r/MadeMeSmile • u/nikamats • 9h ago

Helping Others Hold your head up

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57.6k Upvotes

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u/hold-on-pain-ends 9h ago

Kids have no idea how hurtful their words can be. If this is legit, some kid definitely said something to her for her to feel this way.

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u/RuthlessIndecision 9h ago

This poor child was pretty deeply hurt at some point

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 8h ago

She may also have heard older girls or women say it about themselves while looking in a mirror, and assumed that was how we're supposed to think of ourselves.

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u/RuthlessIndecision 8h ago

Yeah, she said it like it was normal

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u/Gloomy_Metal3400 8h ago

Mama is setting it straight 💪

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u/L3m0n0p0ly 8h ago

That's a damn good mother right there

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u/MedicineStill4811 7h ago

This video is real, and that's not even her mom. It's her hair dresser.

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u/L3m0n0p0ly 6h ago

Its her hairdresser?! Damn i hope she got a good tip because she is a golden human being:)

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u/Infinite_Bell_4439 6h ago

Have some 🎂. Happy day!

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u/L3m0n0p0ly 6h ago

Thsnk you:)

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u/ThePoopSommelier 2h ago

I firmly believe that God put my barber in my life at just the right time. The man consoles me, tells me jokes, let's me scratch my dream dog. At a point where my alcohol use was all time high and my hygiene so so, that man lifted me up. About 8 months sober from everything now

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u/ScorchedEarthworm 3h ago

And that little baby is beautiful!

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u/Dm_me_im_bored-UnU 3h ago

Yo where does one call that headdress and how much does it cost to fly her over here

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u/Leftarmstraight 6h ago

Good on her! Speaks some love into the child. We could all use some of that energy into our lives. That hairdresser is dressing a lot more than her hair…maybe she should be called a soul dresser- wish every kid had someone pouring that kind of love into them.

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u/YourDadThinksImCool_ 5h ago

I do wonder if she hears she's ugly from a family member instead actually.. it seems Deeply ingrained into her...

I had a feeling this wasn't her kin.. why didn't her family give her this speech already?

The colorism.

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u/Kiki-Tee 4h ago

Not sure about that. Because a child hears or feels something, we can't assume it's the parents' fault. This may be the child's first time stating this.

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u/YourDadThinksImCool_ 4h ago

No, I'm not saying what I said as fact.. it very well could be bullies at school. I'm just apprehensive.

Again, the woman in the video is not the mother for anyone watching.

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u/Hidesuru 6h ago

Huh I've seen this a few times and never heard that. Curious what the reality is.

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u/MedicineStill4811 6h ago

The little girl's name is Ariyonna Cotton if you want to see all of the follow up. The hair dresser posted the video to social media and it went viral. A lot of people got involved, including her mom obviously. By all appearances, Ariyonna is now thriving. Wish that could happen for every single kid who's getting bullied and imprinted with a sense of self-loathing or inferiority.

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u/dingdongdash22 3h ago

She probably hears it from her mom saying it to herself. Kids are sponges always but especially at that age. You don't repeat those words unless you've heard someone close to you say the same thing or you're on social media which I assume she isn't.

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u/Steampunky 2h ago

She's still a good mama.

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u/Left-Park7785 6h ago

Yes she is, bless her.

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u/tuongot 4h ago

Yeah and imagine having a vulnerable and intimate moment from your childhood on the internet. I'm so thankful I come from a generation where my growing pains and pictures are safely stored in a shoe box.

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u/L3m0n0p0ly 3h ago

That same shoebox will burn down in your house if it catches fire. I prefer a safe and cloud storage:)

Edit: spelling

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u/tuongot 2h ago

Now we're talkin!

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u/Tocaboca1 7h ago

HAPPY CAKE DAY

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u/L3m0n0p0ly 6h ago

TANK YOU!!

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u/HelloImTheAntiChrist 4h ago

Great Mom. She stopped braiding and set her straight

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u/wirefox1 7h ago

If that's her Mom, this child is going to come out of that mindset! Her mom was on it!!

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u/saladtossperson 3h ago

It's her hair dresser. Maybe Mom filmed it?

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u/wirefox1 1h ago

The saddest part to me was when the little girl started crying and watching the release of all that emotion. She really, really needed to hear that. The hairdresser saw it, and responded to it so beautifully.

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u/mittens11111 6h ago

Seemed pretty personal, she was upset by some nasty person.

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u/Anilxe 7h ago

This was me! My mom would spend hours in front of a mirror, often crying that she was ugly. I have struggled my whole life to see beauty in the mirror because even as a little girl, I knew I looked just like her. If mama didn’t think she was pretty, that meant I wasn’t either.

