This is all beautifully said. And, yes, your little girl IS beautiful. But if I knew her from more than a picture, I am sure I would see the beauty in much more than her appearance.
I am just hoping for some really awkward teen years.
Yeah, and yet I speak from very personal experience when I say, a little girl who was always told she was beautiful, excelled in school, had lots of friends, who then, say, gained weight in middle school and was suddenly told she was ugly and worthless from many directions, lost the friends she had all through elementary school, and ceased to have her intellectual and academic ideas respected purely because of the "decline" in her looks...well, she can have a lot of scarring that may never fully fade. Sadly, society continues to link appearance and worth for women. I was in the same honors classes with the same kids getting the same competitive grades and academic nods we had all always gotten, but suddenly my project ideas weren't worth listening to because of my weight.
It took me until I was almost 30 (and writing X-Files fanfic!) to start to believe again that anyone might want to hear anything I had to say or think anything I did was worthwhile. And I was relatively thin again by then, and had been for a while. It took my husband years to convince me he really thought I was beautiful. And more so to convince me he thought I was equally intelligent (he was finishing law school when we met).
And the same judgements can happen in reverse. When I went to my first Stargate Convention, two different people directed me to the Mary Kay Convention being held in the same hotel. An assumption based purely on my appearance ('cause sci-fi geeks can't have trendy clothes, right?)
All of that said, I certainly do not think it's right that anyone EVER be judged by their appearance. But I'm not sure human nature will ever allow society to fully change. And it's so hard to find that balance with our kids between raising them the way the world SHOULD be, and raising them to survive in the world the way it is.
My son is Asperger's, and he could care less about the rules of fashion. He wants to wear what's comfortable. In his perfect world he would get to wear the same outfit every day (jeans and a video gamer t-shirt) and grow his hair out in a hippy shag style. He doesn't believe anyone should ever be judged on their appearance (as long as they are CLEAN). And I've had to walk the line between praising him for not bowing to peer pressure and choosing to be himself, and teaching him that in some scenarios, right or wrong, he will have to dress to others' expectations in order to get things he wants in his life (for job interviews, etc.).
Not really sure I have a point, just sympathizing with your struggles to do the right thing!
Parenting is definitely not for the faint of heart, that's for sure! I'm sorry to hear you had a tough period in middle school. It sounds dreadfully painful. Kids, especially 13-year-olds, can be exceptionally cruel. I think the hard part to recognize when you're in the thick of it is that almost everyone gets picked on for some reason, and if they can't find an easy target, kids will simply make one up. I had a lovely friend who moved away to a new school in 6th grade, and her new "friends" decided to unfriend her one day for no reason -- literally just because they could.
It's because I know this stuff is coming that it's important to me that E. recognize the important parts of herself are on the inside. The external stuff is fungible (as you note) and people are always going to make incorrect assumptions based on appearance. That's why you need a strong inner core to tune them out.
I am just hoping for some really awkward teen years.
Yeah, and yet I speak from very personal experience when I say, a little girl who was always told she was beautiful, excelled in school, had lots of friends, who then, say, gained weight in middle school and was suddenly told she was ugly and worthless from many directions, lost the friends she had all through elementary school, and ceased to have her intellectual and academic ideas respected purely because of the "decline" in her looks...well, she can have a lot of scarring that may never fully fade. Sadly, society continues to link appearance and worth for women. I was in the same honors classes with the same kids getting the same competitive grades and academic nods we had all always gotten, but suddenly my project ideas weren't worth listening to because of my weight.
It took me until I was almost 30 (and writing X-Files fanfic!) to start to believe again that anyone might want to hear anything I had to say or think anything I did was worthwhile. And I was relatively thin again by then, and had been for a while. It took my husband years to convince me he really thought I was beautiful. And more so to convince me he thought I was equally intelligent (he was finishing law school when we met).
And the same judgements can happen in reverse. When I went to my first Stargate Convention, two different people directed me to the Mary Kay Convention being held in the same hotel. An assumption based purely on my appearance ('cause sci-fi geeks can't have trendy clothes, right?)
All of that said, I certainly do not think it's right that anyone EVER be judged by their appearance. But I'm not sure human nature will ever allow society to fully change. And it's so hard to find that balance with our kids between raising them the way the world SHOULD be, and raising them to survive in the world the way it is.
My son is Asperger's, and he could care less about the rules of fashion. He wants to wear what's comfortable. In his perfect world he would get to wear the same outfit every day (jeans and a video gamer t-shirt) and grow his hair out in a hippy shag style. He doesn't believe anyone should ever be judged on their appearance (as long as they are CLEAN). And I've had to walk the line between praising him for not bowing to peer pressure and choosing to be himself, and teaching him that in some scenarios, right or wrong, he will have to dress to others' expectations in order to get things he wants in his life (for job interviews, etc.).
Not really sure I have a point, just sympathizing with your struggles to do the right thing!
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It's because I know this stuff is coming that it's important to me that E. recognize the important parts of herself are on the inside. The external stuff is fungible (as you note) and people are always going to make incorrect assumptions based on appearance. That's why you need a strong inner core to tune them out.
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