Too Pretty to be Sad

This adorable video keeps popping up on Instagram of this baby girl who every time she looks at her mother, she makes this sad “boo-boo” lip, and when she looks back at her dad, she smiles. Her facial expressions go back and forth between mom and dad, and it’s super cute.

(I demand a granddaughter, pronto dente).

Anyway, when she does the pouty lip thing, you can hear her mother laugh and say, “Oh, baby, don’t be sad.” You can also hear her father say, off-video, “Oh, baby, you’re too pretty to be sad.”

If you’ve already figured it out, you’re quicker than I am. I wasn’t prepared, but now, of course, I realize I should have been. Silly, silly me. Here are some of the comments:

Too pretty to be sad? Ugh.

Bad parents.

In this day and age, seriously?

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

The implication being, of course, that the parents are sending this six-month old the wrong message, which will, ultimately, send her to her crib with low self-esteem and potential cutting issues. The message being?

That being pretty is everything. And that if a young girl is lucky enough to be born “pretty,” she has, and never will have, anything to complain about.

Yikes. Does anyone actually believe that, or teach their daughters that? I tend to doubt it.

Entire books have been written on the subject of women’s body image, societal expectations of the female body image, the effects of growing up as what society perceives as “attractive” vs. “unattractive,” etc. I teach entire classes on it, sometimes I spend weeks on it, sometimes I assign papers to be written on it. It’s fascinating.

And I’m not trying to solve it here.

I guess the bottom line is that you should see this baby. She is definitely too pretty to be sad. We all are.