I’m certain I’ve been dreading this event since before she was born. Beautiful girl child of mine — my little dash of femininity wedged between five boys. She has grown into a young woman, curves appearing where once there were straight lines. And now, it is time to go find clothes to fit the new figure.
Before we go, we are blessed to spend a Saturday afternoon at a mother-daughter tea at our parish. Fashion consultant Mary Ann Wahle teaches us both some lessons in what to wear. Listening to her and participating in the quizzes and conversation, my daughter and I learn some valuable lessons about each other. I’m made very aware of her color and style preferences. She is made aware of appropriateness and the “fun” factor of wearing just the right thing. We both leave a little more enlightened and a lot more enthusiastic about the task ahead of us.
So nervous am I that I drive two hours west to a familiar college town. Perhaps it will be easier here where the sales people are likely to be more helpful and less brusque than in my busy city. My stepmother comes along to offer moral support and a sense of style. We can do this.
Darling, beautiful daughter gathers an armful of promising fashions into her arms, trying to find things similar to those she saw at the tea. She tries one on. And then another. And then another. I see the storm gather in her eyes, threatening to spill onto cheeks, darkening where once the thrill of anticipation glowed.
“What? What is it?” I cry, panic rising in my throat.
“It’s me,” she says. “I look terrible in everything. I wanted to buy beautiful things. I wanted this to be fun. But I look terrible in everything.”
I leave her there in front of that indicting mirror. A million dressing room mirrors from a million similar outings come back to haunt me. I hear it as if it were yesterday. “You’re too short. Too much tummy. Too much bust. Not enough leg.” I look desperately at my stepmother. I so don’t want this trip to go into that all-too-familiar territory. I’m praying now. I want to understand it all. All I can say is, “I don’t want her to be like me. I want her to love the way she looks.”
Barbara is relaxed and positive. “She’s beautiful.”
And that’s all she says. And with those words, I understand. Of course she’s beautiful. She’s fresh and unadulterated. She’s exactly as God intended. It’s not about her.
And it was never about me.
I walk back into the dressing room and speak with a certainty I do not yet believe. “Get dressed. We’re going to a different store. These clothes are poorly made. They are cut skimpily from cheap fabric for fashion models who starve themselves. They are not made for real, healthy young women.”
She takes a deep breath and follows me into the mall, fighting tears. I pray my way into another store and there, we begin to pull more appropriate clothing from the racks. I’m relieved to find that though we have come to a more expensive store, the sales are blessing us. My beautiful child finds clothing that suits her perfectly. She beams from the dressing room.
When our mission is complete, she walks through the door of her grandfather’s home where all her brothers await a fashion show. They don’t quite understand the significance of the trip, the rite of passage we have just traveled together, but they approve of her choices. She shows them her treasures, clearly delighted with them and with herself. When we return home, she tries on each item for her father, one thing after another that fits just right and flatters who she is and how she’s made.
And when she finishes, and we are alone, I turn to the man who’s loved me since I was her age. I tell him about that moment in the dressing room when I recognized how easy it would have been for our daughter to have had a distorted sense of herself. He knows about all my dressing room days. He is quiet, waiting for me to come to a full understanding.
And finally, finally, I see myself as he has seen me all these years.
Thank you for sharing- I too look forward to this day with my own daughter. Thank you for being the mom who speaks truth over her child. Thank you for realizing no matter what the trends say, there is a solution for modestly. I can now look forward to this day with my child instead of dreading it.
As I re-read this, I’m bawling. This post is the best post I’ve ever read on this topic! Thank you so much! SO SO much! Traci Michele
I agree!!! Thank you for this post!!
What a beautiful post! This brought me to tears as I read it. Not only was it full of wisdom, it was written with a beautiful eloquence that put into words what every woman has gone through and might not have recognized yet. Thank you for sharing!
Beautiful.
As the mother of four daughters I know this dance.
It can be precarious. Thankfully God has been our help as we have looked to find clothes that suit the individual girl’s personality and tastes, and yet is honoring to themselves and the Lord.
Deanna
It is a dance, isn’t it? And maybe if we look at it that way and give ourselves the grace to dance it creatively, we can dance it beautifully.
