The other day, we were just sitting around chatting. I told her she was beautiful and she started to tell me why I was wrong. Knee jerk response is the best was to describe it. It was an instant response. I was baffled for a minute. I thought, "Where on earth did she get this behavior?"
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks...me.
Oh no! My worst nightmare!
My daughter has picked up my "bad" habits. She cannot take a compliment. She denies positive words. She negates any affirmation. The worst of this is she learned it from me.
That old lie that we should shove off compliments with a minimizing statement is just wrong, wrong, wrong. You know what I mean. People say things like, "Oh I love your hair." Your response is, "Ugh, I need a hair cut." Not, "Thank you" or "You're so sweet" or "I take really good care of it."You simply explain to people that they are wrong...that you are not beautiful or worth the compliment.
My daughter actually told me she doesn't like to smile because she doesn't like her teeth. I know she needs quite a lot of cosmetic correction. She'll need braces and veneers. She might need more than that but I had those bad teeth too when I was young. I remember not smiling. I remember hating my teeth. I got braces and after they came off, I could not stop smiling.
But there's a problem with this. My mom did the same thing. She didn't smile because her teeth were damaged from years of taking medications for her complications with diabetes. When she did smile, it was closed lipped. Now that she's gone, it makes me want to cry. I have no good pictures of my mom smiling. Every time the camera was out, my moms lips were pierced shut. That wasn't her natural smile, but that's all I have...lots and lots of pictures of her mouth sealed shut hiding her teeth.
As her daughter, I didn't care what the meds had done to her teeth. I loved her smile. Her true smile. I just want to look at a picture of her smiling. I want to remember her smile. Those memories are fading and the pictures do not bring back her true smile to memory.
Now I have a daughter that learned this same behavior...three generations of fake smiles concealed behind closed lips. I found my smile only after having dental correction. But here's the thing...I wish I found my smile even when my teeth laid crooked in my mouth.
I wish I had embraced a true smile in spite of my less than perfect teeth. I wish I allowed myself to be happy with how I looked. I wish. I wish. I wish.
So I told my daughter I loved her smile. I told her I wanted to see her authentic happy smile. I wanted to see the smile that happens after a solid laugh. I want to have pictures of her that look like the happy girl I know and love. I told her it broke my heart that her Nana wouldn't smile for pictures. My daughter was so very close to her Nana (my mom). I saw tears in her eyes when I told her how hard it was for me to not have Nana anymore and not have a single picture of her Nana smiling her natural smile. I told her that Nana spent a lot of time hiding her teeth. I told her the only thing it did was make me sad.
I hugged my girl. I told her she was beautiful and when she tried to dodge the compliment, I told her to listen not talk. I told her I loved her smile. I loved her laugh. I loved her. I told her she was beautiful. I told her that her hair was gorgeous. I told her that her eyes were stunning. I hugged her and affirmed her.
I told her I was to blame for her not being able to take the compliment. I told her it was a lie that we needed to negate compliments. I told her that when we speak poorly of ourselves, that self talk does damage whether we say it out loud or in our head. I told the first act of being authentic was to take a compliment. Believe that the person meant it. Love that someone cares enough to say it. Then tell yourself those words are true.
Here's my beautiful girl performing with the Color Guard at a Marching Band performance at our first football game.
She's smiling...and her teeth are showing.
It's not the biggest smile I've seen, but she's smiling.
She's my hero. She heard me. She listened to the people who love her. She smiled. I know she's going to be okay. She's going to hear the world's compliments and believe them. She's going to smile for pictures. She'll eventually get braces...but until then, she'll smile. Teeth showing. Why? Because she's amazing. That's why she's my hero!
