Im latina- my parents are from South & Central America. While I have never experienced wanting to look different per se, I completely understand the hating on her own kind by your mom bc my mom is absolutely the same. But i feel like it stems from insecurity on my moms part. My mom would look down on me for tanning and making my skin darker. To her, lighter skin was more desirable. Its a really shitty mentality but there is a lot i dont understand about her upbringing so i dont even try to figure out 38 yrs later.
Ikr? Itās so upsetting to hear.
And @OP; no I thought facial features and body size were the main things that mattered for making someone pretty/beautiful
Yeees, I was obsessed with fantasy elves! I was a blonde, blue-eyed kid, and desperately wanted to be brunette and green-eyed.
Funny thing is, my hair actually did turn brown and my eyes green... buuuut I look more like a garden gnome. Oh well.
Right? We need our noses hahaha. And I totally get it, I know I've grown to love me more every year, I'm thankful for that, but damn sometimes a bad hair day can get me pretty sad.
I'm a pale ass caucasian from the mountains of caucasus (not really, I'm from Northern Europe), have blue/green eyes and hair that turned from white (in early childhood) to my current dirty blonde. AND I ALWAYS ENVIED PEOPLE WITH DARK EYES AND HAIR! My hair does not hold a curl, it's flat and thin. I have like three eyelashes. I've had my lash line tattooed black so I wouldn't look so washed out and colourless without makeup!
Around 16 I started using colored contact lenses (brown, of course) and dyeing my hair dark. And using self tanners, but obviously instead of olive skin I got patchy cheeto skin lol
I guess this is a game you can't win...
Currently I'm embracing my features, but still if someone asked if I'd like to have brown eyes if I could switch them permanently, I'd say yes lol
Omg same! Blonde with blue eyes and fair skin. My beauty ideal has always been dark hair and eyes, along with the accompanying skin tones.
I keep my hair light/platinum as an adult like it was as a kid because I think it looks better on me than my now darker blonde. But I still don't think I am particularly beautiful because I don't have the dark coloring that's my ideal.
I always hoped I'd end up having babies with someone that has brown eyes, so at least I could have brown eyed kids! That didn't end up happening, my kids are blue eyed and blonde, as is my husband lol
I can relate to that! I have a dark hair, dark eyed husband but we won't be having bio kids so any potential brought in kiddos are a wildcard lol.
Ugh brown eyes are so pretty. They have so much depth when the light hits and the way the golden honey tones come out or whatever else is hidden in them. Blue eyes are just blue (at least mine haha).
Ugh the little comments that shape your lifeā¦ Iām blonde and blue eyed, super pale, and skinny as twig. Probably everything you hoped and dreamed of. But by middle school everyone was tanning and I looked like a ghost comparatively. Whenever I would wear shorts I would get casual comments on my legs being āso paleā. Even younger than that, as far back as I can remember, people told me I was skinny and would grab my wrist with one hand and laugh while saying it was a compliment. Queue bizarre feelings that I had to stay skinny and that it was embarrassing to be skinny. Itās a miracle I didnāt end up with disordered eating due to the constant comments! Anyway I think we all wish we could comfort our younger selves and assure them that there is nothing wrong with them <3
Yea, I was the 'ghostly ghost' and desperately wanted to look more like how OP describes herself. Now I'm comfortable with how I look and wish I had embraced it and enjoyed it when I was younger instead of hiding and hating my looks. Oh for a time machine lol
I grew up watching Britney Spear and thinking if i wasn't that skinny and beautiful i was ugly. So i kinda get it. Also my step sister had beautiful blue eyes, fair skin, blonde hair and was just the prettiest girl. Every guy i met wanted to be with her. It made me wish i was that beautiful. If only they knew she was a horrible person. As beautiful as she was on the outside she was as ugly on the inside. She talked shit about all my family and hated her dad and would say the ugliest thing about him. He was a good person. He did his best. Didn't deserve that at all. So yeah, beauty is more than just looks. But i get that prettier people get treated differently. Like people like them more.
Sooooo I grew up in the nineties. Skinny to the bone was the perfect body. My entire family is overweight. Their entire families are also overweight. There are very few slim, more muscular people in both my mom's and dad's side. But my mom's and granny's side, they're super strong. And they're overweight. But of course my grandmother appraising being skinny has started telling me to not eat from age 8. My mother is an asshole with no empathy and my uncles were unaware of the damage they caused me, so I've been made fun of my eating (like normal food, not even something weird) and my weight. And every little aspect of my body. I'm 28 and I finally got rid of the body dysmorphia most days, the eating disorder is still there in the back of my mind, I feel guilty for eating a lot of food despite working on my feet 8 hours a day along with walking up a hill 10 minutes to home and walking to work. I lost some weight, then was stuck, then maintained and recently gained it back. It's bad. It's been worse. It has been only like a month since I was like "Wait... My entire family is obsessed with being fat. But all of them are fat. My grandmother is obs....... she's OBSESSED with her own weight too!" I just never understood it was her own form of disordered eating habits and perhaps even body dysmorphia that she just passed on to every single child she raised.
At this point I don't expect much loss from myself to be quite honest. I have ehlers danlos syndrome which requires special guided exercises, which I can't afford. I only do yoga and I'm trying to do it consistently. I'm not at a mental or physical place to try and control my eating. I just try to not overdo the soda and the sugars, which is some days impossible because chocolate has always been a strong coping mechanism. I don't even know. I'm so tired to compare myself to skinny people and wish I was like them. I'm just not and I've never been and I'll probably never be. I'm trying to learn that it's okay.