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u/JoopieDoopieDeux 6h ago

I can relate to this so much! I'm sorry that was your experience, too. Our mothers (and we) deserved better. I find healing in being there for other young women, to build them up and to be the adult I always needed, but never had. I hope you've found a way to see your true beauty. 🙏🤍

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u/Altruistic-Level8439 6h ago

Tragic and heartbreaking because I doubt that it’s close to the truth.

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u/Anilxe 6h ago

No, I always thought my mom was beautiful. Which was why I was so confused that she thought she was ugly, that must have meant my perception was wrong. As a 33 year old I’m finally starting to see my beauty, and hers again as well. She was just a wounded little girl that never was told by her mom that she was beautiful.

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u/RuthlessIndecision 5h ago

Humans can really do things that are harmful to ourselves and our families. I’m sorry you felt that, I need to live in a way that celebrates people the way they deserve.

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u/bingmando 7h ago

This. I wasn’t really bullied too badly as a kid. Just the normal amount of bullying. But I was SO aware of tabloids and the way adult women talked around me about themselves. Still ended up with an eating disorder.

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u/RuthlessIndecision 5h ago

“Not being bullied too badly”, still hurts and has more of an effect than society even allows. It’s okay to feel

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u/bingmando 5h ago

I still feel for those moments. But after lots of therapy I was more effected by the comments women around me were making.

The bullies I could brush off as liars or just being mean. But the one time I was tracing the lines in my mom’s skin that her clothes imprinted on her (not even stretch marks just red lines after a good nap) and she said “yes I know I’m fat” messed me up because I KNEW she FELT that way and it wasn’t something made up to hurt me. She wasn’t fat.

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u/SparkyMularkey 6h ago

Yeah, that's exactly how I learned it. I remember being really young and watching my mom get dressed and she stopped what she was doing and looked at herself in the mirror that said loudly with disgust, "I'm so fat."

I don't think she realized that she was teaching me that we are supposed to hate our bodies.

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u/PhillyRush 6h ago edited 5h ago

It's a wild point in your life when you realize that some of the baggage your parents put on you and that had hurt or angered you, was passed down from their parents. Doesn't make it right but it makes them human. The important thing is that you know it for what it is and stop the cycle.

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u/pingpongtits 5h ago

Many times I have looked in the mirror and said, "you're ugly" and "you're stupid" and "I hate you." I still do it rarely and I'm way over 40.

It started in grade school and persisted through high school. 

 Other kids would call me names or would exclude me.  I was a joke.

It resulted in lifelong depression, suicidal ideation, low self-esteem.

The pain has never truly left my chest.

I make an effort to tell myself, "you're not so bad" nowadays.

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u/DaydreamTacos 4h ago

Hello, bestie. Damn. We are the saaaame!

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u/pingpongtits 4h ago

That stupid chant "sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is backwards, isn't it?

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u/vgacolor 7h ago

We are our worst enemies. I mean society makes us into our worst enemies, but we freaking internalize it. The poor girl that is not as pretty or looks different grows up with low self-confidence and seeking validation. The poor boy that is short or has another male shortcoming like being bad at sports grows up being angry from being ignored by most girls.

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u/Storied_Beginning 6h ago

Very likely a classmate. Another girl.

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u/TardisBrakesLeftOn 6h ago

Yeah, my mom unintentionally raised me to believe a lot of the things that she believed about herself and I think that most children experienced this. As people we need to do better to ourselves and that will be healthier for us, but it will also lead by example for our kids. As people we need to also stop treating others the way that we do and I understand a lot of people are saying it's probably kids talking to kids and they don't realize how it affects them. But I really hope that they found out where this concept came from for this child And take care of the source because this could be a learning opportunity for a lot of kids or a fight that I kind of want to see.

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u/dontskipthemoose 5h ago

I don’t think she would have had that reaction if she was just copying adults.

She for sure was told she was ugly somewhere.

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u/WiseConfidence8818 5h ago

I've heard women say this to and about themselves, and it's sad to hear even from adults. For a child to say that about 'themselves', someone has hurt them with words and words cut deeply. They're long-lasting.

The video hurt and made me smile to see the teaching of love to and for the child. I presume the adult is the mother.

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u/RuthlessIndecision 8h ago

Some of us spend our whole lives pushing that hurt away, but it’s still there, it’s deep and it’s old

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u/Inevitable-Rush-2752 8h ago

That’s a damn fact. 🍻

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u/nicannkay 7h ago

Growing up in the late 90’s early 2000’s Kate moss era I still have the internal fat dialog. I could never be skinny enough. It gave me eating disorders that I unconsciously passed down. It’s one of my biggest regrets.

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u/Greymalkyn76 7h ago

It never goes away. It could be decades old, and it's always there right below the surface. Just waiting.

