Mommy, why do you Wear Make up? Early Lessons for my Preschooler (and me!) on Women and Beauty

I woke up one morning, pulled myself out of the warmth of my bed, and threw the curtains back letting the sun stream in my bedroom heralding the start of a brand new day.  I start my morning routine which consists of a mad dash about the second floor of my home getting a shower, dressed, and what few chores I can done before my kids wake up.  Once awake, it becomes all about getting them fed and ready for the day.  One morning while my kids were playing happily on the floor in my oldest sons' bedroom, I went the next room over (mine) and decided to actually put on some makeup that day.  Of course, I nearly stab myself in the eye with the mascara when I am startled by a small but unexpected voice behind me.

"Mommy, what's that?"

I turned to see my three-year-old watching me intently.

"It's makeup," I replied.

"What's make-up?" he asked.

"It's something I sometimes put on my face."

"Why do you wear make up, mommy?" he finally asks.

Here's where I have an entire conversation about what I want to say, in about five seconds time, in my head.  I don't know why the importance of the answer dawned on me that morning, or any morning for that matter seeing as I am not in the least bit a morning person and usually require at least one cup of coffee before doing any critical thinking.  However, the recent scenario where my son asked me about age (OK, not so much, I accidentaly made it about age) coming to memory make me wince to myself.  I completely did not say what I wanted to say the last time he asked me something important.

I had groaned sitting down into a chair.  It was the first Wednesday of December I remember; this because the first Tuesday of every month is one of my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes and I am always hurting the next day.  One of my instructor's (who, by the way, is an awesome person) favorite torture warm-up exercises consists of us laying flat on our stomachs and pulling ourselves across the studio by our elbows.  Works the core, don't you know.  The next day as I painfully lowered myself into my chair for breakfast, I responded to my son's question by saying:

"Because I'm old."

I really regret saying that because I do not want him to associate being an older adult (which I'm not one) or growing older with something painful or negative.  Health complications can be common among older adults as the body ages; it is important to be sensitive to that.  However, it is equally important not to make an automatic assumption determining that someone who is an older adult must have health issues or is physically limited in some way because that is a stereotype.  This is an association I did not want to teach my son.  My son makes associations really easily and is not easily unconvinced of something he's learned.  For instance, because the Sprout network insists on playing Nicole Johnson's diabetes cookbook commercials every single commercial break possible, he now associates diabetes (which is heavily represented in our family) with "rich chocolate cake."  I have told him that having diabetes means you need to eat very healthy and not too much sugar to stay healthy and that his great grandma and grammy both have diabetes and work very hard to eat right and stay healthy.  He's not convinced; he's seen pictures of cake.

Thanks Sprout.

This is why I paused for a moment with the makeup question and reminded myself: I am responsible for teaching this little boy, who will one day grow into a man, about how to view and treat women.  It's important for me to teach him our family's values when it comes to women, physical appearance, and beauty.  So really, what should I say here that reflects that?

So saying "to make mommy pretty was off the table."

Why?  Because I am already pretty, all women are.  I need to ask myself why it is that I am wearing make up.  Is it to hide something, to conform to someone elses standard of beauty, or because I like to wear it?  And if it is not to conform to some beauty standard or to hide behind it, my answer to my son needs to reflect that.  Mommy is not hiding behind her make up.  Mommy is beautiful; all people are beautiful.  This is also why I did not want to genderize my answer.  Because if wearing make up is about doing something you just want to do, and not about conforming to laid-out female standards of beauty, that means make up isn't just for girls.  Men do wear make up; perhaps not anywhere near as prevalent as women do.  I thought of all of the human characters on the TV shows he watches; they all, men and women alike, wear make up to ward off the glare from the lights and camera.

I dislike that he is already learning that things are assigned to boys and girls, not by what they like, but by the gender identity they've been assigned.  The recent Lego debate is no better example of this.  Boys' toys are bold and adventurous.  Girls' toys are frilly and demure.  My son has learned that things are not for him based on whether or not it is pink or blue, which makes me sad, because he loved the color pink.  We visit our local fire station often where they have pink hats for girls and black hats for boys and I would all but bare my teeth at anyone who tried to change my son's mind the times he would request the pink hat instead of the black one.  I don't even like that they have one hat for girls and one hat for boys to begin with.  My husband defends this saying that having a pink firefighting hat at the fire station increases the ambient belonging of women in a predominantly or stereotypically male environment.  If both hats were intended to be for anyone who wants one, I might agree.  But that's not the fact.  The fact is, the pink hats are reserved for girls.  The black hats, that look more realistically like firefighting hats (I have never seen a real, pink firefighting helmet complete with a shield on it that pictures a dainty dalmatian wearing pearls and a bow) are for the boys.

The day he told me he wasn't allowed to like pink any more, because pink is for girls, I wanted to cry.  No matter how many times I've told him he is allowed to like whatever he wants to like or even when I pointed out that his Poppy has a pink dress shirt he wears to church, he won't be convinced otherwise.  Needless to say, genderizing make up and concern for one's appearance about issues being unique to girls is not a road I wanted to go down.

So, now I want to tell you that I sat down with him and had a thoughtful conversation with him where he learned more than I did and that I walked away a proud, beaming mother congratulating myself on a job well done educating the next generation of young men on women's beauty, self-esteem, and appearance.  I want to tell you that I will be writing into parenting magazines everywhere describing the perfect lesson to teach children on these topics.  Instead, it went a little more like this:

"I put it on my face because I want to.  Sometimes adults wear make up and sometimes they don't.  It is just another part of my clothes for the day."

"Oh, OK" he replied before returning to the enormous bulldozer he had parked in the hallway.

*sigh*

Photo credit: mistermong