Our Faces Are Good Enough...

A Reflection on Beauty for My Unborn Daughter

Let me preface by saying that my first baby girl is due in less than two months. The other day, I had the pleasure of going to a friend’s house for a ladies’ dinner. All the women there were mothers, and they all already had between two and five children each. Some were stay-at-home mums planning to homeschool, others worked part or full time. Regardless, they all have extremely busy, rich lives. I quickly noticed that hardly any of them wore any makeup; the ones that did, wore very little. This, I must clarify, was clearly not some kind of statement against the vice of vanity (one can value one’s appearance without being personally vain, after all), for they all looked beautifully, effortlessly glamorous in their flowy skirts, linen blouses, and flowery dresses. They all had well-cared-for hair, and wore elegant jewellery. I’m not at all trying to make a case against all use of makeup, or against any kind of personal grooming. But, I must confess, I felt a little out of place by contrast, wearing a full face of makeup. Now, to my male readers, please read on, I promise I have a point. This post is not really about foundation and lipstick.

I’m sure all these glamorous, smart, hardworking mothers often simply don’t have the time to spend on, as my husband calls it, ‘painting their faces’. They have homes, children, jobs, commitments at their local church…all vastly more important and interesting duties. Still, I started thinking, I have a busy life too, and yet I hardly ever leave the house without at least a little makeup on. When did this start, I asked myself? Why do I do it? What does that imply about my ideas on beauty and womanhood? Let me give you a little context. I believe I’ve been wearing makeup for around twelve years, since I was thirteen or fourteen and felt self-conscious about my face. After that, I never stopped. It became so impossible for me to be seen by anyone other than my own mother without makeup on my face, that when my now-husband came to stay at my family home a few months into dating, I would put foundation on before going down to breakfast. I would guess the first time he saw my face makeup-less was when we got married. Last night was the first date we’ve been on in four years of courtship and marriage when I dared go outside barefaced. He’s told me I’m beautiful just as I am a thousand times, but it took seeing women older than me, women I look up to and respect, not care about being observed in their ‘natural’ faces, for it to really sink in that the faces God gave us are good enough.

I know I’m not alone in experiencing a protracted case of adolescent self-consciousness, bordering on obsession, about my looks. Plastic surgery, we are constantly told in news stories, is always on the rise, and still largely aimed at women. The cosmetic industry is ridiculously successful. There are people making a lot of money out of women’s insecurities. Who is to blame? That is very hard to say. A lot of blame is now placed on social media, especially Instagram, for promoting unrealistic standards of beauty. I think that is definitely part of the story, especially for young Gen-Z girls, but it does not explain why I felt the pressure to look perfect in pre-social media late-2000s rural Italy. Back then, I guess, we had fashion magazines to remind us of our failings. Still, I suspect this worry about one’s inadequate appearance is a much older and much more pervasive one.

I suspect, in fact, that it is something almost innate and related to our basic fear of not being valuable enough as human beings. Women have historically been particularly susceptible to this, because historically a youthful appearance has meant a higher likelihood of a good marriage and financial security, so there are definitely some external factors at play. But even more deeply, I suspect that our faces are one thing that we think we can control, whenever we feel that we are not valuable, not worthy of love and admiration. And so we do just that, by way of plastic surgery, or, on a much less extreme scale, by becoming dependent on makeup. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel like her face isn’t good enough. She’s only going to be little for a few brief years, and what then? I would hate for her to think that she has to hyper-fixate on the way she looks to gain the respect and admiration of her peers, her female friends, or a potential spouse. How is this to be fixed?

In my case, I’ve realised, the root of the problem is that I didn’t feel worthy of being loved. Consequently, I didn’t feel beautiful. No amount of love or affirmation from my parents or husband fixed this. Not even therapy did. What has helped, has been my faith. I know, I know, I’m being as stereotypical as a Christian can be, but since my conversion, and with years of prayer, I have begun to truly feel loved by the people in my life, because I now believe that God loves me. Acceptance of His love was a prerequisite for the acceptance of human love. The second thing that has helped, has been the experience of motherhood. If you ask mothers, a lot of them will tell you that seeing what their bodies are capable of doing in pregnancy and childbirth, has finally made them feel beautiful.

That is what I saw when I had dinner with friends the other night. I saw women who understood the extreme beauty inherent in being able to grow and nurture life. Now, acknowledging this is easier if you have experienced motherhood. I am well aware that some women, for whatever reason, will not experience motherhood, and this may, for some, cause much grief over the years. I am profoundly sorry that this is the case. But the fact that the miraculous potential for the fostering of new life is inherent in our bodies does not change, whether that potential is fulfilled or not. The point stands that the ability to bear children is a beauty peculiar to women, and that is what I want my daughter to remember as she grows up: that God loves her, and that her femaleness is a gift. I hope she believes me when I tell her this. I hope that, should she one day decide that she is called to the vocation of marriage, she will not fear her future husband seeing her barefaced. I hope by then, she will understand God’s love deeply enough to believe that another person could love her just as she looks, with her own face, a face that is good enough, a face that is beautiful regardless of how it looks, because it is beloved by God.