Tuesday was school picture day, and as I have written before, my children's appearance recieves a level of attention never heard of in my day. This year was no different than the last, with Little Man waking with terrible rooster-head and #2 picking out some weird outfit combo. But the big difference? My oldest and I had our first fight over the issue of appearance. I never thought this would happen.
When I gave birth to the first of my two girls, I started out with all the information I needed to raise a healthy woman courtesy of Free to Be You and Me, Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth and a lot of Wonder Woman. I was never going to let her think her appearance was important. It's what's on the inside that matters. Fast forward eight years and I am standing in the kitchen gesticulating wildly with a hairbrush, telling my oldest there is no way in hell she's wearing her hair down and with a middle part for school pictures. In my defense, she looks really, really awful with her hair parted in the middle. Right now her face is too big for the equally awful, purple, Hannah Montana eyeglasses I let her choose last year, and her teeth are a little too big for her mouth. Save the hate mail, she is still beautiful to me, and I think, to other people who didn't labor for sixteen hours to give birth to her, but she is definitely going through her first awkward phase. So letting her brush her beautiful hair flat against either side of her head, when moving the part just an inch to the left sets off her eyes so nicely and you can see all the highlights still in it from the summer, was not going to help.
And now I sound like a pageant mom.
So what is a mother to do? My own mother and I never argued about hair, or makeup, or fashion. She was not at all confident in that department herself , so she just let me do my own thing, and I have the truly awful school photos as evidence of how well that went*. It's so cliched, thinking about a mother claiming she knows what looks best on her daughter while said offspring rolls her eyes. Not that mine did that. I'd smack them right out of her head.
Two days later, still wondering if I did the right thing, strong-arming her into wearing her hair my way, we went shopping for new glasses to replace the riduculous ones she has now, and I was faced with another such dilemma. After trying on thirty pairs pretty similar to the ones she has, #1 puts on a pair of wireless glasses with tiny flowers on the arm and it was if the light of heaven shone down on her face and there was a halo of bluebirds flying around her head. Even the ophthalmologist said, "Oh my." And what did my eldest do? Shrugged her shoulders and took them off!!! For the next ten minutes, I begged, cajoled and almost bribed her, into selecting those frames. I even had the eye doctor in cahoots, having him tell her the putrid Wizards of Waverly Place glasses she was contemplating were too small for her. Finally, after trying on every other pair in the place she said, "I like those." Whew.
I am worried dear readers. I am worried about a morning a few years down the road when #1 comes downstairs, dressed for school, in some outfit so indescribably awful I think she's joking. While inappropriateness will not be tolerated, what does a mother do about terrible fashion sense? I know, I know. I have to let her do her own thing and make her own mistakes, but having made some major ones myself (stirrup pants come to mind), I die knowing all the trouble I could save her.
But that, I suppose is parenting. You have to hope they have learned enough from you to make good choices (with how seldom she sees my hair down, I think I have shorted her on this lesson), and other than stopping them from when they are truly about to do damage to themselves (she will never wear stirrup pants), let them make their own decisions and let them suffer the consequences. I will take the lessons from this week and bite my tongue until it's practically severed. It's her choice what she wears - even if it looks like she was blind when she put it on.
I draw the line at bad shoes though. I have my standards.
*I'd share with you, but the scanner is broken. 1989? Rugby shirt with popped-collar and hoop earrings. Middle part.
2 comments:
Despite the rugby shirt incident, look how gorgeous you are now and what fabulous fashion sense you have! You know your girls will have that too one day. And nothing is more fun than blaming your mom, years later, for letting you look like THAT. And for the love of Pete, NEVER let them wear stirrup pants!! ;)
Remember it's a phase. My daughter now 21 went 2 years of middle school wearing boys clothes. I was ok with it, the frustrating part was that I had already given away her 3 year older brothers outgrown clothes. She got past it. The only time I remember arguing over appropriate clothes was high school graduation and she won that one, walking down the isle in flip flops. She is a well adjusted young woman who even has a few pair of stilettos. Looking back at photos we have one of her is glasses so big they cover half her face(early 90s), what was I thinking!
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