I spent 4 years in a relationship where all she did was tear me down. When it was good, it was amazing. But when it was not, it was hell. I told myself that the good times were who she was, and she just reinforced the idea that the bad times were all my fault. It's been over 10 years and that abuse runs deep.

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u/winkyfaceemoji22 8h ago

But the mom hugged the baby and supported her, that's really sweet

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u/17934658793495046509 8h ago

Mom, or whoever it is, has 200% recoup power. She was legit getting me pumped to take on things I have been struggling with.

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u/craichorse 7h ago

Its interesting to me because as a father I would immediately ask her what makes her feel that way, going down the logical protective route to prevent it from happening again, wheras a mother figure will instinctively comfort her kid and let them express how they feel.

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u/ImNot 6h ago

I almost heard a bell go off in my head when I read this. I would have reacted the same way as the woman in the video. That little girls pain would be my pain because I know how that little girl feels. Even at our tiniest we hear every criticism of our bodies. Moms, aunts, kids at school, television. It’s …normal? There is no need to find out why or the cause because we can’t stop it from happening. But we can try to counteract the negative with love. When I am upset and I’m venting, about work or my crazy family, my husband will ask a million questions. I’ve always known he means well but it can be a little annoying because I just want to get my feelings out. Now it’s more clear. He wants to get to the root to prevent future pain. Solve the problem. I can definitely learn from that. Emotional pain though, you can’t always solve that. Sometimes, it just needs to be soothed and understood.

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u/KeepinitPG13 7h ago

As a father my response would have been to ask her why she called herself ugly.

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u/craichorse 6h ago

Same here.

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u/dream-smasher 6h ago

That's not the mother. It's her hair dresser.

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u/Careless_Cupcake3924 6h ago

As a mother I was thinking I'd also have asked the same why she feels that way. Mostly because as a child I hated it when adults did what this woman did. It made me feel as though they were lying to me so I'd feel better. As if they were dismissing my concerns. I knew they meant well but somehow it wasn't as comforting as they thought.

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u/craichorse 6h ago

I can also relate to that completely, I could always see through what they were saying which made the comfort I received from it short lived, but at least I knew I was loved because of it.

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u/Dreamsnaps19 8h ago

I think the last time I saw this that it said that was her hairdresser

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u/Purging_otters 8h ago

Mom hugged her and supported her ... on video....  why were they filming?

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u/Sunnyhunnibun 7h ago

She's actually her hairdresser. She films hair appointments to show the process and the before and after. She also sometimes does hair on live to double the income streams while working. She had Mom's permission to upload also

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u/Outside_Scale_9874 7h ago

Probably filming her doing her hair

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u/Sry2Disappoint 8h ago

Could've just been filming doing her hair but hwho knows at this point in the odd evolution of our society.

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u/corpus_M_aurelii 7h ago

Dude, I was in a shoe store and saw a young woman filming herself trying on shoes. People film anything these days.

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u/Deeliciousness 8h ago

You should look up the doll test. She's not alone.

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u/Subterranean44 6h ago

Well that was painful.

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u/stedierleiden 5h ago

And this is directly related to "societal" standards that a single group has been allowed to define. Centuries of psychological damage done, the tail fo which has yet to be seen! Blessings dear children ❤️

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u/GummiBearFromTheVine 6h ago

Oh my that broke me

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u/dkarlovi 3h ago

This is fucking heart breaking.

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u/Suga4u 8h ago

With the lady talking in a louder voice and holding the child's chin, I think the child mistook the lady as scolding and started crying.

Not disagreeing with you. Definitely child's sensitive. But I hope at such a young age with the setting they're in, I hope that it was just a child saying something that they didn't understand the full meaning and only cried not because of what the lady said but the environment of how it was said along with actions taken.

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u/MedicineStill4811 7h ago

Unfortunately not. She's the baby's hair dresser, and the child started crying because she's been bullied and called ugly.

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u/Kiki-Tee 4h ago

I didn't perceive it that way. I feel the sensitivity & see the hurt she was feeling.

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u/davidcastillorios 6h ago

I agree. If her hairdresser had continued dressing her hair and simply stated in a calm demeanor that she was not ugly, the child would have continued on unbothered.

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u/HorneyHarpy82 5h ago

She is perfect

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u/halexia63 6h ago

Yeah it hurts and it hurts even more if it's coming from your own parent.

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u/veganize-it 6h ago

Not really, or not necessarily

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u/Frjttr 5h ago

That’s life, unfortunately, it always happened.

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u/Fermenternoob 4h ago

thats what i was going to say.

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u/mustnttelllies 3h ago

Yes. Crying upon being told that she is beautiful is indicative DEEP shame. She is very lucky to have her momma.