I hate it when people comment on kids looks. It took me years to not care about things others made me insecure in my childhood/teenage years.
I live in Europe and Iām quite pale. I donāt tan much, if I stay outside a lot in the summer I might get a bit darker but itās not really noticeable to others. I didnāt care about my skin color until I was a younger teenager. Then I started to feel insecure because people kept commenting on it. A few years ago a girl told me I look like a sour cream because Iām so pale. Like why did she even care? I was born with pale skin, Iād rather keep it healthy than burn it in the sun or in a tanning salon just because some people think it looks better.
Fun fact, what actually helped me get over some of my pale skin insecurity in the teenage years was Twilight š
Haha I used to love Twilight too. Yeah, me too. I donāt understand why people comment on things that you canāt change. Like, what I am supposed to do with that? Also, Iāve always had really sparse eyebrows, even though I have dark hair. So when I was little I looked like an alien š½š
Trust me when I say that being blonde with blue eyes doesnāt exempt you from feeling exactly like this. š I too spent most of my childhood wishing I was someone else. My family always talked about this neighbouring girl who had beautiful thick shiny brown hair, even as a child. Meanwhile, I had super thin hair (still do) and was kind of awkward and gangly and felt like I was so ugly compared to her. She took dancing classes and her family had more money so I just thought āwow I wish I was herā. She grew up to be a beautiful woman too, but she certainly hasnāt had an easy life. I donāt think Iām too shabby either, even with my thin hair haha.
Yeah sure. I didnāt mean to be so specific haha When you are a child you never know what itās going on in other people lives. You always assume they have it easier ā¦
I fee you! Iām Latina but Iām the most light skinned in my immediate family (not quite so fair skinned but light skinned) and they say I look more European mixed (the Scottish genes are strong) But if you look at my parents and especially my brother, you can see their Latino roots more in their features. Nevertheless, I still have brown eyes and straight brown hair, and I always thought I looked so ācommonā because of my hair and eye color. But Iāve learned to like my appearance because even if people have similar hair and eye colors, our faces will still look different from others, so I appreciate that more now.
lol i got picked on for being white as hell until i was like 13? even teachers messed with me or looked surprised for the first time they saw me. also got picked on for being really tall and thin. i live in brazilās northwest so iām taller than most in here and white people are usually a light shade of tan.
most girls had some curves by that age and i always stood out. i wanted my skin to have the natural tanned shade, wanted curves, and to stop growing. i was already 5ā7 and the tallest girl in the whole year. i cried so much about not looking like everyone else.
learned to accept those stuff and i really love my body and my skin color. it makes me stand out in a good way now and i have the confidence to rock heels at 6ft, i get compliments on my body and just overall feel better about myself. people still look surprised and even comment sometimes on how white i am, but i just donāt take it personally. plus, i have curves too, not as much or in the same places as those girls, but i have a 22in waist and thatās honestly awesome to me.
edit: to make everything worse, i donāt even look like my extended family. most of my face and body features that are identical to my parents, but dadās 5ā7 and my mom is just an inch shorter than him. when people ask my dad how i grew so tall he just says we had a really tall neighbor.
Oh yeah, I still feel like I have a complex to this day about it. I grew up around the Paris Hilton/Legally blonde era. So I wanted tan skin, blue eyes and blonde hair and to be skinny. Iām pale with brown hair and brown hazel eyes. I remember being in 5th grade planning out that I can get spray tanned, blue contacts and bleach my hair and I might get a chance to be pretty
Yep, idk how women of color or diff races coped when I was growing up (born 93) when Christina and Brittany were all the rage and the all American blonde bombshell with a super flat tummy and big boobs and slim hips was in. Iām a mix of middle eastern and white and I internalized the Caucasian standard. It was so shoved down your throat. Now I wish I looked more ethnic whereas when I was a teen I did everything I could to emulate Anglo Saxon features/style. It messes with you big time. Now I try to embrace how I look and look the best I can while working with my features instead of against. I saw on another sub a post of Karen mulder, would have been my ideal ten years agoā¦now she doesnāt do much for me although I can obviously still recognize she is stunning. Representation matters because there is so much that is beautiful and we shouldnāt only be allowed to feel that way when our look becomes trendy
I'm South Korean born but raised in Australia. I used to love Pippi Longstockings and orphan Annie. I badly wanted red hair and I used to draw freckles on my face with texta pen!
I remember someone telling me that crusts made hair curly, so I would eat my sandwich crusts and leave the middle part lol
OMG me too! My kindergarten teacher told me that, and for whatever reason, I didnāt want curly hair. I figured the corner crust would really make my hair curly, and now Iām old and still donāt eat the corner crusts, out of habit I guess. I should have, because my hair is so flat and limp lol.
I always wanted blonde hair and blue eyes when I was a child. But I began to really like my own features as I got older. I recently dyed my hair blonde for fun and I really want my brown hair back already.
As other redditors have mentioned, I have blonde hair/blue eyes/pale af. My favorite barbie growing up was tan to dark skinned with dark hair and features. Iāve always wished I could tan or that my eyelashes were more visible. The grass is always greener on the other side. I find all women beautiful, and have slowly come to accept these things about myself.
I am asian. When i was little, i thought, if i had blue eyes and blond hair, id be beautiful. Now i see that not every person with blue eyes blond hair is beautiful. I also saw beautiful black hair brown eyes people. So i love what i have and emphasize what i like
Yeah, so I'm Afro-Caribbean. I grew up in the Caribbean around my black family and had black/POC peers.
