life

<p>People love to tell kids that it&#39;s what&#39;s on the inside that counts &mdash; but the harsh reality is that people are often treated differently depending on their appearance.</p><p>One woman tried to explain this to her nieces, and it caused an uproar in her family. Now she&#39;s <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/k8kqan/aita_for_telling_my_nieces_that_how_they_look_is/">asking the internet</a> for advice.</p><h2>The incident is causing a giant issue, she says:</h2><blockquote> <p>This has caused such an uproar in my family and I feel like I&#39;m going crazy over here. Like, don&#39;t-come-to-Christmas uproar.</p> </blockquote><h2>It started when she was babysitting the girls:</h2><blockquote> <p>About three weeks ago, I was babysitting my nieces. They&#39;re 9 and 11. My sister is a big feminist (so am I) who always makes her feminism a huge part of the way she&#39;s raising her kids. Like, talk about raising her kids at all, feminism comes up.</p> <p>I was playing dress up with the girls, and the older one mentioned that she thought the game was silly because &quot;It doesn&#39;t matter what you look like, it&#39;s what&#39;s on the inside that counts.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>She asked her niece to explain:</h2><blockquote> <p>I told her that we didn&#39;t have to play anymore, and asked her to tell me more about the &quot;It doesn&#39;t matter what you look like&quot; because I would like to learn. She happily told me all about how caring about your appearance is &quot;vain&quot; and people shouldn&#39;t care about what you wear, how much you weigh, what color your hair is, etc. That girls who are really into fashion or makeup had bad parents who should care more about making sure they&#39;re smart and do well in school.</p> </blockquote><h2>She told her niece her own opinion on the matter:</h2><blockquote> <p>Then she asked me why I cared about things like that because she always thought I was &quot;too smart&quot; for that.</p> <p>Maybe this is where I f***** up, but I had to be honest with her? I told her that I care what I look like because I want to be respected by others, I want others to be attracted to me, and that no matter what we tell ourselves, society does care and does judge men and women for how we look. I tried to explain that sometimes society cares too much, but that grooming ourselves, wearing well fitting and clean clothes, etc are things we should all care about.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>And she stuck up for the fashionistas of the world:</h2><blockquote> <p>I also said that being interested in fashion and makeup don&#39;t make anyone less intelligent, that they&#39;re both ways of expressing ourselves and can be very artsy as well.</p> <p>11 year old seemed really bothered by this and told me that she couldn&#39;t believe I was &quot;one of them&quot; and then made a weird comment about how her mom said that&#39;s why I don&#39;t have any books.</p> </blockquote><h2>Yikes. Now the sister is furious:</h2><blockquote> <p>My sister called me, furious about how I was poisoning her daughters by forcing unobtainable feminine beauty ideals on them. At no point did I say that they had to maintain a size 2 figure, shave, have long hair, spend thousands on designer clothes, etc. But she&#39;s making it out to seem like I babysat her kids and now they&#39;re destined to become Serena Vanderwoodsen.</p> <p>AITA? My family sure as f*** thinks I am.</p> </blockquote><h2>The people of the internet agree that her sister is overreacting.</h2><p>User oceanblu456 says:</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>First, feminism isn&rsquo;t one standard. It&rsquo;s just about basic gender equality. To say a woman who cares about her looks, or cares about anything your sister disagrees with, is not a feminist IS the antithesis of feminism.</p> </blockquote><p>They continue:</p><blockquote> <p>Second, you are right. Personal grooming does reflect a level of self respect. A better lesson is to not compare oneself with others to the point one feels less than. But self respect does not include degrading others for their choices.</p> </blockquote><p>KING_JELLYB3AN agrees:</p><blockquote> <p>You can still care about how you look and take pride in looking good or fit and NOT be Vain... If that&#39;s all you rely on to get you by in life, that is where it becomes a problem.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>AndromedaGreen makes a great point:</p><blockquote> <p>It sounds like your sister is going too far in the other direction, but the result is still the same: the girls have learned to be judgmental of others&rsquo; appearances.</p> </blockquote><p>But rosemarypancakes says that the kids might not fully understand what their aunt said:</p><blockquote> <p>it&#39;s worth bearing in mind that at 11 years old your niece may not be able fully understand every aspect of what you are saying. I think you need to think about how an 11 year old would interpret what you told her, is she going to understand that you mean it is nice to be well presented, or will she hear it as &quot;if you&#39;re overweight people won&#39;t like you&quot;. Theres clearly a big difference but how she interprets it is important</p> </blockquote><p>Daleyra agrees:</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>She is eleven, if she isn&#39;t interested in make up and wearing fancy clothes 24/7 that&#39;s completely fine. Sure society tends to care more about appearance than qualities that aren&#39;t obvious, but the girl still has a point. As long as she dresses appropriately for her age and likes what she is wearing it&#39;s fine.