My kid got bitten in the face by a dog a few days ago. He’ll be fine, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the incident itself, or how scared I was when it happened, or how brave he has been since then. Though he’s been incredibly brave and I obviously have things to learn from him regarding resiliency.
No. What I’m going to write about is the biggest fear he’s had since the incident: that other kids will laugh at him because he looks funny. That was his biggest concern on the way back from the hospital. He was so concerned that he was hiding his face from his teachers and friends for a couple of days. And then, unfortunately, on his first day back at camp another kid did point and laugh.
My question is this: when does this start? When does the obsession with the way someone looks begin? Now I have to admit that once I knew he was going to be okay, I was worried he would be physically scarred for life, but my boy is 5….that is not something he should be aware of. He even used the word scar on the night of the incident.
It’s bad enough that the way one looks and the way one’s body looks is one of our society’s biggest issue. There is way too much pressure on men and women these days to look a certain way and if you don’t you won’t be popular or successful. We’ve all spent too much time thinking about the way we look…I know I have. But when one is five years old, shouldn’t one be more concerned about pirates, fairies, trucks and dolls.
Do they get exposed to this way of thinking from TV? Movies? Peers in school and the playground? Parents? The answer is probably a combination of all of the above. But ultimately I believe it comes from our society as it seems pretty ingrained in it at this point. Just look at the beautiful people we’re surrounded by on TV, in movies, on billboards etc…How can we expect our kids not to get affected by all that exposure?
I’d like to believe we could change this way of thinking, but I’m not sure that’s possible. I think we’re all guilty of judging people based on their looks…whether based on the colour of their skin, a scar of some kind, or the fact that somehow they’re considered ugly. But maybe as parents we need to spend more time talking about what’s really important in people. Actually, it’s not a maybe. I believe once we accept the awesome responsibility of being a parent that we need to communicate to our offsprings that people are about more than what they look like. They’re about how they think, how they feel, and how they love.
It’s not going to change society, but every little step counts, right?
About the author: Martin can found at Carter Hales Design Lab during the day, The Stage New West on weekends and on Twitter at all times.