Pretty

Samantha loves to play dress up. So when I was looking for something in the storage building and saw the box that had dress up clothes in it, I decided to bring it home for her to play with. She was so excited! She put on the "ballerina dress" (everything that has a skirt or ruffles is a ballerina or princess dress, by the way) and the purple shoes and told me, "Look Mommy! I'm pretty!"

I told her "Yes, honey, you are. But you are always pretty. It doesn't matter what you are wearing." (I will start working on talking about being pretty by what is on the inside by being sweet and kind to others and obeying God before too much longer, but I haven't done that yet, so that didn't enter into the conversation.) But Samantha just kept telling me, "I have a ballerina dress, I'm pretty!"

It makes me sad that she has already absorbed this world lesson that she is pretty as a result of what she is wearing. I have no idea where she got it from. I hope that I am not the one who taught it to her, but I am afraid that I probably am. After all, where else would she have gotten it? I guess the good part of knowing this is that I also know to frequently reinforce the idea that she is pretty as a result of her actions and who she is, rather than what she wears.