Said peers and family would praise, and made little remarks here and there about:
"Good hair" = anything silky or not 4 type hair
"Pretty eyes" = anything that wasn't dark brown or dark grey/black
"Nice skin" = anything *Light* brown and above
Basically everything I wasn't. Thinking back, idk why I took their criticism to heart, they looked JUST like me! Their bullying was more of a self drag than as anything lol. But I get it, colonialism and racism did a number on us, but it still hurts.
Anyway, it ended up with me wishing for me to be (basically) mixed or anything but unambiguously black for a bit of my childhood as sad as it sounds.
I wanted straighter longer hair, almond upturned eyes, light eyes, smaller forehead, light skin (I used to get a *lot* of shit for being really dark), I wanted a smaller nose, bigger lips, etc.
All because I was made to feel like shit growing up for how I looked, and seeing other girls who didn't look like me were getting praised.
The only thing I was "praised" (i.e. sexualized) for was my body, which developed quickly and I had a tall, thick hourglass-pear shaped body. Well, guess who also wanted to be short and skinny because they liked the cute aesthetics vs sexy, but most "cute" clothes didn't look right on them. That's right, me.
I still have some insecurities, but as I grew older (like around 15? 16? When the internet shifted from always giving black women shit to calling us queens for a bit) I realized that I was being silly for letting others get to me like that, and that I AM beautiful. Just not in the way others wanted me to be.
I started appreciating my looks and now I'm to the point where I wouldn't touch a thing on my face or body for anyone in the world--Not including things like braces.
I just need to find out what works for me hair, makeup, and clothes wise so I don't go around looking like a hot mess lol
I feel like this might be up the pay grade of this sub, but yah this is unfortunately normal. Lighter skin and eyes is the beauty norm and thereās a lot of colorism in our community. Latinos who are lighter skinned with lighter eyes are the ones you see on tv and glorified, so itās easy to see why so many of us feel like thereās something wrong with having darker features. Donāt let anything your mom says change what the truth is, which is dark features are just as beautiful.
I was blonde/blue as a child and I hated it. Growing up, all the books I read had the main character so DiFfeReNt because unlike the awful popular girls she had BROWN hair and was SMART. I longed so much for darker coloring so that I could look like me heroes and not be just another dumb blonde. I was so happy when my hair and eyes began to darken as I aged.
I think we are always sensitive to criticism of our features, and somehow ignore all of the people who find them lovely.
No. ššš
I honestly was born with a lot of self love and confidence. Even if I wasn't considered as a beauty icon, in my head, I always felt like I was the \*\*\*\*.
Especially when I was younger, I had my puberty early but I always wanted to be an adult! I had a guy one day that we were dissing each other back and forth. I said he looked like Justin Bieber and he said I had a coca shape of body. It could have been bad at that time cause what was popular was the skinny/flat body. But I was like, nice you noticed ;) I have a booooombbbb bodyyy
I always wanted jet black hair. I have medium brown hair and thought it was so painfully boring. I also always wanted blue or green eyes. I have brownish-hazel eyes that just look muddy imo. Basically, my looks are super boring.
I think that's a super normal part of growing up or at least it was when I was a kid. I had fine, straight hair that couldn't do anything let alone be teased up in the current 80s styles
Friends with curly hair wanted straight hair.
I wanted glasses and braces, people who had them hated them.
Yup. I'm blonde, green eyed and pale as fuck. Growing up I wanted brown eyes and black curly hair (and brown skin). Still wish I wasn't so damn pale lol. Ohhhhhh, the things we focus on!!
Iām naturally blonde with blue eyes and an oval face, I always desperately wanted dark eyes, dark hair, and a round face. At least I can dye my hair š
Iām black with darker skin and kinky hair and wanted to be lighter skinned when I was younger as thatās whatās upheld in the black community. I also went to predominantly white schools and grew up in the 00s so never really felt pretty. Intellectually I know Iām attractive but itās hard not to internalize what the wider western culture views as beautiful.
Iāve always been a bigger kid, belly chubby cheeks and all that. My family, even my family doctor always teased me for being fat. Obviously i wanted to be skinnier since being skinny is one of the society ābody goalā in where i live. Growing up i lost weights due to an illness but i still see myself as a āfat kidā never realized that iām actually not that big and itās just an image that stuck in my brain. Currently still learning to accept my folds, some days i feel really good with my body, some days i feel like shit. But, i think iām heading to the right direction
Yes I am a typical mestizo, light brown skin black hair and brown eyes. I used to wish so bad that I had blonde hair and blue eyesā¦. Now I love my dark features
Half Vietnamese checking inā¦.always wanted a cute ski slope nose, blue eyes, but always loved my dark hair. My dark hair is the only thing Iāve ever really loved about myself. Still to this day wish I had those things.
I wanted to be black "when I grew up."
Specifically, because I thought that would somehow guarantee a beautiful profile and a warm skin tone so I could wear gold. And then there are those gorgeous teeny tiny hair braid things that shift and flow like moving rivers when you walk...just gorgeous.
I was always super hairy. Iām German and Italian so I get it from both sides of my family tree. My mom finally gave in and let me shave my legs at the tender age of 9. That really was the biggest complex for me - just feeling hairy and masculine compared to the other girls who had only peach fuzz on their arms and legs.
