7.07.2012

Ugliness

SCENE: Drying off Turtle after his shower, rubbing the towel on his wet hair.



Me:  You are soooo cute!  [smothering with kisses] But I would still love you even if you were ugly!

Turtle: No you wouldn't!

Me: Yes I would! (because I don't want him to think that my love is contingent upon his good looks godforbid something happen and he becomes disfigured and worries that I won't love him anymore yes I actually thought that in that moment that's just how my crazy mom brain works) 


Turtle: No, you wouldn't because I would be mean to you and hurt your feelings!

Me: Oh... you mean you would be acting ugly?

Turtle: Yeah, [giving me the duh! look] that's what ugly is, Mom.  Acting ugly, being not nice.

Me: Right... [taken aback]




He genuinely wasn't getting that when I said "ugly" I meant ugly in appearance.  His operating definition of ugly is totally different.  (And is probably the good early childhood development teacher definition of ugly that has been instilled to him at circle time over the years, because we've never really particularly talked about any kind of ugly together.)

Which made me really reflect on my focus on looks when I said ugly.

I hope he can hang onto his definition and remain oblivious to the concept of physical ugliness for as long as possible.


It's really lovely to have a son who is not ugly (by his definition).


1 comment:

Mandarin4fun said...

this is cute to read. Oh. what a beloved mom and a lovely son.