Teaching Self-Love

When my daughter Amarilis was a baby, I took her to Starbucks. She was in her car seat as I waited for my drink. I looked up and a young white girl walked in, she was probably in high school. There was something about her that caught my attention and I remember thinking she was a cute girl. I then looked down at my beautiful baby girl and I thought to myself how much harder it would be for her growing up in this world as a black woman.

I was determined to help Amarilis love herself, even if our society didn’t show her the love she deserved. I thought about how little things had changed for women of color in my 34 years of life and I did not expect sweeping changes by the time my daughter became an adult. I knew I had to build her up and teach her about self-love every chance I got.

I was relentless with my cutie. I wanted to be sure that when she saw herself, she saw a beautiful girl staring back at her. I may have outdone myself. 🙂 I had a Facebook memory come up last week. When Amarilis was 5 years old she asked me for a mirror so that she could see how gorgeous she was. 😉 I gladly handed her the mirror. As someone who struggled with self-esteem for a period in my life, I knew that my job was not done at 5, that I would need to keep building her up, and I was very much up for the job. When she was in elementary school we practiced comebacks. I would say mean things to her that kids might say so that she could practice her responses. I told her, never to give away her power to kids who were being mean. If she did not believe them, if she did not let them hurt her feelings, she took their power over her.

Now that my beauty is in middle school, I talk to her a lot about self-awareness and not letting other people tell her who she is. If she has self-love and self-awareness, she will not be led astray from her authentic self. I tell her that people will come into her life who will tell her who she is, what she thinks, how she feels, and what she can accomplish. The only way to combat that is to truly know who she is at her core.

For Christmas this year I gave Amarilis a picture I made to remind her of how I see her and my wish that she can see herself through my eyes so that she always knows how much, and why, I love her. Somedays I sit back and think about the incredible young woman I get to see grow up. I feel so lucky and bless to be her mom. I showed her the about page of this blog where I said she was beautiful. Apparently, beautiful was not good enough, she wanted me to say how stunning and magnetic she is. 🙂 That’s my baby!!!