Stop telling my little girl she is so pretty!!

I have read several very powerful posts lately about telling little girls how pretty they are. I have struggled with this for a long time, as I have somehow produced one pretty little kid! With the curly orange hair and that sweet face, she is truly a showstopper! When she was a baby we would put a hat on her head before going grocery shopping so we wouldn't get stopped in every aisle by people who just wanted to complement her on her hair!

I will admit that I also catch myself more often than not telling her she is so beautiful - ALL THE TIME!!! Its hard not to! When my comments are about her appearance however, they are often in response to her wearing something less feminine/princessy - a Lightning McQueen t-shirt, or my favourite shirt of hers - a blue shirt with the cover of Charlotte's Web on it! My complements to her are more often inspired by something kind she has done or something sweet she has said or how she was able to problem solve in a given situation. AND, hearing that she is beautiful is not the only thing she hears from me in any given hour. She and I discuss our favourite books, why we have seasons, where rain comes from, what it would be like to live in space, and so many other really cool things that she comes up with! She hears regularly from my husband and I that she is smart, clever, creative...the list goes on!

I do get that when people see her at the grocery store they often jump at the opportunity to tell her how pretty she is. She hears that more in one day than she hears hello. It is shocking to say the least. I do want her to grow up feeling beautiful but being bombarded with comments on her looks right now, when she is 5, is not necessary. She knows she is a pretty girl, how? She gets told constantly! Does she think what you look like matters? YES!!! :( She talks about how she looks, says her hair looks, "ugly" today if she wakes up with bed head, she gets upset if her favourite dress is in the wash because wearing jeans is, "for boys!" despite everything my husband and I have taught her. She would dress in jeans and dinosaur t-shirts when she was a little girl. She had Buzz Lightyear running shoes and talked about being an astronaut when she grew up.

Since she became more aware of her surroundings, went to pre-school and now kindergarten, she is hearing from more people in a day how pretty she is, how cute her dresses are, how adorable her pretty clips in her hair are, how gorgeous she looks with a necklace on! Surprisingly, she is rarely asked what book she is reading, or what her favourite animal is! But she is often asked if she likes princesses and what movie or TV show does she like. We don't have cable at our house, and I'm not going to sit up on a pedestal and say that we NEVER watch TV or movies, but we try to ensure she is reading, creating, building, writing, imagining, exploring, asking questions.....we try to make sure she is doing all of these valuable things more than watching mindless stuff on TV. And when we do watch TV with her, if it is during the week, we limit TV watching to documentaries and educational programming.

I have seen a huge transformation in my daughter within the past 2 years. She has gone from wearing Star Wars and Dinosaurs to pink, frills and Hello Kitty. I have to bribe her to wear clothes that aren't filly and pink/purple and to get her to avoid princess stuff is a struggle!!

But I'm not surprised this is happening. We live in a society that puts a lot of pressure on women and teens, why would we expect marketing to be any different for little girls? Even Cinderella has had some work done to make her look MUCH younger than she ever was in the 90s and I think she has lost some weight too!

If the only attention we give little girls is when they are looking "pretty" and wearing frilly dresses and loving princess toys, we are setting them up to have body image issues for the rest of their lives. I would love it if someone would ask my daughter what her favourite dinosaur was, or what planet she liked the most. Please, if you have read this far, take this message away from this: when you see a little girl wearing a pretty pink dress, or looking extra cute, ask her about her favourite book, what her favourite sport is, or what she wants to be when she grows up. Ask yourself this question: what would you ask a little boy? And more importantly, why wouldn't you ask that same question of my little girl?

So I leave you with this last picture, of my pretty little girl digging into some BBQ Wings in her Star Wars t-shirt with daddy!