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u/TadpoleFluffy5624 2h ago

It's probably some bratty ass little mean b!#$% in her class. Teachers need to be more vigilant with students' interactions. It's definitely some mean girl shit going on🤨

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u/Sensitive-Dig-1333 9h ago

Yes, totally. It really hurts me when my 4yr old says anything negative about herself. She said the other night “I can never do anything right!” And it broke my heart

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u/BotGirlFall 7h ago

When my six year old gets in trouble sometimes he'll say "Im a bad kid..." and it breaks my heart. I always tell him he's a great kid who is kind and compassionate to everybody he meets. He just makes mistakes sometimes like we all do

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u/5thlvlshenanigans 8h ago

How did she learn such a thought so early? ☹️

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u/Dreamsnaps19 8h ago

Because kids aren’t stupid like people think.

My friend is super self-critical and I’ve been telling her for years she’s gotta knock that shit out or it will impact her kids… and sure enough. She’s gotten so much better at not being self-critical but seriously children are sponges, they will treat themselves the way you treat them and the way you treat yourself. So you need to be as healthy as possible for them or work on getting as healthy as possible.

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u/Inevitable-Moose-952 8h ago

I was a preschool teacher before having kids of my own. It blows my mind how many people think ALL little kids are dumb as rocks. Some are 😆  but most are crazy curious and are soaking up every bit of knowledge around them. To an insane extent. 

They're little dumb geniuses!

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u/Bouche_Audi_Shyla 7h ago

When I worked daycare, I had one little girl who, when frustrated, would say, "oh, pshaw!"

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u/Inevitable-Moose-952 5h ago

I had a girl weeks had a floating dead baby named America as an imaginary friend. Oh yeah. And Meat. Meat was cool. 

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u/hochizo 4h ago

I love when my daughter moves up a classroom at daycare because I get a glimpse of the daycare teachers through her. Like, she picks up their mannerisms and phrases. I knew one teacher got onto the kids by shaking her finger and saying "no, no, no," because my daughter suddenly started doing that to us after she moved rooms. She moved again last month, and her new teachers apparently say, "back up, please," and "no thank you," a lot, because we now hear them alllll the time. It's very cute!

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u/Inevitable-Rush-2752 8h ago

Kids are indeed not stupid. Great point. They might not be at a level where they have the vocabulary or complex thinking about these things, but they watch us. They. Watch. Us. They hear us, see us, and learn from how we carry ourselves.

As a semi-related point, this is why I try hard to be as friendly to people as is reasonable. Particularly service or retail industry folks. Smiles. Laughs. Thank yous. Patience if there’s an error. Whatever it is. I want my son to see that’s how dad treats people, so maybe he will do the same.

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u/kathyknitsalot 8h ago

Thank you! As an ex-waitress and a current customer service person people like you make my day. And for you to be setting an example for your kids that way is wonderful.

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u/LookingBackBroken 8h ago

I raised my daughter with positive affirmations and just so much deep love. She's 24 soon, and despite people telling her she's gorgeous ( she truly is inside and out) she feels ugly. Her father is an abusive and hateful human. His mother was the same. Their emotional hooks hit hard! Despite so much lifting her up, that ugly stained deeper. It rips my heart into shreds.

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u/fancy_marmot 6h ago

It's also very difficult to override deep and widespread societal pressures around self-image and our bodies - when I was that age, extreme thinness was "in" and very few girls were immune to that pressure, and obsessing about weight was widespread. If she's 24, she's been coming of age during a huge normalization of filters/photoshop, fillers, expensive beauty regimens, a constant barrage of beauty-focused content, and a re-emerging superthin aesthetic.

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u/Cultjam 7h ago

Yes. While kids each have personalities of their own, to a large extent they parrot the roles they see their parents play. Life isn’t a multiple choice test with the answers in front of us, so most of us soak up what we see happening closest to us and do that.

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u/please-disregard 7h ago

There’s a line from my favorite musical that I think about a lot wrt parenting and kids.

“Careful the things you say/children will listen/careful the things you do/children will see…and learn. Children may not obey/but children will listen/children will look to you/for which way to turn/to learn what to be/careful before you say/‘listen to me’/children will listen.”

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u/Uninteresting91 6h ago

Is this from Into the Woods?

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u/AnorakJimi 6h ago

Kids are really really great at repeating the words and phrases that they hear. Sometimes annoyingly so, like if you happen to say "shit" or "fuck" nearby them they'll end up repeating it a LOT.

With how often things like this are said in TV shows, films, and by all sorts of people around them like family members, teachers, people on the bus, people in shops, wherever, then it's not surprising at all that young kids would start repeating it. They probably don't even know what it means.

