Please Don’t Tell My Daughter She’s Beautiful
There is so much else to praise
I have two beautiful children.
I might be biased, yes, but neutral third parties seem to agree. In fact, when we all walk around in public, strangers quite often stop to tell us that we have a “beautiful family.” Correction: They quite often stop to tell my partner that we have a “beautiful family,” as though his sperm deserve more credit than my eggs.
I imagine part of the reason our family turn heads is that we’re multiracial — I’m white, my partner is Black, and my children, in their words, are peanut butter. Not only is there an “exotic” factor, but studies have shown that mixed-race people, like my children, are generally perceived as more attractive.
Still, these studies don’t explain why far more people comment on my daughter’s beauty than my son’s. Sure, some people said he was a beautiful baby — that is, after he shed the grumpy grandpa look he was born with — and throughout his ensuing seven years, people here and there have told him he’s a “handsome young man.”
But people tell my 10-year-old daughter, or tell me in front of my 10-year-old daughter, that she’s beautiful all the friggin’ time. I know these people mean well. With one notable exception, they are not creepy older men with sinister intentions…
