What is pissing you off this time?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Glinda

My friends and I call them "poo particles."

Pooticles?

[Glinda]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Pooticles?

Oh, that's perfect! May I steal?

[DanaC]

You...want to steal Grav's pooticles?

[Gravdigr]

People, people...

Verily, I say unto you, Partake of my pooticles as you will, Gentle Dwellars. Yea, deeply, and in reverence, shall ye partake.

[Glinda]

Oh, you guys!

[monster]

Why is it that whenever you share a picture of your kid and their great recent accomplishment..... IRL and on social media....

someone will ignore what they did and comment on how beautiful/handsome/good-looking they are. WTF people?

-especially for girls, but also boys

[glatt]

They didn't get the memo about that and think they are being kind.

There's also the point that the kids are usually dressing up for some sort of ceremony/event and they actually do clean up pretty well.

[Clodfobble]

I think people also assume that the presence of a picture means the kids' appearance is kind of part of the deal, if that makes sense. Like, if they win a trophy--you can say they won a trophy, you can post a picture of the trophy, you can post a picture of them with the trophy, or you can post a picture of them being happy at the exact moment after they won. A lot of social media posts (not yours, necessarily) are the latter, and I can see how some might think it's kind of detached from the accomplishment itself, and feel compelled to acknowledge the picture separately from the words it came with.

[DanaC]

Or because at that moment they are kind of glowing with inner beauty and confidence because of their achievement.

And because people know the kid will feel really good about other people thinking they look awesome.

[Gravdigr]

You are complaining that someone complimented your children.

Would you prefer "What a great accomplishment for such a butt-ugly fucking child."?

Take the compliment and go the fuck on. They're complimenting you too, ya know.

[Clodfobble]

It's true that some compliments can be accidentally-damaging, though. Tell a girl she's pretty all the time, and she might take the message that 1.) her brain doesn't matter, and 2.) once she's old she's worthless.

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

They didn't get the memo about that and think they are being kind.

There's also the point that the kids are usually dressing up for some sort of ceremony/event and they actually do clean up pretty well.

That's just it, the one I saw recently (not my kid) wasn't dressed up. Proud parent stated accomplishments and two thirds of comments never touched on the acheivement -not even "congrats", only physical appearance of child.

If they brushed up well, say "Wow, that's really impressive..... and look how handsome he is in that suit...." etc. But even then, -especially for girls- reinforcing that how you look at every moment is so important can be very damaging. It's hard to achieve great things if you are worrying about how you look.

[Clodfobble]

If she is an average woman, it's already lurking, you're just counteracting the nagging fears. But then, J is not an average woman.

[Undertoad]

There I go deleting my message instead of editing ~ sorry ~

It was: I tell J that all the time, she's 54, when does the worthless part kick in?

I had this feeling the message didn't say what I wanted it to say wanted to think of how to say it, but there it is.

[monster]

It starts the very first time someone prioritizes how you look over who you are and what you can do. Which they do for girls way more than boys.

For me, aged 5 or so, enrolling for ballet for the first time and hearing the ballet teacher tell my mum I was fat. I knew I was fat and unlovable all the way through school and all the way til I fell in love with someone who was even fatter than me and never seemed to notice. And as I matured and started to look back, I saw pictures of me as a kid and realized I had never been fat at all. But because I knew I was fat and unlovable, I never tried to make friend or join clubs....

Fortunately for me, I'm fucking stubborn so I did do the ballet and I earned the highest grading possible at every damn grade test I took.

Eventually, I made it to university and had a chance for a new start, and no-one seemed to hate me for being fat. They didn't seem to notice.

But even now, awesome person that I am, that damage is still there. It is very hard to love myself. And I am fat, because that one is a self-fulfilling prophesy and I never loved myself enough to prevent it.

And Grav, your opinion has never counted because the first time I was brave enough to post a candid image on here (a video, even, of me enjoying the surf ride at a water park) you called me fat. I am sorry that looks are so important to you. You're missing out on a lot of good people.