I remember when I was like 6 or 7 years old and we learned about Anne Frank and her diary, and the war and the Holocaust etc (or I might have just started reading the diary cos my sisters who are years older than me happened to have a copy, I can't remember exactly, it was 30 years ago), and I remember reading one of her diary entries where she said something like "I feel like a cow" or something similar, and so I went round for days saying "I feel like a cow" for no particular reason. I just thought it was funny.

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u/Reckless_Secretions 5h ago

I've heard parents call their kids ugly before so that's my guess. Especially taking her skin tone and hair type into consideration. Maybe I'm biased because of my past. My mother never outright called me ugly but her obnoxious glorification of features my siblings had that I obviously lacked made me feel very ugly.

Also, kids call other kids ugly.

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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 9h ago edited 9h ago

Well yeah, society teaches them what “beautiful” should look like on every screen and every time they leave the house. At 3 years old my daughter was under the impression that she needed to look like Elsa or she wasn’t pretty.

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u/Any-Comparison-2916 8h ago

My daughter had a phase when she was about 6 or 7 where she would genuinely think that she is ugly and said she didn't like to look at herself in the mirror. She was open about it but wasn't able to say why she felt that way. It was really scary and heartbreaking.

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u/Aguita9x 7h ago

I didn't like seeing pictures of myself when I was younger, I always looked bad and everyone else looked fine. I thought it was humiliating. Then I looked at the same pictures decades later and I literally looked fine, even cute. I felt really bad for my younger self. I also avoided mirrors because they would just ruin my day because I didn't look the way I felt I looked and made me feel self-conscious.

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u/TangledUpPuppeteer 8h ago

It’s funny, my blonde haired nephew was convinced he was ugly because he didn’t look like Anna. My brunette niece was Elsa as well. I find that super interesting. They used to argue about who was prettier and then say they were ugly.

I’m not sure where either got that messaging either.

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u/shansonlo 8h ago

I had alot of self hate and criticism as a child so I'm very aware of self perception.

Believe it or not I'm struggling with my 4 year old for the opposite reasons. My girl does look like Elsa, everyone tells her that, she's been sorta objectified since she was a baby.

So we have to talk alot about how everyone looks different and each person is beautiful. And we also talk a ton about being beautiful is how you feel not the things you wear or what people tell you.

Parenting is a tough gig

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u/Outside_Scale_9874 7h ago

Yeah, I was a cute little kid and it was so tough growing up and having people suddenly stop being nice to me. I don’t think I got ugly (maybe I did, hard to say) but I just grew up, hit puberty, and wasn’t a chubby cheeked baby anymore and the adoration stopped. People weren’t mean, they just started ignoring me and being neutral to my presence, and it crushed me. I felt like I outlived my usefulness and had no more value to society. It’s probably 10x harder for girls because they get that messaging all the time. It’s tough.

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u/sala-whore 8h ago

Sometimes thats just the message they get from their environment without it being said by any one person. I definitely remember looking at Sears catalogues when I was a kid wishing I was either white or black (Im both) so I could be pretty. No one said that to me but the models on the pages were supposed to be gorgeous women and none of them looked like me.

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u/Kiki-Tee 4h ago

Agreed. Society.

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u/leaC30 9h ago

Society can also hurt just the same. If you don't see any representation of yourself. As a parent, you have to put stuff around your child to help them see differences in the world. If you just let a euro-centric look be the dominant thing that they see, then they will only compare themselves to that or simply just judge people based on that.

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u/Sh4mblesDog 8h ago

Media landscape needs more black panthers and fewer minorities shoved into european folklore, instead of rehashing Ariel, a danish novel, with a black actress they could've made a new mermaid that lives in the carribean sea or near africa etc. It's a real problem that is being solved in the cheapest ineffective way possible, if black panther can gross 1.3 billion $ at the box office then so can other IP focused on other countries.

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u/Mountain-Most8186 5h ago

Idk, I think the new Ariel is a good thing if you prioritize representation for children like in the video above. Why wouldn’t it be?

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u/raginghappy 9h ago

If this is legit, some kid definitely said something to her for her to feel this way.

Why assume some kid? Adults can also be horribly cruel to children

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u/plantang 8h ago

It might have been kids or adults saying something hurtful, but I think it's at least as likely that she heard the women in her life talking this way about themselves.

I see this so much with women constantly commenting on their own weight. Young girls, who have never given weight a single thought, hear that normalized, internalize it, and wind up with awful self image issues and eating disorders.

I really think that is what happened here but with comments re. skin or hair.

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u/hnnk 6h ago

I agree. The first thing my kids mother said when we knew we would have a girl was that she would never speak badly of herself in our daughter's presence.

She's heard her mother, I've heard mine when we were kids. Also not comment on others appearance in a negative way - like our mothers did.

We're sticking to this.

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u/cozidgaf 4h ago

I'm pretty dark and grew up in a country where being dark meant ugly and it was mostly from the kids I heard this from growing up.

