Poodle Head and other body image issues. . .

It happened for the first time in the third grade.  I cut my beautiful, stick-straight, blonde hair from below my waistline to a short shag and had it permed. My mother, a hairdresser, completed the task and I don't doubt that it made her cry.

Then I encountered my first image-related bullying.  The boy I liked called me "Poodle Head."  For months, I'd dodge him every chance I could: in the lunch line, at recess, even in the hallways.  But we lived in a small town and I went to a small school, with only about twelve or thirteen other classmates, so avoiding him for too long was impossible.

I don't know when he stopped.  Maybe it was when my hair grew out or when he no longer got a rise out of me.  Maybe it wasn't until we packed up and moved 200 miles away to a larger town.  Honestly, I can't remember. I never thought it had much of an effect on me until my own daughter asked to cut her hair into a cute pixie cut.  I hyperventilated. I said "We'll talk about it."  I put her request off for well over a month.

I wanted better for her.

I didn't want her to go through what I went through, because I don't remember the compliments I got at the time - only the taunts of 'Poodle-head' on the playground. Above all else, though, it is my sincere hope that I never project my experiences onto my children. I want them to learn by doing if that's what they need.  I want their experiences to be uniquely theirs. So I let her cut it.

She got compliments. Gads of them.  It suits her personality.  Her teacher told her it made her look like her hero, Emma Watson.  She loves it.  And she was right - it is beautifully, uniquely her.

Then the neighbor told her she looked like a boy.  He called her 'buck-tooth'.  When she told me this, it took everything inside me not to run across the street and pummel him.  Or threaten him.  Or in some other way bully him back. Instead, I harnessed my rage and talked to her - how does she feel, what will she do with that, where does she apply it in her life.  The answer?  Healthfully.  She's miles ahead of where I was at her age and thank heavens for that. We can set aside damage-control for later and be grateful that she's as self-assured as she is.

But only for now - because coming down the pipe are braces and bikinis and boys and bitches and backstabbing and body image issues (and a whole load of other things that don't start with a 'B').  And what then?

MoveOn.Org is hosting this video about girls and leadership and fashion magazines and all of those mixed signals we send our girls.  In the political arena both parties are screaming "War on Women" and the Mommy Wars have reignited and there's birth control and abortion and I'll be honest - whether I'm reading Glamour or the New York Times, it's hard to feel culturally empowered and supported when I see myself and all of my own frailties in these headlines. THIS is the world I have to prepare her for.

Through all of this I have to raise a girl who feels good about herself .  I ask myself every day how I am going to do that for her.  The bumbling answer is often to be a good role model: to fight, accept, ignore, and change the world when those things are called for.

She is all of nine years old.  Nine.  This stuff is just starting for her and she looks to me and I'm *not* nine. I've lived through this and have the scars to prove it and I'm no role model in the "Feel-Good-About-Yourself-Avoid-Bullies-Everyone-Is-Beautiful-and-Smart" brigade.  All I can do now is love her and show her a mirror and hope like hell that she hangs on to that girl who rocks the shit out of a pixie cut.