I remember reading some articles when the girls were smaller about how not only should we not tell our daughters that they are pretty, but we shouldn’t tell them they are smart either. I think I made some crack about how in the dystopian future, in which we are all required to have perfectly neutral conversations with our kids, we’ll be saying things like “It’s morning, small human. You are neither acceptable nor unacceptable, just another human like everyone else. Have a day.” Here’s the thing: I tell my children they are beautiful because they ARE. They are just BURSTING with beauty. It radiates out of their every pore. I look at them and it’s like the first time I straight up blurted to my husband that I loved him, a full three months before he ever felt ready to say it back, because I literally couldn’t hold it in anymore.
I also think they’re smart. When they solve a problem, when they complete a puzzle, when they make a connection or comparison that surprises me, I notice how smart they are. I know that I’m supposed to focus on the efforts they’ve made, rather than the outcome, and I do try to do that, but I also tell them that they’re smart, sometimes. Because they are. The sky is blue, and these girls are smart.
Another thing they are is HILARIOUS. Claire in particular is a natural comedian, actually testing out material on us and asking “is that funny, mom?” before sharing those jokes or bits with others. I have every confidence that my small white-blond child is the next Amy Poeheler. They crack us up all the time, and when they ask, the answer to “is that funny?” is almost always yes, unless they’re just being wildly inappropriate, though I also appreciate the person who is wildly inappropriate on occasion, especially for the sake of a good laugh.
To me, the key is to make sure they know that I’m not defining or valuing them by any one thing, but because of their amazing, miraculous wholes. They are beautiful, smart, hilarious, determined, and most of all, kind, and I want them to know all of those things.
But I’ve noticed something crazy: they actually came into the world basically knowing all of that already. Their default assumption is that they are valuable and loveable, and it seems like that must be the way we start out, and then that gets chipped at by the world as we grow, and before we know it, we’re needing to hear it from others before we believe it. And so more than telling my girls what they are, I am realizing that it’s my job to protect the knowledge they already have about who they are, how fabulous, worthy, and wonderful they are.
We must be doing something right, because as Claire walked her sassy little walk through a waiting room today– her innate confidence combined with her slightly altered gait thanks to spina bifida means she sort of stomp-struts through life, curls bouncing–an older, mustachioed man looked at her and said, “You sure are pretty!” And she didn’t miss a beat, that girl, she just looked up at him and said, “um, YEAH!” “Good answer!” I said. And she kept on walking. She doesn’t need that man or anyone to tell her who she is. And she doesn’t need anyone to tell her that she’s more than just her looks– she knows it. It’s my job to help make sure it stays that way.
We didn’t just have the traditional dollhouse figures, either. There was an entire “school” set up in the “attic,” a hospital complete with surgery unit on the lower porch, a police station on the upper porch, an ambulance, and EVEN A HOT DOG STAND:
My dad, of course, loved more than anything to make us giggle and squeal. Usually this was related to telling us that the Belle, a riverboat in the town where we lived, had sunk, which was a guaranteed way to elicit squeals; or good old fashioned “tickle torture.” But when it came to the dollhouse, he had a secret weapon. Macho Man Randy Savage: 
Macho Man would regularly show up to “visit” the dollhouse and basically wreck the place, while my sister and I howled “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO MACHO MAN! NOOOOOOOOOO!” In our little minds, we could SEE this wreslter man, stomping his feet, kicking over furniture, punching the dollhouse people. My dad would just laugh an evil laugh as we tried to pull Macho Man out of his hands and push Dad away from the dollhouse. I have a feeling it was the only way this “boy” knew to play dollhouse with us. And really, we secretly loved it. We’d exact our revenge by finding Macho Man around the house and hiding him, so dad couldn’t find him and make him “come visit.” Of course, this all ended the day we “hid” Macho Man in the trash and forgot about him until after trash day. Whoops!
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