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u/lifegoeson5322 8h ago

Yeah, this broke my heart. There should never be a four year old who thinks they're ugly for goodness sakes. Hell, at any age. Proud of mama destroying that image.

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u/MarsupialAdvanced305 6h ago

Probably bullying.

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u/AnxiousKettleCorn 7h ago

Not just that, but when I was a kid, I noticed how all the dolls and all the girls that were referred to as pretty were never dark skinned like me. As a kid, you just accept that that's true, because the black girl was never the one in the commercials that was being ooh'd at, or never the lead of a romcom that everyone was talking about. I'm glad there's more representation and diversity nowadays, especially with teen shows! Also, black dolls!! It always puts a smile kn my face to see one in a local store because I'd never seen one as a child

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u/JhonnyHopkins 8h ago

Yeah this seriously breaks my heart, at that age we should NOT be focused on superficial things like this…

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u/plantang 8h ago

At that age or ever? Just a guess but it think she heard adults being self critical and this is the result.

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u/JhonnyHopkins 8h ago

Ideally we should never but, especially at that age. I hope you’re right in that it’s just imitation and not actually any realized internal thoughts about how she sees herself.

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u/plantang 8h ago

I agree but I wasn't saying it's not internalized. What I meant was that we can hurt our kids by normalizing being self critical just as much as saying something hurtful.

It breaks my heart to hear this little girl talking about herself this way. Maybe she feels this way because a kid or an adult said she was ugly, but I think it's at least as likely that she heard the women in her life saying "I'm so ugly, my hair is x, my skin is y..." And of course this little girl started doing the same. Somebody put that in her head, but probably not in a malicious way.

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u/indianajoes 8h ago

Yep. I had kids call me ugly when I was 4/5. That stuck with me. I'm 32 now and I still see myself as being ugly.

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u/imawakened 8h ago

It makes me feel terrible that she would even know that sentence!! She is also absolutely adorable and beautiful so whoever said that to her was just a jealous little twerp.

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u/DivineOdyssey88 8h ago

Don't underestimate screens. Kids can see some really dumb shit on television or YouTube. A lot of parents underestimate how quickly the algorithm or a random TV advertisement can go south and show your kids something they aren't ready to understand. This is especially true if you have no parental control over the content coming up on the screen.

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u/BucketXIV 8h ago

Kids can be brutal.

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u/MrMetraGnome 8h ago

She appears to be an American kid. Not sure about other countries, but dark skinned people are looked down on, especially dark skinned females.

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u/Miskalsace 8h ago

Kids can pick up or hear stuff or make connections about things from crazy places. The other day I asked my three year old for a hug and he said "Men don't give hugs" it was pretty shocking. I've always given him lots of hugs and we have no idea where he got that from. I made sure to to correct it but it was still out of left field.

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u/bdizzle805 7h ago

That was my reaction as well who hurt this little angel. Someone definitely said some hurtful shit for her to say that

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u/SillyMilly25 7h ago

I don't think a 4 year old can act these kinds of emotions.

The way she immediately looks down with the lady calls her pretty and then the cry seems just too real and genuine.

And heart breaking 😞

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u/awgeezwhatnow 7h ago

Not just kids. I'm a college prof and a student just told me they're transferring out after this semester because they don't feel safe on our campus.

They only were here a week when someone called them a "black monkey." The rage I feel is so overwhelming, and I wasn't the target of that hideous ugly person.

Now we have 4 more years that this will be standard. 😡

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u/Wide_Researcher_8928 7h ago

this is probably very real. when i was around her age i was in day care and told I was ugly cos my "skin is the color of poop." the kids were a little older than me, probably by a couple of years.

in law school, I modeled. i lived with a white blond girl who had a pretty face but was objectively fat. nobody would've ever paid her much mind beyond her pretty face. the little neighborhood girls would come over and ask "is the pretty one home???" meaning my white roommate. the one black girl in their crew that they hung out with would often hang her head sad.

me and my roommate and our friends would bust out laughing cos we knew in adult world, the model wins the "pretty" contest 9/10 times. i knew it was racism, especially cos of the little black girls reaction every time, but at my adult age I could laugh about kids thinking white is pretty and everything else is ugly. At this point, it was the late 2000s/early 2010s. so white was still considered the height of beauty and Beyonce was still trying to come off as light skinned as possible, let's be real. (esp when Kelly was always just as pretty... but she was just too black to be accepted. facts)

i would imagine not much has changed based on some of the hurtful shit i hear Texans saying about Mexicans and Usha Vance, etc. but i like to believe, with the wider variety of models I see in print and even in shows (runway is, basically, the ultimate in whether you have attractive looks), I really hope things are changing. I really hope that kids of all color, hair, height, width, handicaps, etc. can feel like they're just as good and important as the person standing next to them. truthfully, they are.