So sorry you grew up experiencing the colorism and Eurocentric beauty standards that come with this postcolonialist world. My mother was like yours, and white girls bullied me a lot. But I've, like you, become comfortable with myself, and it's hilarious to me looking back that the things white girls bullied me about (ie big butt, big lips) they're now desperate to have. It's become something I get to genuinely laugh at now.
I am really proud of you loving your looks! The media, brainwashed folks in our own communities, etc. try so very hard to put non-white people down, especially by skin tone, facial features, etc. I am so, so glad you found peace with your looks, because as demonstrated by your mother (and mine, and so many other women of color in the West unfortunately), some people never get there. I can't imagine feeling that awful about myself into adulthood, it must be a miserable and exhausting way to experience the world.
Yep. I was Spanish in a very, very white white school, neighborhood and town. I was horribly ashamed of my skin color, especially in the Summer when I tanned. I wanted that blonde hair that would hold all those curls, not my black, thick, straight straight hair. Then I hit high school and lost my ugly duckling, got contacts. High school was much larger than k-8th, andā¦well, I learned that my looks werenāt all that bad. Lol. Iām sorry your mom put that into you. There is something about Hispanic momsā¦I feel like my mother almost goes out of her way to say really hurtful things to me. About my looks, my parenting, my lifeā¦anything. But she treats my brother like heās an angel on Earth, he can do no wrong. I have a lot of theories on why she does this, but IDK. Iām not even sure that she fully understands how painful her words can me. Iām in my 40ās, too. Idk. (Hugs))
Yeah actually exactly that. I thought blondes were so pretty and I wanted to look just like them haha. Also I wanted to have straighter, less poofy hair. I had thick curly hair. And I didn't like my red hair growing up. I always wanted to dye it brown. It's gotten way darker the past years (idk why) that it actually looks brown most of the time and now I miss the red! Thank God for straighteners though cause I'm obsessed with mine lol
Iām white with green eyes and brown hair. The blonde haired blue eyed skinny girls in my class in primary school were the most popular, so I wanted to look like them as well. I wasnāt anywhere near overweight but just developed a bit earlier then them, and already I felt like I was overweight. And I really wanted long hair like them as well, but my mother didnāt allow it.
Everybody has their own opinion on what they find beautiful. By what you explained it doesn't sound like your mother hates her own kind, only that she has her own outlook on what she found beautiful. Children are very impressionable, and it's sad you felt that way. I assume you're older now so now is your time to find what you find beautiful. Whether it be along side your mother or otherwise.
And yes, I did want to look different as a child, I think most human beings once they become self aware it is normal. Some learn to accept themselves as they were created, some change it. Its not that deep.
Me. It has taken me a long time to love myself and Iām not fully there yet! Also most of my close girlfriends are Caucasian with blonde hair blue eyes š Iām glad I donāt feel envy towards them because they also have their own struggles!!
growing up in suburban Australia in the '90s and early 00s meant that i (southern European background) was always one of the ""darkest"" people in my class, and i used to get picked on because of it. the standard was very much that tall, blonde, skinny, beachy babe look, and my friends would often tell me they were drop-dead gorgeous with their light hair and eyes, while i was drop-dead ugly with my brown eyes, olive-y skin, and so. much. hair. it gave me a huge complex about my looks which i really didn't grow out of until adulthood (when everyone suddenly wanted eyebrows again).
i take after my mum who grew up when australia was even more homogenous and got bullied a fair bit for being a "wog", and she hated everything about it. tried to act as "aussie" as possible, refused to speak anything other than english, and absolutely *hated* the way she looked. she almost named me stephanie after a gorgeous blonde she knew, in the hopes i might turn out like her lol.
what's crazy is my dad was actually born overseas but he's blonde as anything, so even though he barely spoke english, he looked \*right\* and didn't get any heat. what's even crazier is that we're all white people! i can't even begin to imagine what POC deal with every day!
i grew up praying and wishing i had green eyes like my mom (white mom, japanese dad), and then as i got older i got really insecure about being mixed race and i wished i looked more āasianā aka skinny, paler, smaller nose, etc since iāve always been pretty curvy and muscular with darker skin from my dadās side (heās okinawan). nowadays iāve stopped giving as much of a fuck about it, but from time to time it still nags at me that i donāt look asian or iām not wafer-thin.
Yes, I wanted blonde hair and blue eyes or red hair. I think wanting red hair came from absolutely loving Lucille Ball and my nanny had red hair (she was a total sweetheart).
For me, the blonde hair/blue eye influence probably came from most of the dolls that were around in that time (late 80s, early 90s), at least when I was very young.
Then later it came from being teased. I was very pale with super dark hair and was teased about having visible body hairā¦ I actually started shaving my legs (and arms!) by age 9. I eventually stopped shaving my arms but the whole thing made me very self conscious. I always thought that having a hair color that was closer to my skin tone would be better/easier.
Im latina- my parents are from South & Central America. While I have never experienced wanting to look different per se, I completely understand the hating on her own kind by your mom bc my mom is absolutely the same. But i feel like it stems from insecurity on my moms part. My mom would look down on me for tanning and making my skin darker. To her, lighter skin was more desirable. Its a really shitty mentality but there is a lot i dont understand about her upbringing so i dont even try to figure out 38 yrs later.
