I rarely object when others tell my daughter how cute or pretty or beautiful she is; but I try to resist the urge to do the same. Don’t get me wrong. I suspect she will always be perfect to me and just looking at her makes me happy, but I have learnt to control my instinctive reaction to speak fondly about her appearance. I've written earlier that one of the things that makes parenting so hard is the myriad of seemingly little decisions that feel like they can have big consequences. With this in mind, its important to emphasise the need to respect individual parents' decisions about what is best for their children- unless it is blatantly harmful (hello anti-vaccers and Pete Evans). This post is in no way a criticism of those who don't share my view and continue this very common practice. Maybe no one has raised the possible consequences with them or maybe you have considered possible implications and didn't find them compelling. But they seemed compelling to me. I’m not the first to make this observation, but I think it is important so I’ll repeat it. Telling young kids they are pretty or handsome has implications we don’t think of. Because soon, when they are only a little older, people naturally start to tell them they are pretty less often, until it almost stops altogether. Adults just don’t react the same way to older children. We know there are a range of reasons for this, but do the children at the time? “Why don’t people think I’m pretty anymore?” they could be excused for thinking. It may only be a small voice in their head saying this, but in an era where childhood eating disorders are a real risk, do we want to give it any voice at all? Besides, there are so many more important ways we could compliment them, but traditionally it seems this is our default. Think about the implicit message we send here. Of all the ways we could compliment a child, the nicest/most important thing we can say is about their appearance! Well-meaning as it usually is, this doesn’t go unnoticed by children and even without the sleazy influence of the entertainment industry they are already being tuned to the idea that how they look is important.
You might think I'm being cruel and that by not using this type of language I will deny her a sense of happiness, but I disagree. If I can help her understand her self worth is so much greater than her appearance, I think I will help her become so much happier. And the way she makes me smile should tell her plenty about about how she looks to me anyway. I’d rather tell her I love her, or that she is brave, or clever or kind or anything else that actually matters. But I don’t want to contribute to anything that links her self-esteem to being pretty. Nor do I want to add to the continuance of society’s vacuous obsession with physical appearance. I can’t get angry when others do say things like this to my daughter. Some people can’t help it and probably haven’t considered the implications, so it would be hardly fair to do so. But I will be mindful of my own language and gently make suggestions to others that there are much more meaningful compliments they could give her.
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Dad thoughtsI haven’t had much chance to write much over the last couple of weeks. This has largely been to do with the birth of my daughter, which has had a profound impact on my life. As a corollary of this, a fair amount of my thoughts and observations may shift to the new topic of parenthood. I’m not planning on stealing from Sonia Kruger’s playbook and use the phrase, “as a parent,’ to make claims with no factual basis, but parenthood is a complex and fascinating area so I will be making a few comments about my experience of it. Archives
October 2020
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