My middle child was looking at herself in the mirror. She had just gotten out of the shower and was wrapped in a towel. She was squeezing her face and smiling, saying “Look at my chubby cheeks!” She then told me about a friend at school who also has chubby cheeks, and that she told this friend her cheeks were chubby.
I suggested we not tell people they have chubby cheeks, that it wasn’t kind to say that. Her little face fell, her brows crinkled and she asked me, “Why not? She likes it. They are cute!” It hadn’t occurred to her 5 year old mind, that chubby could be an insult. She meant it fully as a compliment.
I don’t know how I should have handled it, but gave her a big ol’ smile and I told her I love her chubby cheeks and we changed the subject. It is true; I love them and think she is adorable. My comment about not mentioning chubby could have easily been a turning point for her self image.
She knows her cheeks are chubby. At that moment, she loved them completely. What if I had said, “Well no one wants to be called chubby.”? What if I changed her definition of chubby from “cute” to “ugly”? An off-handed remark, meant to ensure she didn’t hurt someone else’s feelings, could have the power to change her self image.
I know because I remember the first time someone I loved, and whose opinion mattered to me, told me my calves were huge. I knew it was not a compliment by the shock and disgust on his face. I have worn pants, almost exclusively, since 6th grade. When I look at my claves, all I see is how huge they are.
My little girl at this point, decided to drop her towel and “super zoom” around the room, because “it makes me dry off really fast”. My sweet little girl who was and is a chunky little baby, runs around in her birthday suit and loves to look at her own reflection in the mirror. She just knows she is perfect the way she is.
Her teeth are crooked because she only has 9 teeth on top, one just never came in. When she smiles at herself, she tells me she loves her gap. I’ve told her since we discovered the abnormally, about how her uncle has a large gap between his front teeth, and he loves his gap. She likes to brush her hair and put bows in it, all the while she makes faces and smiles at herself, lovingly.
All of my girls are like that. They love themselves, their bodies and their faces. How do I protect their self esteem? Will it be enough that I love them and believe they are perfect as they are? How do I keep them believing it, in a world full of so many filters and tricks that no one even knows what their own face and body really looks like? How do I raise them to be confident and to own who they are?
The Difference A Year Can Make 