Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Daddy Fob vs. S-Boogie's Self Image

This picture doesn't have much to do with what I'm going to talk about; I just like it. S-Boog got into the living room closet today and accesorized herself.

Today I was reading in my students' textbook, in the section on image analysis, about cultural readings of advertisements. The text uses the example of a couple studies that have been done on the portrayal of women in advertising, ranging from a 1924 Hoover ad that encourages husbands to buy their wives a vacuum for Christmas to a more recent AT&T Corporate Calling Card ad that shows a businesswomen doing Important Things on the phone. The textbook suggests that I bring ads with women in them to class so that I can have my male students pose like the women are posing and see if they look ridiculous. I'll pass, but it is a good point--despite all the advances women have made over the last century, they still are often valued more for their sexual appeal than for any other quality.

This makes me worry about S-Boogie. I tell her rather frequently that she looks pretty, to the point where now after I put her hair in pigtails she'll run to Foxy J and say, "I look pretty." I do this because: it is a matter of fact that S-Boogie is a beautiful toddler; I see her frequently; I therefore notice frequently that she is a beautiful toddler; when I notice my first impulse is to tell her. On the one hand, I think this might be a good thing because I seem to have read somewhere once that girls' perception of themselves is highly influenced by their fathers, and I would like S-Boogie to grow up knowing that she is a beautiful person, even if twenty years from now she's overweight or plagued by horrible acne or hunchbacked. On the other hand, I fear this is a bad thing because I read somewhere once that girls' perception of themselves is highly influenced by their fathers, and I don't want S-Boogie to grow up believing that her worth is dependent upon her appearance, especially when twenty years from now she is overweight or plagued by horrible acne or hunchbacked.

My hope is that I'll balance out the negative impact of telling her how pretty she is by telling her with equal frequency how smart she is. I do this because: it is a matter of fact that S-Boogie is one of the most intelligent two-and-a-half-year-olds ever; I see her frequently; I therefore notice frequently that she is an intelligent toddler; when I notice my first impulse is to tell her. I think this is a good thing. I'm sure I'll regret it, though, ten years from now when my emphasis on her intelligence produces enough anxiety to cause her to not come home for three days when she gets a B on her report card.

Sigh. I'm not sure I like having the future of a human being to mold like putty in my hands.

7 comments:

  1. Yeah, you should be more careful. You've already ruined my self-esteem.

    Or maybe that was the media. I keep getting the two of you mixed up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. .

    There's a difference?

    And hey--what's wrong with putty?

    ReplyDelete
  3. It doesn't really matter what you do, your children will blame you for their negative traits and not give you the credit for the good ones for many many years.

    (LIE: it DOES matter what you do, and you're doing many wonderful things from my observations.)

    But really, your parenting can only be truly evaluated when your child becomes a parent and you watch them and see your good things reflected in what they do with their kids. It's hard to be a parent, because after all, you are still a growing and changing person yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think maybe you've missed something here and that's causing you to worry.

    Think about WHY you think she's cute/pretty/beautiful. (She is!) But it's not all just her looks. It's her personality, too. It's the total of who she is that makes her so cute/pretty/beautiful. And through the years she'll pick that up from you - that when you look at her, you're seeing the total person. (And if she doesn't, I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to set her straight.)

    So I wouldn't worry, because when you think about it, that IS the basis of the problem - the commercialization of just ONE aspect of a woman's beauty - ignoring that she's a WHOLE PERSON.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I might add somthing similar, as for her being smart: as she learns from you that she IS, indeed, smart, she'll also learn from you that she's smart enough to know that getting all "A's" isn't that important; smart enough to know that there's other kinds of 'smart' besides being academically smart.

    Don't worry; you're doing a good job.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm going to step outside all of my cyncial defense mechanisms to suggest that you're a fobulous father, because you love S-Boogie, and she can tell.

    But bad job with Tolkers. I've kept wondering why he's so messed up.

    ReplyDelete
  7. An interesting book by a local Provoian called "Confronting the myth of self esteem" (the book, not the Provoian), posits that telling each other we're wonderful creates wonderfulness as a criterion for being loved. Rather, it suggests that we simply tell people we love them unconditionally, regardless of whether or not they're being particularly wonderful. (I don't fully buy the book's argument, but I do think the idea is at least partially worth following)

    ReplyDelete