by Kim Robinson

Created on: January 31, 2008

UNTIL YOU, I THOUGHT I WAS PRETTY

One of my all-time favorite films, "The Mirror Has Two Faces" is a prime example of how others (society, culture, parents, and mere strangers) dictate and define how we ultimately perceive ourselves. In one of the scenes, Barbra Streisand asks her mother, played by Lauren Bacall, why she repeatedly told her as a child to attach a clothespin to her nose before bedtime. "You know, I would have thought I was pretty if you hadn't told me I wasn't," Streisand said. Her mother didn't respond.

I will never forget as a young girl, perhaps nine years old, when the next-door neighbor came over to deliver something for my dad. This fat-bald guy stood in the doorway while I called for my dad, and being the polite girl that I was, I chatted some niceties with him until my dad came up from the basement. I noticed him staring at me intently, rudely, and then he asked nonchalantly, "Where's the pretty sister?" To this day as I reflect on this, my stomach tightens and constricts like a million clenched fists. That pretty nine-year-old Italian girl (me) suddenly became ugly, unspeakable, and unworthy; an undeveloped caterpillar, while my sister became the beautiful monarch butterfly.... Bursting from her cocoon and flying above me like a piece of silk.

Children remember. And they begin defining themselves at an early age. Yes, unfortunately, by the way others perceive them, respond to them, or even ignore them. When a child hears poison spewing from, say, an old neighbor's lips, she remembers. And begins characterizing herself (her very being) through those perceptions. So, rather than observe somebody pretty in the mirror as she once thought (As Streisand thought), she sees an individual who is undesirable, who wears a clothespin on her nose, who is not as eye-catching as her sister.

It's not the mirror that's the enemy; it's the individuals, the magazines, the media. This is the reason several of us despise looking at our reflections. We are too fat, our noses are too big, our complexion has pimples, or lips aren't plump enough. Presumably, we've had a fat neighbor or even a mother (as Streisand did) who told us we were inadequate to some degree.

I am reminded of the teacher... whom on the first day of class exclaimed, " I am so happy and thrilled to have you all in my classroom!" The students sat in puzzlement. "The thirty of you are the most brilliant in your age group."

It goes without saying; these particular students thrived beyond what was expected of them. And although this was intellectual and internal, rather than physical and external, its relevance is still significant. Because how others perceive us, is many times, how we perceive ourselves.

*Your Assignment*

Today when you look at your image in the mirror, forget all of the skeletal models, old neighbors, and even mothers, who have told you something negative about your appearance or body. Their opinions don't matter a damn, because you're beautiful. You really are. And the more you remind yourself about this, and live it, the more others will see your beauty, too.

A poem by Spapple313 (a very young girl, I assume)

UNTIL YOU

I sigh as I look in the mirror
I don't like the reflection I see.

Until you, I didn't mind it
Until you, I was fine.

Until you, I thought I was beautiful
Now I know it's a lie.

You told me you loved me
You never wanted me to go.

Until the day you told me
I wasn't pretty enough for you.

How could you love me?
Love everything about me?

I never thought I was bad,
Until you

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