Amen!!
So simple yet so true. Thank your for writing this, I’m sure it will bless many women as it has blessed me today. xx
All of Elizabeth’s posts make me cry. They are beautiful. How I wished I had this wisdom twenty years ago with my first born daughter. Thank you for sharing and praise God for His redeeming love that cleans up the messes we can make.
I loved this post. My daughter isn’t there yet but it threw me back to shopping with my mom. All of the beautiful, cool, trendy outfits I proudly took home from the store. Putting on my own fashion show. Of course I had those awkward body times…don’t all young girls but reading this made me see it a bit differently…. When you see yourself in the mirror and love the outfit and it fits great that really helps the self esteem and makes you feel good overall. Isn’t it still true today? I know if I find a beautifully made dress that fits me well I feel fabulous…even if my belly is not as flat as I wish it were. Its not to say the outfits make the woman (or the girl) but at a time when self love and self acceptance is being built taking the time (and if needed spending the money) to help that process is priceless! Great job momma!
As a mother of two girls and one boy (My girls are ages 15 and 4)…I thank you very much for this post and your keen insight! What a job our girls have today with all the pressure to fit into an image the world has decided is beautiful. Thank you for a practical picture of how to move them a little closer to discovering the beauty on the inside and that they are made in the image of a God Who loves them deeply!
This is exactly why you have been one of my favorite writers for a long time. You put into words exactly what most of us have felt.
My daughter dealt with self image issues (even though she has always been attractive, not gorgeous but attractive) and she wanted to prepare her Elisabeth for her teen years.
So for her recent eleventh birthday, Stephanie prepared some small girlie gifts and a few books and they went for a girl’s overnighter at a nice hotel in Cape Cod… made possible with coupons and online off season offers.
The weekend included tea time at a tea room and a dinner at a nice restaurant. The first day out was just for fun and on the second day, she talked to her daughter about the changes about to come to her body, the “facts of life” appropriate for an eleven year old, and how beautiful it is to be a woman.
She plans to do the same thing someday with Faith and Anna.
I will share this post with her, especially for such a shopping trip with Faith someday. Elisabeth is petite and very slender but Faith is already showing signs of being curvy like her mother and Grammie. Stephanie has been concerned about how she will handle being curvy in a world that worships the size 0 actresses and models.
Thank you for this. After 2 boys, my daughter just moved from the 6x size with the little girl clothes to the big girl section size 8. She is in the first grade and I hate this section of the stores. So many of the clothes are for much older girls though I won’t be letting her wear them then either. And oh the flashback this caused to a time over 25 years ago when I stormed out of the dressing room in a Sears refusing to pick a pair of jeans because I needed a 10. and there was just something so wrong in my mind about the need for a double number size. Girls seem to hit the teen years either stick thin or a little thick and I was not the stick thin one. How I don’t want my dughter to hate what she sees in the mirror the way I use to.
A friend forwarded the post. Love it! I’m a big fan of “What Not to Wear”…they are the pros at teaching women how to dress. Not about numbers, all about fit. A good fit makes you feel like a million bucks, no matter what the size is.
This is amazing !!! Spoke to me, to me as I was at 16, to me as the mother of 18, 16, and 10 year old daughters.
Thank YOU
good mom! and yes- it is important to get quality fabrics and cuts
I remember those days of crying in the dressing room and never fully understanding that I was exactly as God intended me to be . . . days that turned into way too many years. Thanks for writing this for all of us women – young and old. Beautiful momma, beautiful Bee.
This is so very timely as my beautiful, tall, slender 11 year old said to me the other day that her hips and tummy are too big. It’s not true, and it made me so sad that she’s already thinking this way!
What a beautiful post! I am so encouraged by this and look forward to being able to teach my one day daughter these values.
Your writing is breathtaking–so filled with beauty and truth. I love you, sweet Elizabeth. You are a gift.
This post touches close to home for me and I can definitely relate. I fondly recall my mom always being my fashion anchor when it came to buying new clothes and she was always honest and but encouraging in a way that I never felt bad about my body. This is so important to instill in our young girls at an early age. If they don’t learn to love their bodies now than they never will.
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