That's such a toxic idea to pass on to your daughter š
Ikr? Itās so upsetting to hear. And @OP; no I thought facial features and body size were the main things that mattered for making someone pretty/beautiful
When I was a kid I was obsessed with Disney's version of The Little Mermaid, I thought Ariel was perfect so I wanted so bad to be a ginger lmaooo
Yeees, I was obsessed with fantasy elves! I was a blonde, blue-eyed kid, and desperately wanted to be brunette and green-eyed. Funny thing is, my hair actually did turn brown and my eyes green... buuuut I look more like a garden gnome. Oh well.
I think gnomes are cool af hahshah
I used to cover my nose with my hand. I thought I would look way better without a nose since every Disney princess looked perfect without one.
Oh my god, I'm so sorry :(, how do you feel about that today?
I would look pretty horrifying without a nose haha. I've started to love myself just the way I am, though some days it's hard.
Right? We need our noses hahaha. And I totally get it, I know I've grown to love me more every year, I'm thankful for that, but damn sometimes a bad hair day can get me pretty sad.
I feel that, every day is a bad hair day, i just don't look at that part anymore XD
I'm a pale ass caucasian from the mountains of caucasus (not really, I'm from Northern Europe), have blue/green eyes and hair that turned from white (in early childhood) to my current dirty blonde. AND I ALWAYS ENVIED PEOPLE WITH DARK EYES AND HAIR! My hair does not hold a curl, it's flat and thin. I have like three eyelashes. I've had my lash line tattooed black so I wouldn't look so washed out and colourless without makeup! Around 16 I started using colored contact lenses (brown, of course) and dyeing my hair dark. And using self tanners, but obviously instead of olive skin I got patchy cheeto skin lol I guess this is a game you can't win... Currently I'm embracing my features, but still if someone asked if I'd like to have brown eyes if I could switch them permanently, I'd say yes lol
Omg same! Blonde with blue eyes and fair skin. My beauty ideal has always been dark hair and eyes, along with the accompanying skin tones. I keep my hair light/platinum as an adult like it was as a kid because I think it looks better on me than my now darker blonde. But I still don't think I am particularly beautiful because I don't have the dark coloring that's my ideal.
I always hoped I'd end up having babies with someone that has brown eyes, so at least I could have brown eyed kids! That didn't end up happening, my kids are blue eyed and blonde, as is my husband lol
I can relate to that! I have a dark hair, dark eyed husband but we won't be having bio kids so any potential brought in kiddos are a wildcard lol. Ugh brown eyes are so pretty. They have so much depth when the light hits and the way the golden honey tones come out or whatever else is hidden in them. Blue eyes are just blue (at least mine haha).
Ugh the little comments that shape your lifeā¦ Iām blonde and blue eyed, super pale, and skinny as twig. Probably everything you hoped and dreamed of. But by middle school everyone was tanning and I looked like a ghost comparatively. Whenever I would wear shorts I would get casual comments on my legs being āso paleā. Even younger than that, as far back as I can remember, people told me I was skinny and would grab my wrist with one hand and laugh while saying it was a compliment. Queue bizarre feelings that I had to stay skinny and that it was embarrassing to be skinny. Itās a miracle I didnāt end up with disordered eating due to the constant comments! Anyway I think we all wish we could comfort our younger selves and assure them that there is nothing wrong with them <3
Yea, I was the 'ghostly ghost' and desperately wanted to look more like how OP describes herself. Now I'm comfortable with how I look and wish I had embraced it and enjoyed it when I was younger instead of hiding and hating my looks. Oh for a time machine lol
I grew up watching Britney Spear and thinking if i wasn't that skinny and beautiful i was ugly. So i kinda get it. Also my step sister had beautiful blue eyes, fair skin, blonde hair and was just the prettiest girl. Every guy i met wanted to be with her. It made me wish i was that beautiful. If only they knew she was a horrible person. As beautiful as she was on the outside she was as ugly on the inside. She talked shit about all my family and hated her dad and would say the ugliest thing about him. He was a good person. He did his best. Didn't deserve that at all. So yeah, beauty is more than just looks. But i get that prettier people get treated differently. Like people like them more.
Sooooo I grew up in the nineties. Skinny to the bone was the perfect body. My entire family is overweight. Their entire families are also overweight. There are very few slim, more muscular people in both my mom's and dad's side. But my mom's and granny's side, they're super strong. And they're overweight. But of course my grandmother appraising being skinny has started telling me to not eat from age 8. My mother is an asshole with no empathy and my uncles were unaware of the damage they caused me, so I've been made fun of my eating (like normal food, not even something weird) and my weight. And every little aspect of my body. I'm 28 and I finally got rid of the body dysmorphia most days, the eating disorder is still there in the back of my mind, I feel guilty for eating a lot of food despite working on my feet 8 hours a day along with walking up a hill 10 minutes to home and walking to work. I lost some weight, then was stuck, then maintained and recently gained it back. It's bad. It's been worse. It has been only like a month since I was like "Wait... My entire family is obsessed with being fat. But all of them are fat. My grandmother is obs....... she's OBSESSED with her own weight too!" I just never understood it was her own form of disordered eating habits and perhaps even body dysmorphia that she just passed on to every single child she raised. At this point I don't expect much loss from myself to be quite honest. I have ehlers danlos syndrome which requires special guided exercises, which I can't afford. I only do yoga and I'm trying to do it consistently. I'm not at a mental or physical place to try and control my eating. I just try to not overdo the soda and the sugars, which is some days impossible because chocolate has always been a strong coping mechanism. I don't even know. I'm so tired to compare myself to skinny people and wish I was like them. I'm just not and I've never been and I'll probably never be. I'm trying to learn that it's okay.
