I have spent the last few months explaining to my youngest daughter (if you don't know, she is from Uganda) that she is beautiful. Because of her background and where she grew up she feels like not having hair makes her ugly. She is in 5th grade and plays football for our school (she is an amazing running back and a beast on defense! True story, not just because I am her momma,). Because of football we didn't get braids or weave before school began, too much taking the helmet on and off and too much sweating aren't good for braids. She like most females feels her worth is tied up in her hair-real hair or fake hair. She lives with her Caucasian momma and 2 Caucasian sisters who all have long hair, she talks about having long hair all the time and how she wishes she had long hair, she longs for long hair. As soon as football is over she is getting braids, but I am trying to make her realize that she is beautiful with or without hair. We live in a world obsessed with looks so I know where she gets the desire to have something she feels will make her more beautiful. If I teach nothing else to my girls (all 3) I want them to know they are more than the hair on their heads, the makeup on their faces, or the clothes and shoes that they wear. We are all beautiful because we were formed in God's image, he made us pleasing to His eye. No one else matters. My girls have beautiful souls, that is who they are, who all of us are, not our exterior but our interior.
Now I feel the need to explain that my Princess came from a country where for hygiene sake and because of nutrition it is easier to keep young children's heads shaved. She wants to feel accepted as an American, I want her to remain as Ugandan as she can, we try for a happy medium. In her mind she needs to be beautiful to be american, I think.
I am just as guilty as everyone else worrying about what I am wearing and what my hair looks like but at the end of the day when I am in my pajamas and my hair up on top of my head without all that makes me beautiful to the outside world, I am beautiful because of who I am.
