That's My Daughter...

My daughter Caitlyn is nearly eight years old, and she is a beautiful creature.
She is beautiful in the ways that little girls often are: naturally, without the self-conscious attention to appearance that becomes necessary (so we think) as the years pass on.  She is beautiful to me because she's my daughter; I have been conditioned by nature to treasure her and protect her and think she is a jewel in the universe.  She is beautiful because she's thoughtful, sensitive, intelligent and often hilarious.
She defines beauty using the rather insufficient word, "pretty," because she's only seven, but she reads a lot, her vocabulary is going to increase rather quickly.
When I left to walk the dog this morning she was the only one up and moving, and I know that she would just as soon stay curled up in her pajamas reading her Judy B. book, but I also know that she will generally take any chance she can get to have one on one time with Mom or Dad, so she quickly got dressed and came with me.  As we walked around the lake, she talked constantly, about the 4th of July, about her friends, about Zeke (the dog), about how pretty the woods were.  Because of that whole jewel in the universe thing that I have, I don't mind her babbling on about things, in fact, I rather enjoy it.  But every once in a while, because of the thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive kind of beauty that she has, she comes up with something that stops you in your tracks.
At about the halfway point around the lake, she suddenly asks: "why doesn't Mom think she's pretty sometimes?"
I knew exactly what she was talking about; Michele is a pretty standard adult female when it comes to her appearance, meaning she has issues with how she looks.  Caitlyn and I both agree that Mom is beautiful all the time, but what the little girl wonders is why her mother doesn't always think so.  I wasn't about to go into the rather complicated development of self image, even with my precocious seven-year old, but it did get me thinking, rather quickly, about what I needed to say to my daughter, right then and there.
See, I suspect that Cate will always be pretty.  It's hard to tell before the trauma of adolescence sets in and nature starts messing around with your skin and your metabolism via all sorts of nasty hormones, but I think that she's going to weather the storm pretty well.  What worries me is that pretty comes with a cost.  Pretty attracts the wrong kind of attention, pretty can be an obsession.
I was stammering through some sort of very pastoral, fatherly sounding advice about how looks aren't everything, and people needing to understand that what they look like doesn't give them their value, when Cate says: "Dad, I know it's what's on the inside that make you beautiful."  She didn't use the kid word "pretty" that time, and I realized that I needed to stop talking so much and listen to what she had to say.
She had been babbling about everything under the sun for 20 minutes, until she brought up that thing about Michele not thinking she was pretty all the time.  Then I launched into my advice giving, and trying to bolster her self esteem, because I'm terrified that the self-esteem issues that are absolutely tragic in American girls and women are going to afflict her.  I always try to tell her she's pretty (and beautiful) whenever it seems appropriate, but that wasn't what she was fishing for this morning.
She was telling me that she knew that inner beauty was much more important than being pretty.  She has internalized the message that she's pretty, but she's paying more attention now to being kind and generous and a good friend and not thinking too much of what's on the outside.
I realized that the best thing I can do as her father, to protect my little jewel in the universe, is to keep her on that track.  Because no matter how many times I tell her she looks good, she's never really going to believe me unless she understands that I respect and notice the beauty of her soul.  I thought of all the times I made a fuss about her in a fancy dress, and was hoping that I have told her she's funny, smart, gentle, kind, and loving at least an equal amount.  I know that's what I'm going to try to do in the future.