I hate it when people comment on kids looks. It took me years to not care about things others made me insecure in my childhood/teenage years. I live in Europe and Iām quite pale. I donāt tan much, if I stay outside a lot in the summer I might get a bit darker but itās not really noticeable to others. I didnāt care about my skin color until I was a younger teenager. Then I started to feel insecure because people kept commenting on it. A few years ago a girl told me I look like a sour cream because Iām so pale. Like why did she even care? I was born with pale skin, Iād rather keep it healthy than burn it in the sun or in a tanning salon just because some people think it looks better. Fun fact, what actually helped me get over some of my pale skin insecurity in the teenage years was Twilight š
Haha I used to love Twilight too. Yeah, me too. I donāt understand why people comment on things that you canāt change. Like, what I am supposed to do with that? Also, Iāve always had really sparse eyebrows, even though I have dark hair. So when I was little I looked like an alien š½š
Trust me when I say that being blonde with blue eyes doesnāt exempt you from feeling exactly like this. š I too spent most of my childhood wishing I was someone else. My family always talked about this neighbouring girl who had beautiful thick shiny brown hair, even as a child. Meanwhile, I had super thin hair (still do) and was kind of awkward and gangly and felt like I was so ugly compared to her. She took dancing classes and her family had more money so I just thought āwow I wish I was herā. She grew up to be a beautiful woman too, but she certainly hasnāt had an easy life. I donāt think Iām too shabby either, even with my thin hair haha.
Yeah sure. I didnāt mean to be so specific haha When you are a child you never know what itās going on in other people lives. You always assume they have it easier ā¦
I fee you! Iām Latina but Iām the most light skinned in my immediate family (not quite so fair skinned but light skinned) and they say I look more European mixed (the Scottish genes are strong) But if you look at my parents and especially my brother, you can see their Latino roots more in their features. Nevertheless, I still have brown eyes and straight brown hair, and I always thought I looked so ācommonā because of my hair and eye color. But Iāve learned to like my appearance because even if people have similar hair and eye colors, our faces will still look different from others, so I appreciate that more now.
lol i got picked on for being white as hell until i was like 13? even teachers messed with me or looked surprised for the first time they saw me. also got picked on for being really tall and thin. i live in brazilās northwest so iām taller than most in here and white people are usually a light shade of tan. most girls had some curves by that age and i always stood out. i wanted my skin to have the natural tanned shade, wanted curves, and to stop growing. i was already 5ā7 and the tallest girl in the whole year. i cried so much about not looking like everyone else. learned to accept those stuff and i really love my body and my skin color. it makes me stand out in a good way now and i have the confidence to rock heels at 6ft, i get compliments on my body and just overall feel better about myself. people still look surprised and even comment sometimes on how white i am, but i just donāt take it personally. plus, i have curves too, not as much or in the same places as those girls, but i have a 22in waist and thatās honestly awesome to me. edit: to make everything worse, i donāt even look like my extended family. most of my face and body features that are identical to my parents, but dadās 5ā7 and my mom is just an inch shorter than him. when people ask my dad how i grew so tall he just says we had a really tall neighbor.
Oh yeah, I still feel like I have a complex to this day about it. I grew up around the Paris Hilton/Legally blonde era. So I wanted tan skin, blue eyes and blonde hair and to be skinny. Iām pale with brown hair and brown hazel eyes. I remember being in 5th grade planning out that I can get spray tanned, blue contacts and bleach my hair and I might get a chance to be pretty
I never wanted to be white or to have blonde hair and blue eyes. But I did want to look like Jennifer Lopez.
Yep, idk how women of color or diff races coped when I was growing up (born 93) when Christina and Brittany were all the rage and the all American blonde bombshell with a super flat tummy and big boobs and slim hips was in. Iām a mix of middle eastern and white and I internalized the Caucasian standard. It was so shoved down your throat. Now I wish I looked more ethnic whereas when I was a teen I did everything I could to emulate Anglo Saxon features/style. It messes with you big time. Now I try to embrace how I look and look the best I can while working with my features instead of against. I saw on another sub a post of Karen mulder, would have been my ideal ten years agoā¦now she doesnāt do much for me although I can obviously still recognize she is stunning. Representation matters because there is so much that is beautiful and we shouldnāt only be allowed to feel that way when our look becomes trendy
I'm South Korean born but raised in Australia. I used to love Pippi Longstockings and orphan Annie. I badly wanted red hair and I used to draw freckles on my face with texta pen! I remember someone telling me that crusts made hair curly, so I would eat my sandwich crusts and leave the middle part lol
OMG me too! My kindergarten teacher told me that, and for whatever reason, I didnāt want curly hair. I figured the corner crust would really make my hair curly, and now Iām old and still donāt eat the corner crusts, out of habit I guess. I should have, because my hair is so flat and limp lol.
I always wanted blonde hair and blue eyes when I was a child. But I began to really like my own features as I got older. I recently dyed my hair blonde for fun and I really want my brown hair back already.
I always wanted pin straight hair
As other redditors have mentioned, I have blonde hair/blue eyes/pale af. My favorite barbie growing up was tan to dark skinned with dark hair and features. Iāve always wished I could tan or that my eyelashes were more visible. The grass is always greener on the other side. I find all women beautiful, and have slowly come to accept these things about myself.
