For Hesperus’s Body Basics class she has homework assignments called “Time Together.”
The teacher gives the girls questions related to their changing bodies and the girls then have to interview their moms.
The idea is for you and your daughter to talk together about an intimate subject. With your permission, the girls share your answers at the next class. During the parent orientation, the teacher explained that this homework not only helps foster intimacy between daughters and mothers but that it helps the girls open up and start talking about themselves as well.
This week the Time Together question was about definitions of beauty. My Aunt Judy, who is 65, was visiting so Hesperus decided to interview both of us.
We only had about 15 minutes before Judy’s flight back to California was going to board. The three of us sat in the row seats outside security at the airport and talked about how being thin and having blue eyes are culturally determined ideals of beauty. And how definitions of beauty vary from country to country and often change over time. In Niger, West Africa, where we lived for a year, a woman should be zoftig, the plumper the better. In Niger “You’ve lost weight” is actually an insult or expression of concern and “You’ve gained weight!” is a compliment. Zuri, my nurse practitioner friend Peter’s housekeeper who is naturally thin (and has an absolutely perfect body by American standards), actually asked Peter to prescribe her medicine to help her gain weight!
Judy and I both agreed that beauty, real beauty, comes from the inside. Judy mentioned how you can meet someone and find them unattractive but the more you get to know them the more beautiful they become. After awhile it doesn’t matter if they have a crooked nose or bad skin, you find yourself hopelessly attracted to them because they are such a good person.
The opposite can happen too: you get to know someone who you initially find beautiful only to discover they have a rotten personality. Soon their skin-deep beauty no longer appeals to you at all.
The people I find the most beautiful (besides my utterly gorgeous children!) are the ones who are kind and thoughtful and who carry themselves with confidence. People who walk with their backs straight and their shoulders back–who look like they feel comfortable in their bodies and are enjoying themselves in the world–often catch my eye.
For the record, I have a bad posture and am a horrible sloucher. The teacher asked the girls to ask their moms: “Do you think you’re beautiful?” I didn’t feel like sharing my insecurities would be the best way to answer that question–and Judy’s plane was about to leave–so instead of going into a long and painful history about my own self-image, I wrote “Sometimes I do” as my answer.
Which is true. Though I struggle with my self-image, I sometimes feel beautiful, especially when I am kind to others. Kindness gives me an endorphin rush, it makes me feel more connected to the world, and I like to think it even helps alter the tally of the universe in favor of good over evil.
Last week at dinner we were talking about my friend’s baby who is having open-heart surgery this week. We all started crying at the dinner table. Hesperus actually put her head on the table and sobbed. I saw James wipe the tears out of the corners of his eyes.
Instead of reading books we spent the rest of the evening making cards for Elie and her family. We gathered up gently used things in our house that we thought each of Elie’s siblings might like. Since they live in Maryland and we are in Oregon and I’m too far away to make them dinner, we also sent along some pasta, a can of tomatoes … and an onion.
I want to be a kinder person. I can’t erase the wrinkles on my face and it doesn’t look like I’ll be losing the baby fat on my tummy anytime soon but I think small acts of kindness are one way to be more beautiful.
What does beauty mean to you? What is your definition of a beautiful person? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
Tags: beauty, changing bodies, cultural definitions of beauty, gratitude, kindness, Niger, self-image
© 2009 Mothering Magazine
A beautiful post that reminds us all to be a little kinder. Thanks, Jennifer.
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This is an absolutely tremendous post that I want to think about and then come back to comment on. Thank you.
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This is a lovely post. I feel most beautiful when I do not look in the mirror. Confronting the reality of my physical person can make me feel crummy sometimes.
Jennifer, this was written with so much thought and emotion. In reading this it makes me realize that of course there are actions and circumstances that can make us feel more beautiful. What a lucky girl Hesperus is to have you and your aunt to share such intimate wisdom with. To me, a beautiful person is a kind, gentle and generous person who is just as concerned about the other people around her as she is about herself (or even more so.)
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“Definitions of beauty vary from country to country.” So true. My daughters grew up in France where an ideal body corresponds to the small-boned French woman often seen in French movies. My older daughter became anorexic trying to look like that idealized woman.
It’s wonderful that this teacher set her class to thinking about these things and involved the mothers. My friend Margaret Lazarus did a documentary called The Strength to Resist: The Media’s Impact on Women and Girls about how advertising imposes an image in the minds of girls only a little older than Hesperus. (http://www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org/Resist.html)
As I have grown older, I have come to realize that people who actively help others glow with an inner beauty that I aspire to now.
