Married Life: Compliment your children, but don’t forget about yourself

I spent a lot of time last week dwelling on the importance of telling my daughter she is beautiful. I’ve had long discussions with Mr T explaining to him why it’s so important, for the purposes of self-esteem, for Baby A to constantly receive positive affirmations from us. I used this very space, just a week ago, to outline my reasons for disagreeing with the viral campaigns that have been spreading a message I find illogical: telling a young girl she’s pretty causes more harm than good.

Then, just a few days ago, I took Baby A with me to the hair salon. I finally found a few hours’ respite so I could dye the premature grey that has eaten away at my self-esteem, slowly but surely, for the past decade. While there, Baby A did us all a favour and napped in her stroller.

She woke up just as my hairdresser was putting the finishing touches to hair that looked nothing like my usual catastrophe. And the first thing she said was, “Wow, Mama! Hair preeeeetty! Alana touch?”

The first time my daughter told me I was pretty, it was like a punch to the stomach. I was wearing a dress, after having spent what felt like months in old yoga trousers. She caressed my dress and cocked her head to the side and said: “Pretty, Mama.”

My usual reaction to a compliment is to ask: “Are you sure I look OK? Don’t I look fat?”

But I couldn’t do that in the face of my daughter’s loving worship.

I couldn’t let her see me curl my lips in displeasure at my reflection every time I was faced with a mirror.

Instead, when she tells me I’m pretty, I hug her and say: “Thank you”.

And, just a few days ago, when she woke up from her nap to see my changed hair and the pleased expression I had on my face because I had taken a little bit of time in the day to care for my appearance, when she guilelessly told me I was pretty, I realised that it wasn’t enough for me to tell my daughter she’s beautiful.

I had to tell her that I thought I was beautiful, as well, and I had to make sure she was hearing me and seeing me love myself.

It’s easy to tell her she’s beautiful. It’s so much more difficult to tell myself – and her – that I am beautiful. I am tired and exhausted. I have scars. My skin sags. I am mired down in these ugly criticisms of myself and, as she grows, this is what she will think becoming a woman is about.

And then one day, she will look at herself in the mirror and no matter how much I’ve told her she’s beautiful, she will instead see herself as ugly, because her mother did the same. She will hate her hair, like her mother did, and hate her tummy, like her mother did. I can’t let that happen.

Instead, I agree with her that Mama is pretty, and she giggles in delight that I believe it, that I believe her. She doesn’t doubt my beauty, so why should I?

It’s one of the hardest things I have ever had to do as a girl, as a woman, as a mother – but telling myself I am beautiful has to happen. I will ease into it by seeing myself through my daughter’s eyes. I owe her that much.

Hala Khalaf is a freelance journalist living in Abu Dhabi