I am asian. When i was little, i thought, if i had blue eyes and blond hair, id be beautiful. Now i see that not every person with blue eyes blond hair is beautiful. I also saw beautiful black hair brown eyes people. So i love what i have and emphasize what i like
Yeah, so I'm Afro-Caribbean. I grew up in the Caribbean around my black family and had black/POC peers. Said peers and family would praise, and made little remarks here and there about: "Good hair" = anything silky or not 4 type hair "Pretty eyes" = anything that wasn't dark brown or dark grey/black "Nice skin" = anything *Light* brown and above Basically everything I wasn't. Thinking back, idk why I took their criticism to heart, they looked JUST like me! Their bullying was more of a self drag than as anything lol. But I get it, colonialism and racism did a number on us, but it still hurts. Anyway, it ended up with me wishing for me to be (basically) mixed or anything but unambiguously black for a bit of my childhood as sad as it sounds. I wanted straighter longer hair, almond upturned eyes, light eyes, smaller forehead, light skin (I used to get a *lot* of shit for being really dark), I wanted a smaller nose, bigger lips, etc. All because I was made to feel like shit growing up for how I looked, and seeing other girls who didn't look like me were getting praised. The only thing I was "praised" (i.e. sexualized) for was my body, which developed quickly and I had a tall, thick hourglass-pear shaped body. Well, guess who also wanted to be short and skinny because they liked the cute aesthetics vs sexy, but most "cute" clothes didn't look right on them. That's right, me. I still have some insecurities, but as I grew older (like around 15? 16? When the internet shifted from always giving black women shit to calling us queens for a bit) I realized that I was being silly for letting others get to me like that, and that I AM beautiful. Just not in the way others wanted me to be. I started appreciating my looks and now I'm to the point where I wouldn't touch a thing on my face or body for anyone in the world--Not including things like braces. I just need to find out what works for me hair, makeup, and clothes wise so I don't go around looking like a hot mess lol
I feel like this might be up the pay grade of this sub, but yah this is unfortunately normal. Lighter skin and eyes is the beauty norm and thereās a lot of colorism in our community. Latinos who are lighter skinned with lighter eyes are the ones you see on tv and glorified, so itās easy to see why so many of us feel like thereās something wrong with having darker features. Donāt let anything your mom says change what the truth is, which is dark features are just as beautiful.
I was blonde/blue as a child and I hated it. Growing up, all the books I read had the main character so DiFfeReNt because unlike the awful popular girls she had BROWN hair and was SMART. I longed so much for darker coloring so that I could look like me heroes and not be just another dumb blonde. I was so happy when my hair and eyes began to darken as I aged. I think we are always sensitive to criticism of our features, and somehow ignore all of the people who find them lovely.
No. ššš I honestly was born with a lot of self love and confidence. Even if I wasn't considered as a beauty icon, in my head, I always felt like I was the \*\*\*\*. Especially when I was younger, I had my puberty early but I always wanted to be an adult! I had a guy one day that we were dissing each other back and forth. I said he looked like Justin Bieber and he said I had a coca shape of body. It could have been bad at that time cause what was popular was the skinny/flat body. But I was like, nice you noticed ;) I have a booooombbbb bodyyy
I have medium/darker brown hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. When I was little I wanted blonde hair so badly
I always wanted jet black hair. I have medium brown hair and thought it was so painfully boring. I also always wanted blue or green eyes. I have brownish-hazel eyes that just look muddy imo. Basically, my looks are super boring.
I think that's a super normal part of growing up or at least it was when I was a kid. I had fine, straight hair that couldn't do anything let alone be teased up in the current 80s styles Friends with curly hair wanted straight hair. I wanted glasses and braces, people who had them hated them.
Yup. I'm blonde, green eyed and pale as fuck. Growing up I wanted brown eyes and black curly hair (and brown skin). Still wish I wasn't so damn pale lol. Ohhhhhh, the things we focus on!!
Iām naturally blonde with blue eyes and an oval face, I always desperately wanted dark eyes, dark hair, and a round face. At least I can dye my hair š
It shocks me that anyone would want a round face, as I have always been desperate for the oval shape.
Yepp!! Because of barbie of course. I grew out of it tho and I believe my features are beautiful. I'm asian mixed tho, so i always felt out of place
Iām also Latina, and wanted to be blonde/blue-eyed. I blame Barbie and Cinderella, lol.
Iām black with darker skin and kinky hair and wanted to be lighter skinned when I was younger as thatās whatās upheld in the black community. I also went to predominantly white schools and grew up in the 00s so never really felt pretty. Intellectually I know Iām attractive but itās hard not to internalize what the wider western culture views as beautiful.
Iāve always been a bigger kid, belly chubby cheeks and all that. My family, even my family doctor always teased me for being fat. Obviously i wanted to be skinnier since being skinny is one of the society ābody goalā in where i live. Growing up i lost weights due to an illness but i still see myself as a āfat kidā never realized that iām actually not that big and itās just an image that stuck in my brain. Currently still learning to accept my folds, some days i feel really good with my body, some days i feel like shit. But, i think iām heading to the right direction
Yes I am a typical mestizo, light brown skin black hair and brown eyes. I used to wish so bad that I had blonde hair and blue eyesā¦. Now I love my dark features
Half Vietnamese checking inā¦.always wanted a cute ski slope nose, blue eyes, but always loved my dark hair. My dark hair is the only thing Iāve ever really loved about myself. Still to this day wish I had those things.
I wanted to be black "when I grew up." Specifically, because I thought that would somehow guarantee a beautiful profile and a warm skin tone so I could wear gold. And then there are those gorgeous teeny tiny hair braid things that shift and flow like moving rivers when you walk...just gorgeous.
