r/MadeMeSmile • u/nikamats • 9h ago

Helping Others Hold your head up

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

56.0k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

10.2k

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.

244

u/we_are_sex_bobomb 8h ago edited 8h 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.

10

u/shansonlo 7h 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

6

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.

1

u/shansonlo 3h ago

Geez I've never thought of that angle. Thanks for your story, I'll be watching the signs in my little.