finally feel like I know who I am, and while there are still things about my appearance that I don’t love, in general I am happy with myself. I try to show that to my daughter by saying things like “we look good!” and by being careful not to criticize my appearance in front of her. I don’t even wear makeup anymore most days. I used to wear a lot, but now I only wear it if I’m going to an event, or out at night, and the best part about that is it’s not just me -- a lot of women in the Bay Area don’t wear makeup on the day to day. 

I’m happy that I’m raising my daughter in a city where fashion and physical beauty is less of a priority. Coming from L.A., and having lived in NYC and Las Vegas, I was used to people constantly dressing to impress, and it took me awhile to adjust to the different mentality up here. It has been a year now since we moved to the Bay, and I feel like I am finally starting to feel really comfortable and in my groove here. The prevalent values here reflect my own, and it feels good to know that I am encouraging my daughter to be an open-minded, nonjudgmental, free-spirited individual, and that she will grow up surrounded by similar-minded children and parents. 

If society’s beauty standards were intimidating back in the 90’s, today’s images -- so much more prevalent due to the Internet -- portray a nearly impossible to achieve physical ideal to young girls and grown women. As adults, we can often look at an image and know when it’s been Photoshopped, but little girls only see a Hollywood ideal on the cover of a magazine. It is up to us as parents to tell our daughters that they are pretty, so that they grow up with a certain confidence about their looks that comes from having never doubted that they were good enough.

If we are to be the loudest voice in their heads, if we are to be heard over the t.v. shows and movies and magazines and album covers that tell girls that they need to be thinner, prettier, and more fashionable to be valued, then we must begin to reinforce this positive perception when they are very young. Even a two-year-old likes being told that she is beautiful. Her whole face lights up.

And that is why every day I make a point of telling my daughter that she is smart and pretty. If you ask her “who’s pretty?” she’ll say “me!” And that’s good, I want her to go out into the world with that uber confidence as her armor, because society, other people, and the images and messages she absorbs will gradually pick away at it, and I want her to be left with something when all is said and done. I want her to come of age knowing that she’s good enough -- she’s beautiful.