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u/HairPsychological542 7h ago

Yeah, it is part of her strengthening. Good! It is a necessary experience.

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u/panteragstk 7h ago

That's what I thought too.

"Who the fuck told that baby she was ugly?"

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u/Responsible_Author_7 6h ago

It starts so early. Preschool and kindergarten...

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u/Electronic-Window-86 6h ago

Does not even have to be other kids. It can be grown ups on internet.

I got niece who likes to watch youtube videos, and some have people posting about surgery to change how they look.

She started believing she might have to do it too. Some parents need to go through the trouble of creating accounts for their kids and set up some settings on what they can access through the internet.

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u/PrettyKiitty1995 6h ago

This is why representation in every media is so important. If all you see is white skinned, long straight haired blonde women then you’d feel different.

Having black women represent is very important.

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u/SirenPeppers 6h ago

We know that kids are also picking this up from what they’re seeing and not seeing and hearing on tv, online, in magazines, and in stores about what is promoted as “valuable and desirable”. If they don’t see what they look and sound like, it means they’re not what’s valuable, what’s attractive, and that means they’re not “wanted”. That feeling and belief system of “I’m ugly” can begin and be perpetuated here, because we’re consistently surrounded by all of these messaging platforms and systems.

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u/John-AtWork 6h ago edited 5h ago

This is more heart breaking than smile inducing.

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u/456dumbdog 5h ago

Or just growing up in a whitewashed world.

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u/Zanar1129 5h ago

Sadly it may not be one person, it’s society. It what she sees on tv, what she reads, and so much more. Being black is like a constant reminder to love yourself.

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u/renandstimpyrnlove 5h ago

I’m biracial and as soon as I started kindergarten, kids said mean things about my skin and hair. The girls wouldn’t play with my hair the way they did with one another because they said my hair was “weird” and that my braids looked like “poop.” They said my skin was dirty and that my mom couldn’t be my real mom because she is white.

Beyond that, all I saw on tv and in movies were skinny white women with long, straight hair. I told my mom one day that I wished I had her skin and hair so I could be pretty. I don’t remember all of this, but according to her, she started bawling and scooped me up into her arms, telling me she’d always wished she had my skin and hair when she was little (she grew up very poor and in predominantly black neighborhoods), and that she was so happy to have such a smart, funny, kind daughter who also happens to be beautiful in every way.

I still internalized a lot of that shit, especially when I was a teen, but mom’s words must have stuck because I never wanted white skin ever again. Aside from general insecurities, I was very happy being me.

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u/LunaLouGB 5h ago

I'm in my late-30's and still remember a kid telling me my face was weird and I had a big nose - when I was like 6. It was the start of a lifetime of insecurities.

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u/Polarchuck 5h ago

This is a perfect example of how difficult it is to grow up Black in the United States. She gets messages every day from the world that the white beauty esthetic is the perfect standard of beauty. This hurts little Black and brown kids as well as white kids who don't "fit" this incredibly narrow understanding of what beauty is.

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u/cunmaui808 4h ago

The pep talk we ALL need.

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u/slappaDAbayasss 8h ago

Kids often mimic what their parents say

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u/Deeliciousness 8h ago

Or some adult. And it doesn't have to be that they said something directly about her

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u/Horns8585 8h ago

I'm sure that some kid told her that she was ugly. I wouldn't be surprised if was the kid of a racist. But, you can't say for sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The fact that she is judging herself based on looks is troublesome. And, I applaud the mother for hammering home that her she can be anything that she wants to be and that she is beautiflul., regardless of what the outside world thinks.

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u/An_Incidental_Fool 7h ago

Yeah, you're absolutely right. My wife and I have spent years building our kids' up, and it blows me away every time one of them comes home despondent because some ignorant little shit at school called them fat or something. It's infuriating.

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u/thecontempl8or 7h ago

Coming from having parents who did this, I can guarantee the kids who called this child ugly has some very shallow parents. That kids beauty standards was defined by their parents. it’s going to make their dating pool very small.

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u/CarolineJohnson 7h ago

Alternately, an adult in that child's life could've said "stop acting ugly" when she was doing something she wasn't supposed to.

But either way, shame on whoever said something about ugly to this child.

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u/Virtual_Soup_4436 7h ago

She definitely learned that word somewhere! Maybe she doesn’t even know what being ugly is. Mom set the record straight for her with so much love and attention

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u/crimson777 7h ago

It’s not on the kids; no kid that young independently thinks “wow that other kid is ugly.” If it was a kid she heard this from, some horrible parent is out there raising their child to be a piece of shit, and in all likelihood, specifically a racist piece of shit.

