Pretty Girl .... A Rant

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I have heard this as well.

Kids don't want to be called clever, they want to be called pretty. Of course this will change, but being a pretty funny looking kid, I would have traded all the brains in the world to be pretty.

It seems pretty harmless to me, why can't she be called both?

I was a sorta exceptionally ugly and akward child. I was overweight...had a ragged haircut..big teeth....very bad taste in glasses..(which before feather weight prism lenses made one eye look alot bigger than the other)...a tendancy to dress like a boy....

my sister was the cute one...my cousin was the tall athletic red-headed beauty...My cousins on my dad's side were all tall and blonde....(one of them did get pretty heavy though)

Instead on getting constantly told I was pretty, I was constantly being picked on and humiliated by my maternal grandmother because of my weight. I guess she was trying to pressure me into losing weight...but it did do a number on my self-esteem....

I despised that "pretty girl" schtick when it was directed towards me. When I was little, I was a very ugly kid, and I knew it. Quite frankly, anyone who wasn't blinder than a bat knew it, too.

It was bad enough that I was a fat-faced, ugly-assed little munchkin. Did they have to insult my intelligence too, by pretending I was too stupid to notice that my appearance was hopelessly subpar when compared to my peers?

We tell our daughter how beautiful and smart she is! Of course, she is not very modest. I wonder why?

i will have to warn you up front that i am probably biased against women, and that most of them seem unbearably silly to me. [the worst is when i start to act like them.]

this is an interesting question. i've been thinking a lot lately about the role societal validation plays in the development of women and girls. it's obvious that an inordinate number of girls and women place all their self-worth on other peoples' opinions of their looks, rather than their creativity, intelligence, or talent. i think that there is an unhealthy expectation placed on females to be "attractive", "ladylike", etc., at the expense of the development of their other potentials. on the other hand, i see nothing wrong with telling a girl that she is pretty, if the person doing the telling honestly thinks that she is pretty.

on a tangent, while i am not a fan of flattery in any form, it would be nice if our standards of beauty could be broadened to include greater variety.

I always call Rose a pretty baby. She is. ^_^ But I hope this will help her self-esteme as she gets older. When she gets old enough I'll explain that beauty isn't what's on the outside, right now she doesn't understand English. ^_^

I also say she's a smart baby, and a strong baby.

Regardless of sex, the "latest parenting and teaching advice" (roll your eyes if you wish since these things change from decade to decade) is not to praise inherent intelligence but to praise effort when a child works at something they do not immediately find easy to do. Also, figure out ways to praise strategies and specific approaches.

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

"Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it."
"...a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further...."

This all has a ring of truth to me. I have generally had problems working through things (intellectually) that are tough for me. Except for watching a parent overcome physical handicaps, I don't recall observing that kind of perseverance or being praised for any perseverance. If I quit things as a child or teenager, no one discussed with me why I might want to stick it out instead. That has had its ramifications in my adult college and working life at times I believe.

As far as looks go - I can imagine ways of doing specific positive praise in that realm also, as superficial as it is. If a child is ugly and you know it and he/she knows it, why lie? they'll know if you're not sincere.

Why not praise effort there? "Suzie, you picked out a sweater that really brings out your eyes. It's an attractive color for you." I don't know exactly, I personally got sick of being told how pretty my hair was and I finally just cut it supershort and straightened and colored it to be totally different. People treated me differently then too I noticed...

I would also be annoyed if I kept hearing someone praise a girl "you're so pretty" all the time without praising other qualities she might have.

Taking a small amount of pride in how one looks is at least somewhat necessary in the working world. Better looking people get paid more. Knowing how to best present what you've got is apparently valuable unless you are SUCH a genius that people are willing to forgive you of perceived eccentricities of how you dress or present yourself to the world. but just being told your pretty I don't think is truly helpful, it's about effort there too.

I only heard I was pretty from the boys...but never from anyone in my family at all. My dad did have a friend who always told me that I was going to marry his son...He always called me his daughter-in-law...Never did say I was pretty, but did call me that. Interestingly enough, when he met my current husband he took me aside, yes my parents and my husband were there, and told me... "I can't believe you're hooking up with that...Why don't you hook up with me, we'll move to the Dominican Republic or somewhere that people don't know you and you can have ALL my money"...HOLLY COW! No, this is my dad's best friend, and I have never told ANYONE...if my dad or husband found out, they'd flip....Although my dad does know he's a lady's man...he'd kick his behind!

