So Princess Pants hit me with a curly one this week. I have mulled it over and over in my head and
still have no real answer for her. I
have raised my daughter to enjoy life.
She fishes, wrestles with friends and is more than happy to get down and
dirty in the mud. She has been known to dissect
the contents of a fish’s stomach and not flinch (much to my horror) and can hit
a golf ball with the best of them. She
likes shoes and handbags (think she got that from me), never says no to a bit
of pampering and massage and can shop till she drops when we travel. I thought she was well rounded, not a girly
girl but not a tom boy either – somewhere in the middle a nice balance of both. Well apparently society is starting to
dictate how she should be (yep, even here in the jungle social pressure is
alive and well).
We are busy on a math lesson when Princess Pants comes out
with “why does everyone say I’m pretty?” I of course respond with “because you
are so beautiful inside and out”. That
is when she went in for the kill – “but that’s not what they mean mum, they
just mean I am pretty on the outside.” Hmmm where do I go from there? She is correct, as we travelled through
Cambodia the Khmer people were delighted with PP and told her how pretty and
beautiful she was. A young man (thinking
PP was older than she was) proceeded to flirt with her telling her how lovely
she was and so beautiful (my reaction to PP being flirted with is an entire
blog on its own). Here in Borneo we
often hear the word cantik (pretty) said about PP and it has never really
bothered me.
So I try to do the correct mummy thing (god knows what that
is) and ask her how it makes her feel that people think she is beautiful. To my horror she said she likes it. Okay,
fair enough but wait for it, she likes it “because it’s important to be
beautiful”. WHAT is what I wanted to shout? Instead I stayed calm, took a deep breath and
asked her what she meant. Apparently in
the eyes of my 9 year old the world is pretty simple. Here is how she explained it to me.
“Nobody likes ugly things, movie stars are never ugly mum,
they can’t be it is their job to be pretty. It is much more important to be
pretty if you are a girl though.” My knuckles began to turn white as I gripped
the table and tried to not show my devastation.
Why do you think that I asked not
sure I really wanted to hear her answer.
“That is what boys want. If you
want a boyfriend or husband then you need to look pretty”. I respond with oh that isn’t true, boys like
girls to be smart, clever and independent.
PP comes back with “maybe that was what it was like when you were a young,
but now you have to be pretty. I can be
smart for getting a job but if you are beautiful then you can get an even
better job and then boys will like you more.
You will be beautiful and have a good job.” WTF by this stage the bottle
of vodka on the bench is looking like an option and I am struggling to maintain
my good mummy composure.
My brain was in overtime trying to find a response but
apparently the conversation was over. PP
put her head down, completed her math lesson then ran off to paint her
nails. I sat at the table wondering how
this messed up image of life as a girl had entered my baby’s head. She is correct though, society tells us that
beautiful is best, we are blasted with images and advertising on how to make
ourselves look more beautiful and sadly that has translated a horrible message
to my 9 year old. I think I still have a
chance to change her perception until I needed to get some things from the
shop. I was heading out the door and was
reminded by PP that I might want to put some make up on because I look so much
prettier with it. We watched the All
Blacks play the Springboks last night. In a room full of men I cheered, cursed
and barracked for my boys in black, PP was embarrassed. She told me that it is not attractive to be
so outspoken and loud. I am clearly losing the battle, I will keep
fighting and try to teach in my daughter
that how you look is not the most important thing but sadly I think society has
a stronger influence than me at the moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment