An Adorable Beautiful Child

Here's a quick post for today. The other day, my brother told me that our mother said my daughter is funny-looking. Can you follow that? My mother thinks her adorable, beautiful four-year-old granddaughter is funny-looking. I had wondered why I felt so passionate about the subject of self-esteem, and why it kicked into gear so strongly when I had a daughter of my own (after three boys), and now I know the answer. I am the adult child of a critical parent, and I am scared silly to think that my daughter may feel the same insecurities growing up that I felt as a child (and still grapple with as a forty-something adult). First of all, who says things like that? That's just not normal! It's not really normal even to think such things, but to actually come out and say it is just plain nuts! A 75-year-old woman thinks her granddaughter - her own flesh and blood - is funny-looking. As a child, it's hard to separate your own feelings of self-worth with what your mentors, especially your mother, tells you. If your mother tells you you are fat or dumb, in whatever words she may use, you believe it wholeheartedly. As an adult, I can now see more objectively that my mother is putting her own insecurities on me and my daughter. Now I can see that she is nuts, not me. It's actually very complicated, and I now have learned to have empathy for my mother because clearly she suffers more than I do with issues of self-esteem and confidence. And her issues surely stemmed from her own mother...and so on and so on. It's time to break the cycle!