No one ever told me that becoming a parent meant everyone giving you unsolicited advice. From breastfeeding tips to potty training and how to cure the common cold. The list goes on and on. Heck, I even got parenting tips from people who weren’t even parents!
Anyway, I know that people mean well and believe it or not, I’ve picked up some pretty useful tips. But, the best parenting advice I ever got came from another mom who shared a similar path.
This woman is also from Jamaica. She gave birth to a beautiful biracial girl, who grew up with a lot of insecurities. The interesting thing is that I grew up with this young lady. We went to the same school, and played on the same teams. I had no idea she felt insecure. We had lost touch after high school, and met up years later when she invited us to her backyard barbecue.
Princess was just a couple years old at the time, and I remember meeting her mom who told me about her personal story. She met my teammate’s European Dad. I remember seeing pictures of this handsome blond haired, blue eyed foreign man. My friend inherited some of his features, including those piecing eyes and curly hair. To be honest, I had no idea she was biracial. Quite frankly, I never really thought about her background. I just remember her telling me she was Jamaican.
She was always “mad cool.” But little did I know she struggled with her identity. Her mom proceeded to tell me that she never told her daughter she was beautiful growing up. “I didn’t want her to become conceited,” she said.
She went on to explain that she wanted her daughter to stay humble. “But, I was wrong,” she admitted. She said that her daughter suffered from depression and didn’t feel that she was pretty enough.
This came at a complete shock to me. As a teen, seemed pretty confident to me. After chatting with her mom, I began to connect the dots. I realized that a lot of what I saw as a kid, wasn’t quite what it seemed. “She didn’t like her hair. She didn’t like the way she looked,” her mom said.
“I had no idea,” I replied.
She looked at Princess in admiration and said, “Make sure you tell your daughter that she’s beautiful.”
Even though I had already been telling my daughter that she’s smart, beautiful, and talented everyday, this woman’s words resonated with me. Now that I have a son, I follow that same advice.
My goal as a parent is to raise my children to weather any storm. That begins with knowing their identity, and knowing that they are beautiful both inside and outside. When you hear the words, “you are beautiful,” it makes you feel good. When you feel good, you do good. You become confident in who you are and motivates you to conquer your goals.
