{"id":5785,"date":"2011-10-28T19:32:19","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T02:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=5785"},"modified":"2011-10-28T19:32:19","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T02:32:19","slug":"halloween-my-daughter-the-trash-heap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/halloween-my-daughter-the-trash-heap\/","title":{"rendered":"A Case of the Human Condition: My Daughter the Trash Heap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Christina
Christina at 15, a howling vampire. Photos by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

My daughter is beautiful. She was born beautiful. But I sometimes wonder if she really wants to be.<\/p>\n

If she liked being beautiful, then why the heck\u00a0would she dress up as a skeleton for Halloween when she was 6 years old? As a warlock at age 8? As a heap of trash at 11?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Christina
Christina dressing as trash heap, age 11. Photos by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christina was just minutes old when she was pronounced beautiful for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s gorgeous,\u201d said the nurse anesthetist as she suctioned out our new baby\u2019s throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably say that about every newborn,\u201d my husband said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. This is for real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christina had the usual puffy newborn eyes and neckless body. She also had a wide, generous mouth.<\/p>\n

Jon thought she looked like a frog. I thought she looked like a duck.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t long before the puffy eyes opened and it became apparent that, indeed, little Christina was in danger of growing up beautiful.<\/p>\n

That worried me. Mightn\u2019t Christina turn into one of those vain females who depend on their looks to get ahead? What if she decided she didn\u2019t want to be a smart professional woman like her mother and grandmother before her? What if she decided to go with arm candy and be done with it?<\/p>\n

In my family and in Jon\u2019s, smart is everything. We go to college. We read the New York Times. We play chess. We love a good debate. We edit newspapers, do science and write things.<\/p>\n

What if our daughter turned out to be none of the above? What if she decided to just sit there, looking beautiful for the rest of her life?<\/p>\n

\"christina
An astronaut at 5 — space fantasies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And that is why, when Christina was little, I made sure I did all the recommended mom things to build up her self-esteem. I told her she was good at math. I complimented her cooking. I went to all her soccer games and cheered when she blocked a pass with her long legs and gangly body.<\/p>\n

But I was careful not to mention beautiful in the same sentence with \u201cyou are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, despite my careful mothering, Christina figured it out. She had a face to launch a thousand ships, and she knew it.<\/p>\n

I learned this to my dismay one evening over a Chinese restaurant dinner when Dolly, an old family friend, put down her chopsticks, looked at my daughter and declared, \u201cYou\u2019re a beautiful girl, Christina.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Skeleton — scary at age 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christina was unperturbed. Clearly she\u2019d come to terms with this state of affairs on her own, possibly while looking in a mirror.<\/p>\n

Instead of blushing and thanking Dolly for the compliment, Christina was matter-of-fact. \u201cI know,\u201d she said demurely.<\/p>\n

Christina went through the usual girlish pink phase when she was four or five. For a while, everything she owned from jammies to lunch pail to ballet leotard was pink.<\/p>\n

When Halloween rolled around, however, Christina wanted nothing to do with pink \u2013 or pretty.<\/p>\n

At the toy store, the two of us checked out the Halloween possibilities. We\u00a0strolled the girly costume aisle sparkling with princess robes, angel wings, magic fairy wands and bride get-ups.<\/p>\n

But Christina wasn\u2019t interested. She wanted to be a witch. An astronaut. A skeleton. One year \u2013 in a departure necessitated by her love of the Disney movie \u2013 Christina opted for a Little Mermaid <\/a>costume. But in no time she was back on track \u2013 as a mud monster.<\/p>\n

As the Black Mage from Final Fantasy.<\/p>\n

As a clown.<\/p>\n

As an off-duty medieval knight, inspired by the Tamora Pierce novels.<\/p>\n

As a vampire.<\/p>\n

And so, all these years later, I have to wonder, did I overdo it? Does my daughter think she\u2019s not allowed to be pretty? Does she think she must always choose interesting, creative, ambitious or shocking over pretty on Halloween?<\/p>\n

\"\"
Christina as Little Mermaid, age 7 — born beautiful. Photos by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even more worrisome, does she believe she has to play the off-putting pile of trash or the in-your-face vampire \u2013 in real life?<\/p>\n

When I was about sixteen, my father noticed that I was enjoying a lively social life with lots of dates with lots of boys. I was into clothes, make-up, haircuts. An experiment with peroxide had turned my bangs orange.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s mother and grandmother had been starchy church women, schoolteachers both, and my father had decided it was time to set me straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarb, you need to develop your mind as well as your beauty,\u201d he told me one day. \u201cYour beauty won\u2019t last your whole life, but your education and your mind will.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took that as a double-edged compliment: My father thought I had beauty and that I was potentially smart.<\/p>\n

At age 28, Christina is now safely out of the woods. I think I can relax. She is beautiful, sexy and graceful \u2013 but nobody\u2019s arm candy.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s smart, smart, smart. She doesn\u2019t play chess, and she doesn\u2019t read the New York Times. She\u2019d rather bake you a birthday cake than suck you into a debate.<\/p>\n

\"Christina
The bow tie is from A Chorus Line costume shop\u00a0 in Valencia, CA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But she did make it through college nicely, and \u2013 like her mother and father before her \u2013 Christina is a devoted editor and writer. If she\u2019s going to dazzle the world, she\u2019d rather do it with a good story than a gorgeous face.<\/p>\n

And Christina knows a good story when she sees one. A pretty girl in an angel costume\u00a0does not make a\u00a0story; she\u2019ll tell you that. There\u2019s no tension there. Pretty is just pretty, and that story is going nowhere.<\/p>\n

A pretty girl dressed up as a pile of trash, on the other hand \u2013 now that\u2019s<\/em> a story.<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed this post, consider getting my regular updates with an email subscription. Just fill in the box at the top of the right-hand column. You can also get updates via Facebook , Twitter or RSS by clicking on the appropriate icon at the top of the right-hand column.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more about Christina at “How to Overmother a Twenty-Something<\/a>.”
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Halloween-get-up\"
Christina Newhall, Halloween 1991. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Christina<\/a><\/p>\n

My daughter is beautiful. But I wonder if she wants to be. If she liked being beautiful, why did she dress up as a heap of trash for Halloween when she was 11? A “Doctor Who” space alien at 28? Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,30],"tags":[615,146,616,148,617,618,619,620],"class_list":["post-5785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-my-changing-family","tag-a-chorus-line","tag-christina","tag-doctor-who","tag-feminism","tag-final-fantasy","tag-halloween","tag-little-mermaid","tag-tamora-pierce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}