he other week, my four-year-old daughter and I were going to her swimming lessons, when a man came up to us in the gym and exclaimed: “What pretty girls!” “Mama, what did he say?” my daughter asked, her strawberry blonde hair falling in her face. “He said he likes your hat,” I lied. I didn’t want her to know how he was looking at us, how his assessing gaze had combed over our features and found them satisfying.
I didn’t want her to feel proud of that label: pretty. My daughter has already begun receiving compliments from strangers on her blue eyes and big smile. Despite the fact that I adore her face beyond words, it does make me mildly uncomfortable to hear these things from people in passing.
When I was a child, I thought being pretty was an important currency, one that could be potentially traded for power, money, or happiness. I was told I had some; I wanted more. My mother helped, taking me to a salon at age 12 to get my hair highlighted, buying me fashionable clothes, encouraging me to take perfect care of my nails and skin, like she did.
I don’t blame my mother for raising me how she did, though at times I do feel resentful of how much the word “pretty” has ruled my life—how thoroughly her declarations of my attractiveness shaped my self-conception; how powerless I felt when I thought I was “not pretty enough.” To be pretty is a privilege; we’ve all come to realize that. But it’s also a liability.
It arrives on one's doorstep, a neat pac.
