Nora has started most mornings lately with a request for a "pretty dress." The request is enriched with, "one that twirls, a pink one, lots of flowers." It throws me every single time.
Now, for the eight people who read this blog (yes, I have a "counter" and it ranges between 3-8 views per day), you all know that I own dresses...and I enjoy wearing them, but it's rare and I'm often self-conscious about how I'm crossing my legs, how I sit, if I can perform "park-playing-running-after-kids" comfortably in a dress now that I'm a professional mom. It doesn't exactly suit my current "work/fun."
It's not the dress but the sobbing and whining and insistence that she needs to be "pretty" and that wearing a dress is critical in order to obtain this title. First, I hate the title. When people say that either of my daughters are pretty or beautiful, I both cringe and grin. I feel that these words are loaded. Loaded with an expectation that a sweet temperament should lie beneath a pretty face...loaded that if their faces or bodies or hair or skin changed significantly by an accident, purposeful alteration, or genetic predetermination...that they then lose this title. And our society loads "pretty" and "beauty" and tilts them toward the fair-skinned, blue-eyed, skinny, well-clothed, long-haired, feminine accessorizing, graceful ballet dancing form of girl.
Besides the handful of books that I've carefully selected that depict dark-chocolate skin, tight afro-curls and tumbling braids, almond-slanted eyes, thick lips, broad noses, and ample backsides, the mainstream books that we receive or encounter tend to show one prevailing standard of beauty. One that neither of my girls reflects. One that I don't reflect...with my more-than-ample body, short faded-henna-greying hair, fashion-neglected wardrobe, freckled face, and oft-slumped posture.
The true beauty of motherhood; however, is hearing my words, my hopes, my heart flowing back at me from Nora's mouth. From her tiny heart.
Yesterday, after a warm bath, I smoothed honey lotion upon Nora's caramel skin...careful to avoid her scraped knees; relented to her incessant dress request; twisted and wrapped up her wet cocoa tendrils; and then watched her twirl and talk about how pretty she was. My heart both sank and soared. I could never look in the mirror and say those words honestly towards myself.
I told her, "Nora, there are some people, some children in the world that don't have the money to have nice, new, clean clothes. Their clothes may be very old and dirty. They are not pretty clothes...but they are good people, beautiful people. Their clothes don't matter. It doesn't matter what we all wear. It matters how we treat each other. That's what makes someone beautiful. You can twirl in shorts, in pants, and in a dress."
She sat upon her bed deep in thought. She threw her left arm up into the air and poked the right fingertips deep into her arm pit. "Dada has holes in his kili-kili (Filipino for "arm pit") and his white shirt is old. But he's still pretty."
I laughed so hard...I cried. And she stood up and continued to twirl.
I turned to walk down the hall in my crusty sweatshirt, pajama pants, and crazy hair. She followed me, "Mama, anyone can be pretty, in shorts, in shirts, in pants, in pajamas, and in sweatshirts. You're pretty and your sweatshirt is so, so pretty." Tears pooled and I asked if we could take a picture. I wanted to remember that she finds me pretty...in all my morning crazy.
She went back to twirling.
My heart unfurled and I breathed in my daughter's beauty deeply. The beauty that nestles in her bones, that pours from her lips, that grows in her mind. May she always know that her opinions, her internal strength, her kindness, her compassion, her mind, her wit, her empathy, her creativity and her integrity are what defines her beauty. The external is just paper...just a paper package.
May she never lash out at her reflection with the same cruel and harsh tongue that I wield against myself. May she love the body she walks within and respect the heart and mind that she cultivates. I draw inspiration from these words.