Pretty Like Mommy

A friend posted the link to her Facebook feed yesterday: Gymboree: Harmful Gender Stereotypes Don't Belong on Clothing! so of course, I clicked over to see what the latest Internet outrage might be .... and discovered onesies.

And I thought, Well, my daughter didn't have that problem.

When she was little, the Girl was astonishingly beautiful. I'm not just saying this as her mother, although I spent many, many hours puzzling over how on Earth such an ethereal creature could come to live with me - I'm judging by the reactions of the rest of the world.

Porcelain skin, red-gold corkscrews, deep blue eyes ... the kind of gorgeous you see on film. In movies. In magazines.

Not like me.

People would turn and gape and watch her walk by at the grocery store, the playground, Target. They would stop me and say, She is so beautiful. Most of the time they would look at me - grown up tomboy in chinos and man-style oxfords - puzzled and walk away.

Sometimes women would stand a little longer and add, Aren't you worried someone is going to steal her from you?  The answer was generally no but I watched those ladies more carefully since they evidently had thought of it.

At the Farmer's Market, fruit vendors would run after us as we passed, calling out to me, Ma'am, ma'am, here's the most perfect [peach, apple, strawberry] for your little girl, let me give it to her - she's so beautiful. Small toys, candy, innumerable little gifts, were pressed into her tiny hands, always accompanied by those three words.This happened so consistently that I began to worry about her taking it all too seriously, that she would focus more on her appearance than her intelligence.

Not like me.

In first grade things started to change. The ringlets straightened out, becoming a graceful curve at the ends of mostly straight brown hair. She decided she was more of a tomboy than a girly-girl, more interested in climbing and sweat pants than dancing and skirts, that she hated pink and purple and really liked green. These days, people don't stop and stare, don't give her things, don't tell me constantly She's so beautiful. 


Not because she isn't beautiful.

She is.

But in a more quiet way of intense blue eyes peering from under over-long bangs.

More like me.