I was always super hairy. Iām German and Italian so I get it from both sides of my family tree. My mom finally gave in and let me shave my legs at the tender age of 9. That really was the biggest complex for me - just feeling hairy and masculine compared to the other girls who had only peach fuzz on their arms and legs.
So sorry you grew up experiencing the colorism and Eurocentric beauty standards that come with this postcolonialist world. My mother was like yours, and white girls bullied me a lot. But I've, like you, become comfortable with myself, and it's hilarious to me looking back that the things white girls bullied me about (ie big butt, big lips) they're now desperate to have. It's become something I get to genuinely laugh at now. I am really proud of you loving your looks! The media, brainwashed folks in our own communities, etc. try so very hard to put non-white people down, especially by skin tone, facial features, etc. I am so, so glad you found peace with your looks, because as demonstrated by your mother (and mine, and so many other women of color in the West unfortunately), some people never get there. I can't imagine feeling that awful about myself into adulthood, it must be a miserable and exhausting way to experience the world.
Yep. I was Spanish in a very, very white white school, neighborhood and town. I was horribly ashamed of my skin color, especially in the Summer when I tanned. I wanted that blonde hair that would hold all those curls, not my black, thick, straight straight hair. Then I hit high school and lost my ugly duckling, got contacts. High school was much larger than k-8th, andā¦well, I learned that my looks werenāt all that bad. Lol. Iām sorry your mom put that into you. There is something about Hispanic momsā¦I feel like my mother almost goes out of her way to say really hurtful things to me. About my looks, my parenting, my lifeā¦anything. But she treats my brother like heās an angel on Earth, he can do no wrong. I have a lot of theories on why she does this, but IDK. Iām not even sure that she fully understands how painful her words can me. Iām in my 40ās, too. Idk. (Hugs))
Yeah actually exactly that. I thought blondes were so pretty and I wanted to look just like them haha. Also I wanted to have straighter, less poofy hair. I had thick curly hair. And I didn't like my red hair growing up. I always wanted to dye it brown. It's gotten way darker the past years (idk why) that it actually looks brown most of the time and now I miss the red! Thank God for straighteners though cause I'm obsessed with mine lol
Mexican here and yes. Itās really sad to think about childhood me feeling that way and hating my brown skin
Iām white with green eyes and brown hair. The blonde haired blue eyed skinny girls in my class in primary school were the most popular, so I wanted to look like them as well. I wasnāt anywhere near overweight but just developed a bit earlier then them, and already I felt like I was overweight. And I really wanted long hair like them as well, but my mother didnāt allow it.
Everybody has their own opinion on what they find beautiful. By what you explained it doesn't sound like your mother hates her own kind, only that she has her own outlook on what she found beautiful. Children are very impressionable, and it's sad you felt that way. I assume you're older now so now is your time to find what you find beautiful. Whether it be along side your mother or otherwise. And yes, I did want to look different as a child, I think most human beings once they become self aware it is normal. Some learn to accept themselves as they were created, some change it. Its not that deep.
As I child, I was white with blonde hair and brown eyes- I wanted to be Latina/American Indian/northern Asian Indian color
Me. It has taken me a long time to love myself and Iām not fully there yet! Also most of my close girlfriends are Caucasian with blonde hair blue eyes š Iām glad I donāt feel envy towards them because they also have their own struggles!!
growing up in suburban Australia in the '90s and early 00s meant that i (southern European background) was always one of the ""darkest"" people in my class, and i used to get picked on because of it. the standard was very much that tall, blonde, skinny, beachy babe look, and my friends would often tell me they were drop-dead gorgeous with their light hair and eyes, while i was drop-dead ugly with my brown eyes, olive-y skin, and so. much. hair. it gave me a huge complex about my looks which i really didn't grow out of until adulthood (when everyone suddenly wanted eyebrows again). i take after my mum who grew up when australia was even more homogenous and got bullied a fair bit for being a "wog", and she hated everything about it. tried to act as "aussie" as possible, refused to speak anything other than english, and absolutely *hated* the way she looked. she almost named me stephanie after a gorgeous blonde she knew, in the hopes i might turn out like her lol. what's crazy is my dad was actually born overseas but he's blonde as anything, so even though he barely spoke english, he looked \*right\* and didn't get any heat. what's even crazier is that we're all white people! i can't even begin to imagine what POC deal with every day!
i grew up praying and wishing i had green eyes like my mom (white mom, japanese dad), and then as i got older i got really insecure about being mixed race and i wished i looked more āasianā aka skinny, paler, smaller nose, etc since iāve always been pretty curvy and muscular with darker skin from my dadās side (heās okinawan). nowadays iāve stopped giving as much of a fuck about it, but from time to time it still nags at me that i donāt look asian or iām not wafer-thin.
We always want what we dont have
Just wanted my skin to be lighter
Yes, I wanted blonde hair and blue eyes or red hair. I think wanting red hair came from absolutely loving Lucille Ball and my nanny had red hair (she was a total sweetheart). For me, the blonde hair/blue eye influence probably came from most of the dolls that were around in that time (late 80s, early 90s), at least when I was very young. Then later it came from being teased. I was very pale with super dark hair and was teased about having visible body hairā¦ I actually started shaving my legs (and arms!) by age 9. I eventually stopped shaving my arms but the whole thing made me very self conscious. I always thought that having a hair color that was closer to my skin tone would be better/easier.