Anyway, my mother I remember when people on the street would say something like "your girls are so pretty (we were petite, blonde, blue eyes in Puerto Rico)" her reply was always "I don't know why people say that, I don't see it...I think girls with brown hair and brown eyes are much prettier..." This killed my self-esteem forever...

Thank God I had boys who always thought otherwise, but still with that, it was ingrained in my head and I never did fully get over it...I go back and forth on whether I am pretty or not...

Yes, this was certainly the recommended approach when my boys were younger, and I'm sure it continues to be. (My kids are now 14 and 11.)

The idea was to avoid applying a label ("What a good boy you are!") but instead to comment on an action done by the child ("Look how well you've coloured-in between the lines!" or "That was a good try, but next time carry only a few toys at a time so you don't drop any.")

nobody ever told me that i was pretty as a child and thank God they didn't. i never even thought about it or about comparing myself with other girls. now i get told that i'm pretty often and i don't know...i'd rather be told that i'm clever. don't understand these peoples motives because it's such a pointless thing to say.

My grandmother (fathers mother) always said I was pretty, but the rest of my family insisted I was plain but clever .This was during my teens. In retrospect I think it was because my younger sister was a very conventional blond blue eyed tall skinny sort, I was the somewhat short round faced dark haired adopted mongrel, of possibly questionable heritage. My mothers family was very racist and of German and Scandinavian stock. My father's family was of Jewish descent. I always thought it odd they married.

I think it's not always so good to focus on looks both my sister and I were anorexic in our teens, I rarely stop eating now unless under great stress, but my sister is still bony thin and I rarely see her eat at holidays.

Of my children my son is more likely to get the comments that he is pretty, he wears his hair long and really does look like a girl, and when he was born everyone commented how he looked so pretty it was a shame he was a boy. Oddly he looks almost exactly like me as a child but his hair is lighter and eyes are grey. My daughter I think looks pretty but she looks a lot like her dad as a child, and relatives generally call her plain but she is lucky to be oh so smart.

It just sounds like the mother in law is just so happy to have a granddaughter that she is letting out some of that energy she saved up for one. Its not every day you can get away with telling your grandsons they are pretty. I do agree that beauty on the outside is very overrated. I didnt know anything about pretty when i was a kid. I was a tomboy and had never heard the word used in a sentence describing me. Its only now that i am hearing it and i am 31. It is amazing how much girls will get away with for just being pretty. Kind of a skewed view on someone's value though.

I grew up with a skewed self perception. I always felt ugly, because of having a narcissistic mother, who never let an opportunity go by to say something degrading to me. Now, as an adult, when people rave about me, I don't know what they are going on about. Like abram said, it's all so pointless, anyway. What does it matter? If anything, it has been a burden to be constantly harassed, by people you don't like, over something you have no control over. Like being a walking advert or something.

there is nothing wrong with saying that in my opinion. Unless you are saying it when there are other children present and not giving them the same compliment, or Heaven forbid, the girl has a sister and you don't say anything nice to her or call her 'the smart one' and the other the pretty one. that is mean.

I think thats just her way of giving love. So I'd just let her.

If she started saying anything critical, like 'not so pretty girl...' then I'd worry. Unfortunatly that's the problem to worry about in families.

Theres a funny scene in Everybody Loves Raymond where the parents admit that they always considered his older brother Robert the handsome one, and Raymond not so much, so they always flattered Raymond and told his brother he wasn't attractive so he wouldn't get a big head... well we saw how that turned out.

I think we should strive to appreciate qualities for what they are.

Cuteness is nice--but it's just cuteness. If we lived in a culture that was real about that, it wouldn't be such a big deal whether one is called pretty or not.


I also don't think it's necessarily better to focus on intelligence. It, once more, should be appreciated for what it is, and no more.

I was always told how bright I was, but I think it mostly made me feel more lonely and apart.