The importance of being pretty #1
We all remember the days when our mothers would kiss us, as well as embrace us and afterwards tell us how we were the prettiest girl in the world. We all remember the birthday parties or the days when we were bullied and our mothers would comfort us and call us her pretty little princess. I believe most women when they were young girls loved considering themselves pretty and adored the idea of being a princess. I loved it, my friends loved it.
Of course as you get older your priorities change and some want to follow the standards of the world in what pretty means and a part don’t care. I was former. It wasn’t that I liked dolling myself up like the other girls did or that maybe I did it in my own way. No, I just didn’t like or more didn’t care about beauty. I was a little kid, I wasn’t even considered as having started puberty, all I thought about all day was playing outside with my friends, watching cartoons on TV, playing with dolls (we didn’t have a computer back then). That might have been the starting point of my personal experience with the word pretty.
I have to admit I was a tomboyish girl. A part of us women today were. If we admit or not, we know that back then we weren’t the standard of girls. We preferred playing with boys; we hanged out with them more. I had more to talk with them back then than girls, a miracle since today, apart from a selected few, I am very much tongue tied when it comes to guys. Now the topic of men is the bane of my existence. I admire handsome men, I admire even more so the ones that can actually make me laugh and feel at ease around them and they are very few and far between. The real bane of my existence is the fact that I am shy and I hate it. I would gladly take a bazooka and shoot it all to hell if I could. Aaah, the possibilities.
The reason I was a tomboy can be related to my mother. Each mom loved dolling their little girls up. Treasured it! Although it was just putting your hair up in pig tails for the day or making you wear a dress, they always made you conscious in one way or another that you were female. Nobody understood that fact in dept, the idea that a female played with dolls, wore skirts and everything similar was the most we were aware of.
The topic of reproducing and sex and anything else had nothing to do with it, we weren’t conscious of those facts at the time. Kids, male and female alike believe until a certain age that babies come from cabbages – Oh Momotaro where art’ the – or that the stork brings them. About a month ago I saw a video posted by Nigahiga related a bit to this topic (it was more about censorship, anyway). Nuf to say that the kid believed that he was part stork and fell to his death while trying to fly, pretty gruesome.
My mom had other methods of dolling me up and that included a barber that would cut every bit of hair that was longer than about 3 inches. I was scared for life every time my mom would do that. I would tell the lady that cut my hair to cut just half an inch of it and my mother would always make gestures behind my back to cut more, like almost all my hair. YES MOM, I WAS AWARE OF IT! I now know my mom’s reason for the boy cuts faze. It was so when I grow older and let my hair grow out, it would grow tick and when I say tick I really mean it. I should thank her in a way since now I am shedding fur like a dog all over the house, it’s like we have 3 dogs in shedding season, but whenever I look in the mirror, it’s still good. Unlike some girls my age I still have a good mass of hair and hope it keeps going that way for years to come.
Fact is, pretty is imprinted in our brains since the time when we are kids. How we should look, how we should act, the seven years at home, but the notion starts getting warp for we must admit, being pretty today doesn’t mean the same thing it did 100 years ago or 50 years ago. It’s influenced by stuff all around us: drugs, eating, cosmetic surgery, models, fashion. Being a girl, being a woman I believe means being yourself and not following what anyone else says. You are pretty just the way you are, fat short, skinny, doesn’t matter. Important is: Love thy self and you would forever be happy. At least that is what I believe in.
