A mum detailed her difficulties with raising a “beautiful” daughter after an influencer claimed that being called the word is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Influencer Caroline Lusk (@carolinelusk) recently spoke out about being called beautiful, earning a considerable amount of backlash from people who couldn’t grasp why the compliment could be negative. Thankfully, Caroline was not alone in the feeling as one mom (@unsolicitedsarcasm) explained in more detail.
When being called beautiful is a negative thing
Taking to TikTok on Thursday, the mom stitched Caroline’s original video where the content creator said the word beautiful had been “shoved down her throat” since she was a kid.
“The video is spot on and she is so wise and confident beyond her years. The ability to articulate the things that she is saying in response to things she has experienced in her life,” the mom said. “This is something that my husband and I talk about all the time as we have a daughter who, from the day she was born, has been told how beautiful she is, how cute she is. She is going to be fighting boys off with a stick.”
At first read, the mom’s comments about being called beautiful might not seem that bad. But as she explained in the clip, the mom doesn’t want her daughter to believe her only value is in how she looks.
She continued: “Women especially are constantly told things about their physical appearance and that’s where their value lies. It is not.”
Though the mom and her husband knew they couldn’t keep their daughter from such comments, they also understood their best chance was to teach her self-confidence. She further compared the method to keeping kids safe on the internet.
Jumping back to the original video from Caroline, the Mom said: “It is factual that [Caroline] is a beautiful woman. For her to state that she is pretty is not offensive, it’s factual. She is aware of the fact she is beautiful, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the same as me saying I’m tall and have brown hair. They’re factual things.
Ultimately, the mom hoped other parents would instill self-confidence in their kids in the hopes of them knowing their own worth.
It’s also worth mentioning that what is beautiful is completely subjective. Just because you’re hitting your 10,000 steps or following nutritional guidelines for your meals, doesn’t mean everyone will automatically find you attractive. Knowing your worth is far more powerful.
Her comments divided opinion
Naturally, not everyone agreed with the Mom as one person quipped: “So which one is it? Is it that a woman’s value isn’t based on beauty or when a beautiful woman says she’s beautiful that means “she knows her value”. Bc it can’t be both.”
In contrast, another person wrote: “I’ve been called pretty my entire life, that when people tell me I don’t even get like happy about it it’s like “ok.. thanks” I say thanks out of habit. I know I’m pretty but I’m just over it.”
“I’m conventionally attractive. Like people stop talking and stare when I walk into a room. And it was so pushed on me that I’m still trying to learn that I have value beyond my looks,” someone else admitted.