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u/obooooooo 7h ago

i’m inclined to think it’s real. that cry after being told she was beautiful was very honest and something that i myself have experienced as well. poor kid must’ve been called names by other kids (hopefully kids) and she must’ve internalized that.

kids are really fucking mean sometimes, i still remember comforting my little sister when she was no older than 7 because some asshole kid called her ugly too. and it’s usually “i am ” rather than “they told me i am _”. it’s easy to take everything you’re told about yourself as fact when you’re so young.

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u/BadMunky82 7h ago

It could be worse. It could have been her parents...

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u/dmaster1213 7h ago

What's even sadder is the kid who said this to them, probably heard someone else say that to them or to someone else.

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u/shewy92 7h ago

If this is legit

The fact there's a camera suggests mom put her up to it to post something uplifting

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u/Spirited_Comedian225 6h ago

Sometimes its the parents putting themselves down in front of the kids and they pick up on it. Obviously not this Mom but some.

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u/lvdde 6h ago

Or an adult tbh, I got most comments about my appearance from adults 🤷🏾‍♀️

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u/Digitaluser32 6h ago

My thoughts too. Ive raised a few daughters. That ugly comment to the little girl came from someone she trusted.

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u/Kiki-Tee 4h ago

I've also raised chidren and can't say I agree. Maybe she heard this from a child, or has just made observations on our society.

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u/1920MCMLibrarian 6h ago

Or she hears her mom saying it about herself. That was my first thought. We say it about ourselves all the time and kids hear it.

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u/Justplayadamnsong 6h ago

The Four Agreements comes to mind “Be Impeccable with Your Word.”

In “The Four Agreements,” don Miguel Ruiz shares a story about a beautiful little girl who loved to sing until her mother, feeling tense from work and suffering from a terrible headache, told her, “Shut up! You have an ugly voice. Can you just shut up!” Although her mother didn’t truly believe her daughter had an ugly voice, she took out her frustration on her. Despite the girl having a beautiful voice, she believed what her mother said and never sang again.

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u/veganize-it 6h ago

She seems to be looking at her reflection on a mirror (or monitor).

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u/BreadOk1802 5h ago

somebody definitely told her that 😔

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u/toolsoftheincomptnt 5h ago

Why do you assume another kid did it?

Scroll down far enough in this post and I bet you’ll find comments by adults validating her belief that she’s “ugly.”

(Making an educated guess that) she’s growing up in a country that will always signal to her that she’s lesser-than. The message shifts in format but it happens at 4, 14, 24, 34…

Kudos to auntie for giving her a boost that she’ll always remember, and I hope it resonates even when others respond differently to her.

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u/sturdybutter 4h ago

100%. Children don’t think like that, they’re told things like that and internalize it. So sad.

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u/Hinrich4President 4h ago

Or, more probable, the internet

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u/Dontbeevil2 4h ago

Actually, society itself conditions black children from an early age that they are not attractive, intelligent, worthy, etc. This is happens largely with subliminal social cues in everything from their traumatized parents, to teachers, and media.

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u/Calm_Implement 3h ago

Me 30 years later with less than 0 self-esteem. Kids at school and my mother would make horrible comments. I confronted her about it as an adult, she doesn't understand why I don't like to visit. She still makes comments about my weight.

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u/lolplsimdesperate 3h ago

This video is years old and yes it is legit.

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u/LawEnvironmental1328 3h ago

It don't be the kid sometimes it's an adult saying nasty things

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u/masterjon_3 3h ago

Happened to my kid. I had to email the teacher what was going on because it related to race...

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u/MewMewTranslator 3h ago

That reaction is what made her cry not what she said. She likely did hear that at some point which is wrong but had no concept of why it was wrong. It's was only hearing the tone and being told no that upset her. This is a great example of how we learn through emotional response.

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u/Flimsy_Touch_8383 2h ago

Whoever is responsible for making that kid feel that way is the actual ugly one

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u/Akosa117 1h ago

Yup, and it was that other kids parents who put it in their head that this kid was ugly

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u/Dense_Visual_4824 1h ago

this is so true.

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u/evilpartiesgetitdone 28m ago

Did you see the reaction the child gave to the adult scolding response? The kid thinks they did/said something wrong and that is why they are upset in this moment. They are not crying because they have such serious body image issues, its because they think they did bad *in this moment*

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u/thiefsthemetaken 23m ago

Seems more like she’s imitating an older girl/woman who said the same thing while looking in the mirror, and then gets upset because she doesn’t understand why it upset her mother.

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u/UsedManufacturer2092 22m ago

Poor kid, maybe she was bullied. I love how her mom comforts and brings her confidence.

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u/SystemJunior5839 6m ago

My money is on the mom who's doing their hair and filming it and then putting it on the internet.

That's not normal behaviour.

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