</p> </blockquote><p>But KING_JELLYB3AN says the mom has taken her point of view too far:</p><blockquote> <p>She is eleven, if she isn&#39;t interested in make up and wearing fancy clothes 24/7 that&#39;s completely fine. Sure society tends to care more about appearance than qualities that aren&#39;t obvious, but the girl still has a point. As long as she dresses appropriately for her age and likes what she is wearing it&#39;s fine.</p> </blockquote><p>Sooz817 agrees:</p><blockquote> <p>her approach in instilling feminism into her daughters is making them judgemental and frankly rude. She has made her daughter&rsquo;s judge all people that care about their appearance as unintelligent bimbos and that&rsquo;s not a fair or correct assumption for any of them to make. It&rsquo;s perfectly ok to care about your appearance for yourself and not men FFS</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>But Jmh881 thinks it&#39;s better to take an idealistic standpoint when teaching kids about the world:</p><blockquote> <p>The kid is 11, and generally has the right idea. I think its more important to teach young kids about how the world should be before we teach them how the world actually is. Let her have that inner self confidence. Dint tear it down too fast. It seems as if you said what you said in self defense, not because you cared about her knowing.</p> </blockquote><p>And MaxSpringPuma also thinks the girls are too young for this conversation:</p><blockquote> <p>If she still strongly held these views at 16, and had negative experiences because of them, then I think it would be okay to tell her.</p> <p>But they&#39;re too young IMO. Let them be confident in their own bodies first, and know ultimately how they look isnt important. Only then should they know of societies expectations of how we present ourselves</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>And SnipesCC raises a very good point:</p><blockquote> <p>An 11 year old is on the cusp of getting thousands of media impressions a month that this or that is needed to be beautiful, and that beauty is all that matters. It&#39;s unavoidable without keeping the kids under a rock. So you bolster their self confidence and get them as prepared as you can to push back. Because no teenage girl escapes puberty without the message that society will judge her on her appearance. It takes work and conscious effort to make sure they know that&#39;s not where their value comes from.</p> </blockquote><h2>So if you&#39;re thinking of having this conversation with someone else&#39;s kids, maybe hold off.</h2><p>It seems like it&#39;s too thorny an issue to tackle.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Woman asks if she was wrong for telling her young nieces that their appearance matters.

People love to tell kids that it&#39;s what&#39;s on the inside that counts &mdash; but the harsh reality is that people are often treated differently depending on their appearance.One woman tried to explain this to her nieces, and it caused an uproar in her family. Now she&#39;s asking the internet for advice.The incident is causing a giant issue, she says: This has caused such an uproar in my family and I feel like I&#39;m going crazy over here. Like, don&#39;t-come-to-Christmas uproar. It started when she was babysitting the girls: About three weeks ago, I was babysitting my nieces. They&#39;re 9 and 11. My sister is a big feminist (so am I) who always makes her feminism a huge part of the way she&#39;s raising her kids. Like, talk about raising her kids at all, feminism comes up. I was playing dress up with the girls, and the older one mentioned that she thought the game was silly because &quot;It doesn&#39;t matter what you look like, it&#39;s what&#39;s on the inside that counts.&quot; She asked her niece to explain: I told her that we didn&#39;t have to play anymore, and asked her to tell me more about the &quot;It doesn&#39;t matter what you look like&quot; because I would like to learn. She happily told me all about how caring about your appearance is &quot;vain&quot; and people shouldn&#39;t care about what you wear, how much you weigh, what color your hair is, etc. That girls who are really into fashion or makeup had bad parents who should care more about making sure they&#39;re smart and do well in school. She told her niece her own opinion on the matter: Then she asked me why I cared about things like that because she always thought I was &quot;too smart&quot; for that. Maybe this is where I f***** up, but I had to be honest with her? I told her that I care what I look like because I want to be respected by others, I want others to be attracted to me, and that no matter what we tell ourselves, society does care and does judge men and women for how we look. I tried to explain that sometimes society cares too much, but that grooming ourselves, wearing well fitting and clean clothes, etc are things we should all care about. And