A Daughter in My Own Image

Her.Meneutics ran a recent post on the frilly princess culture in which our little girls are growing up.  It postulates that many seemingly innocent products and influences actually reinforce an obsession with appearance.  Sharon Hodde Miller writes, “Princess parties, toddler makeup lines and manicures seem harmless enough, and…they are — in a vacuum. It’s the totality of these products and messages that form an inescapable current that, by the time you awaken to it, you are nearly powerless to swim against.”  She goes on, aptly, to point out that the theme continues in adult Christian literature that lately emphasizes our status as daughters of the King more than it does our status as His servants.

This came on the tail of another article in which the blogger discussed make-up as a false source of confidence and recommended the terrifying experience of going out in public bare-faced.  Together, I take the makeup and the girly glitter as combined issues not only in womanhood, but in parenthood.

Whatever efforts I make to emphasize inward beauty to my daughters, or to steer them away from kindergarten pedicure parties, they will learn the most from what priorities they see me embody.  If I am a woman who cannot step out of doors with her hair un-coiffed and face unpainted, this is a spiritual issue, but it is also a parenting one.  I am showing my girls that appearance ranks high, whatever I say.

I knew a girl whose live-in boyfriend had never seen her without eye-liner.  At the time, in college, I wore little makeup because I was a jock, and frankly, lazy.  I found this girl’s situation both sad and horrifying.  The next year, I began to work as a waitress and wore mascara to work every night.  Soon, as I was spending more waking hours at work than not, I began to dislike the look of my face without mascara and found myself wearing it to class each morning, too.  So I drew a line: no official rules, but I wouldn’t wear makeup enough that I got too used to it.  Church, dates, sometimes just for fun.  But never enough to make me conflate my femininity with my eyelash length.

Now that I have kids, I find that these lines are more important than ever.  Although we are sweatpants-around-the-house people, I like us all to look clean, cute and coordinated when we go out.  Songbird knows I will force us all into something presentable and probably drag a brush over her head before we get in the car.  But because she sees that the proportion of time and energy spent on hair, makeup, and outfits is relatively small, I hope she's learning perspective along the way.  And when I DO spend time painting my nails, I don’t worry if she wants hers done too, because she’s learning to enjoy girly frills in a healthy way. 

I still have those mornings where I’ve tried on everything in the closet, where a flat iron and lip gloss seem to solve all life’s problems.  But on a busy Tuesday, that I would rather go to Bible Study in my workout clothes than miss altogether is a louder message to my daughter than any Disney-channel line.  It is easy for me to tell my girls they’re beautiful just as they are, but when they see me working daily to keep MY perspective, they’ll know I mean it as more than a cliché.