Meow!!

How do you see yourself?  Is it different from the way others see you?  Are you thin but think you're not?  Are you ugly but think you're hot?  Do you see yourself as an available confidante yet your friends see you as a nosy gossip monger?  

How many times have we caught ourselves saying to either ourselves or our fellow she-cats, "What the hell was she thinking with that _______?!" (insert outfit, hair, make-up, nail polish color...etc. here!)  Or on a better level, "How can she not see how totally fabulous she looks?!"  How many times have you been in a clothing store and see something so hideous you wonder who in God's name would sport such an outfit?  Unbeknownst to you, 10 minutes later, up walks said 'who' and believe it or not, she makes it work, go figure!  I have a friend who's tag line when complimenting (sorta) is "that's pretty! Not for me, but still...pretty!"  Um, thanks?

I see my 6 year old daughter come down from her room in some really frightening outfit and stifle with every fiber of my being, the urge to either laugh or scream.  Usually I'll say it's either very cool or interesting.  I always say she looks beautiful (not really an endorsement for the outfit) and that she's very creative.  The proud smile on her face makes the heartburn totally worth it!  We do have a deal though; church and dinner out in a halfway decent restaurant must be attended wearing a mutually agreed upon and sometimes boring outfit.  School is a uniform so I get a pass there.  The rest of the time she can let her freak flag fly.  Sometimes she's all in one shade of one color, sometimes one color with many shades...none of which go together, sometimes it's a Christmas dress with chiffon and tulle along with pink leggings and Barbie rainboots.  Freak flag flyin'!

But she thinks, no, she knows, she looks fantastic!  I'd give big money to have that kind of confidence in myself! I hope this self-confidence lasts but it probably won't.  At least not without a sabbatical during the pubescent years.  That's when all the she-cats start sharpening their claws on their fellow felines.  Hopefully she'll come out relatively unscathed or perhaps more importantly, without too much blood under her own nails!  Hopefully the same beautiful, fashion-conscious babe will be gazing back at her through her mirror for her entire life.  I just hope it's a mirror that tells the truth; not the kind that squints at her and tells her what she wants to hear or the kind that sneers at her and validates all of her imaginary flaws.  There are a LOT of those mirrors around....especially in teenagers' rooms.  Maybe that's where a subtle motherly correction or observation will keep the mirror honest so when she grows up and becomes a woman sharing a giant litter box, she'll be the subject of positive gossip as opposed to the "what the hell" gossip.

But I need to step in with caution; with sensitivity to her feelings.  I can't say to her, as my father said to me when I was 16 sporting spandex pants, "You look like 10 lb sausage in 5 lb wrapping."  Ahem.  NOT a confidence building observation!  Or my mom's famous line, "I don't care what the other girls are wearing! You're not shaped the same way."  Um, what?!

~Eileen Cassidy Bishop