she stuck up for the fashionistas of the world: I also said that being interested in fashion and makeup don&#39;t make anyone less intelligent, that they&#39;re both ways of expressing ourselves and can be very artsy as well. 11 year old seemed really bothered by this and told me that she couldn&#39;t believe I was &quot;one of them&quot; and then made a weird comment about how her mom said that&#39;s why I don&#39;t have any books. Yikes. Now the sister is furious: My sister called me, furious about how I was poisoning her daughters by forcing unobtainable feminine beauty ideals on them. At no point did I say that they had to maintain a size 2 figure, shave, have long hair, spend thousands on designer clothes, etc. But she&#39;s making it out to seem like I babysat her kids and now they&#39;re destined to become Serena Vanderwoodsen. AITA? My family sure as f*** thinks I am. The people of the internet agree that her sister is overreacting.User oceanblu456 says: First, feminism isn&rsquo;t one standard. It&rsquo;s just about basic gender equality. To say a woman who cares about her looks, or cares about anything your sister disagrees with, is not a feminist IS the antithesis of feminism. They continue: Second, you are right. Personal grooming does reflect a level of self respect. A better lesson is to not compare oneself with others to the point one feels less than. But self respect does not include degrading others for their choices. KING_JELLYB3AN agrees: You can still care about how you look and take pride in looking good or fit and NOT be Vain... If that&#39;s all you rely on to get you by in life, that is where it becomes a problem. AndromedaGreen makes a great point: It sounds like your sister is going too far in the other direction, but the result is still the same: the girls have learned to be judgmental of others&rsquo; appearances. But rosemarypancakes says that the kids might not fully understand what their aunt said: it&#39;s worth bearing in mind that at 11 years old your niece may not be able fully understand every aspect of what you are saying. I think you need to think about how an 11 year old would interpret what you told her, is she going to understand that you mean it is nice to be well presented, or will she hear it as &quot;if you&#39;re overweight people won&#39;t like you&quot;. Theres clearly a big difference but how she interprets it is important Daleyra agrees: She is eleven, if she isn&#39;t interested in make up and wearing fancy clothes 24/7 that&#39;s completely fine. Sure society tends to care more about appearance than qualities that aren&#39;t obvious, but the girl still has a point. As long as she dresses appropriately for her age and likes what she is wearing it&#39;s fine. But KING_JELLYB3AN says the mom has taken her point of view too far: She is eleven, if she isn&#39;t interested in make up and wearing fancy clothes 24/7 that&#39;s completely fine. Sure society tends to care more about appearance than qualities that aren&#39;t obvious, but the girl still has a point. As long as she dresses appropriately for her age and likes what she is wearing it&#39;s fine. Sooz817 agrees: her approach in instilling feminism into her daughters is making them judgemental and frankly rude. She has made her daughter&rsquo;s judge all people that care about their appearance as unintelligent bimbos and that&rsquo;s not a fair or correct assumption for any of them to make. It&rsquo;s perfectly ok to care about your appearance for yourself and not men FFS But Jmh881 thinks it&#39;s better to take an idealistic standpoint when teaching kids about the world: The kid is 11, and generally has the right idea. I think its more important to teach young kids about how the world should be before we teach them how the world actually is. Let her have that inner self confidence. Dint tear it down too fast. It seems as if you said what you said in self defense, not because you cared about her knowing. And MaxSpringPuma also thinks the girls are too young for this conversation: If she still strongly held these views at 16, and had negative experiences because of them, then I think it would be okay to tell her. But they&#39;re too young IMO. Let them be confident in their own bodies first, and know ultimately how they look isnt important. Only then should they know of societies expectations of how we present ourselves And SnipesCC raises a very good point: An 11 year old is on the cusp of getting thousands of media impressions a month that this or that is needed to be beautiful, and that beauty is all that matters. It&#39;s unavoidable without keeping the kids under a rock. So you bolster their self confidence and get them as prepared as you can to push back. Because no teenage girl escapes puberty without the message that society will judge her on her appearance. It takes work and conscious effort to make sure they know that&#39;s not where their value comes from. So if you&#39;re thinking of having this conversation with someone else&#39;s kids, maybe hold off.It seems like it&#39;s too thorny an issue to tackle.

People love to tell kids that it&#39;s what&#39;s on the inside that counts &mdash; but the harsh reality is that people are often treated differently depending on their appearance.  One woman tried to explain this to her nieces, and it...