Ruby has been telling me lately that she wishes she weren't Chinese. I knew this day might come...when she would realize that she does not look like her parents. I prayed that she would be ok with being different...and she still might- she DOES have an independent streak a mile wide, but right now I am struggling with giving her a positive self image and using the right words. I've stated that the Bible says she is perfectly made and that God does not make mistakes. She IS made in His image and she is beautiful. Inside and out. She says she wishes she weren't Chinese--I really think what she is trying to say is that she wants to look more like her mama.
A friend recently shared that she never really told her daughter while she was growing up that she was beautiful and that child came to her later in life and asked her mama why she'd never been told she was pretty....although she WAS!! The friend told her daughter that she never wanted the child to find her self worth in what the world said was beauty---she wanted her to feel valued by God's promises and grace over her life....for being smart...for being compassionate...and kind. Now that friend wonders whether that was the right choice or not.
I see her point...I want my girls to FEEL pretty but also to know that it is not their defining quality. It is not their worth in Christ Jesus. Can there be a balance? I also believe in breathing words of life over our children--self fulifilling prophecy. What words do you pray over your children about the qualities you hope they will have as growing little people?
What do you tell your girls about beauty?...
...and what do you tell your children that were adopted transracially about looking different from their parents/siblings?
'OBX schoolcation' {respect for the Wrights}
5 years ago
1 comment:
Tiffany, we have always had questions from the girls about looking different. We embrace them and explain to them that we are all different and beautiful, and that color and hair do not make a family, love does. I have an advantage because I am also non-American, white, but not from here, so it is easier to explain to them that I also come from a different country, but that Mike loved me so much and thought I was so pretty that he married me and I moved here. And Tyler is the product of it. They like this explanation, as simple and goofy as it might sound. I remember Emma telling an adult that she thought her nose was a little big, and she told her that that's what makes us beautiful - all of us look different and we all bring something new to the rest of the people in the world.
Ruby is such a sweetheart! Beautiful, smart, loving sweet pea! :)
Laura
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