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That sounds like a wonderful exercise. I had some minor body image issues, but I’ve seen friends literally make themselves sick through anorexia or bullimia. You do see some eating disorders even in cultures that don’t value skinny women like ours does, so it’s not entirely a result of model worship. It’s certainly a factor, though.
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What a great class for Hesperus! And I love that she has your experience in Africa to compare American standards to.
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I think your right that acts of kindness–serving others makes you feel good and helps you see your greater potential and inner beauty.
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What a nice assignment and outcome. Reminds me of Dara Chadwick’s book … You’d Be So Pretty If.
I’ll hope the best for your friend’s baby.
I was thinking the same thing as @Roxanne about Dara Chadwick’s book. I was also thinking that the kindness you mention also can apply…to ourselves.
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Beautiful (no pun intended) post, Jennifer. I so appreciate the way you look at life and its many facets (but I believe you know that already!).
This is so true. I know that nice people are my beautiful to me than mean ones!
Lovely post, beautiful writing. Which brings me to my definition of beauty. I feel most beautiful when I am making something beautiful — art, a piece of writing, or a garden, or a meal … Likewise, when I notice other people making beauty, they are gorgeous to me!
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I love this post! So very thought provoking and inspiring. I’m going to be ruminating on this all day and it might transform the way I look at myself.
I want to say that I do picture you as a beautiful person because of the acts of kindness I’ve seen you perform, so it all rings very true to me. Great topic.
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So beautiful, and I wish all my grand daughters (especially the Playboy model!) had such a course. Matter of fact, I wish I had had such a course when I was a young girl with a very poor opinion of myself.
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i loved this post, jennifer, thank you. i think that you’re on to something. i feel more beautiful as i get older, because i pay more attention to other people and to the world around me.
loved this post. i wonder how many of us do consider ourselves beautiful. gg’s only 11, and i already sense lots of insecurities in him. acts of kindness… yes, i should try to remember this every day.
Jennifer, you *are* beautiful, inside and out. As much as you don’t want to burden H. with any self-criticism you may have, it’s probably good for her to see that even her own brilliant and gorgeous mom has moments of doubt — and that you get past those moments.
I just wiped some tears away, myself. The deep compassion at your dinner table and thoughtfulness for the rest of your evening is ‘real” beauty in my beholder’s eyes. I recently heard this topic referred to as substance versus form. It’s not the outline, but, what’s within the lines that counts.
I actually just tuned in to Oprah, today, and her whole segment was about just this, in a way. So much emphasis on appearance has occurred that, outside of the grotesque altering of features that is so prevalent, today, many Chinese women are having their excess eye hooding removed and worse, people are having their legs broken so bone can be added to make them taller!! You will probably be saddened to hear that Oprah interviewed a woman in Africa who said the old desirable plumpness is being replaced by a new trend to be thinner, there. My own sister had her “second chin” removed. I guess it is technically correct, but, I felt a huge loss when I saw her, as if the real her was gone forever.
I, myself, was a fashion model for awhile and it left me feeling completely empty after a hard days work. I also never trusted that anyone liked me for me, who I am, as opposed to who I was made up to look like.
I have had many people comment on how beautiful my daughter-in-law is. I agree. She is someone whose skin glows and hair shines and eyes sparkle and teeth gleam probably from a natural,healthy lifestyle, but, more probably from a spirit of love and kindness and caring about others that radiates from within her. My son has exquisite taste in people, so, I am not surprised.
Hooray for Body Basics and Hesperus. What a wonderful way for a young girl to start out in life. Loving and knowing her own body. Self knowledge such as this can only nurture the confidence that you mentioned is so attracting for all the right reasons.
And, last, there is nothing more beautiful to me than a very old woman who has earned and proudly saved everyone of her wrinkles.
Thanks Jennifer-this was the best blog ever!
It is wonderful to see you focusing on the inner beauty. Outer beauty comes and goes with mood, with time and with varying amounts of luck. But we have more control over our own inner beauty.
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What an inspired teacher, your daughter is fortunate to have her. And I loved your musings on beauty as well.
I’ve always thought that if you love someone then they’re beautiful to you, even if their physical appearance doesn’t conform to conventional standards of beauty in your culture.
Does that make sense? It’s like their outward imperfections diminish and their inner beauty shines through.
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