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Our London Meetup
Dear readers, as you know, I’ve been writing about Addy’s unique face for over a decade — the feelings of being a new parent to an odd-looking child, the laser treatments with or without anesthesia, the social interactions with humor and grace, and more.
We recently had the opportunity to travel to London (from our home in the midwestern United States) and meet some of our dear blog readers IN PERSON!
These readers are, of course, fellow Port Wine Stain families, and I am SO excited to share the experience with you here.
One family traveled down from Edinburgh, Scotland with their beautiful daughter, Maia. She’s a lovely little girl whose stain, like Addy’s, covers a good portion of the right side of her face. Her port wine stain had just been treated that morning — hence the purple bruising you can see in these pictures.
Maia was a trooper! Even with cross-country travel AND a laser treatment that morning to boot, she sailed through dinner, dessert, and drinks with ongoing sweetness.
Maia charmed all of us.
In addition to Maia and her parents, we also had the immense privilege of meeting — in person! — Millie Amelia, whose own Port Wine Stain experience became its own post here. She traversed the city of London to join us after work (no small feat during rush hour!).
My own parents also joined us, as did Addy’s two siblings (our other two children, Eloise and Clarence). We all met up at a quintessentially British pub on Tottenham Court Road.
Our time together was rich. So, so rich.
It’s taken me some time to put it into words.
First, meeting in person felt like a family reunion.
It was as if we’d already known each other for years. We could feel our shared experiences without needing to figure out how to express them — experiences that are significant to us, but not common to everybody.
Maia’s parents were in good company with me and Keith as fellow parents (and even with Addy’s grandparents, too).
We’ve wondered how on earth to parent a little girl with a big blotch on her face, and keep her mentally healthy through it. We’ve pondered every angle of laser treatments, from the long-term effects of deep anesthesia to the scarring that powerful laser beams can cause on our darling daughters’ faces (which they definitely don’t need on top of their port wine stains!). And we’ve concluded that everything’s fine; these girls are fine. But it doesn’t stop us from thinking about All The Things. It’s what parents (and grandparents) do. That common ground was evident in our rich conversation.
Millie Amelia was in good company with Addy herself, as both of them are young ladies with big personalities; they also have lived the unique experience of being the only face in the room with a big blotch on it.
Millie shared with us that she’d covered her stain up with makeup for many years, and so her bare-faced confidence out in public was a relatively recent development. She and Addy have strikingly similar port wine stains — both on the right side of the face, along the V2 nerve and touching up to the forehead. Between their immediate common-ground understanding of each others’ life experiences and their similar appearance, they looked like they could have been sisters.
The pub was warm, cozy, and just crowded enough to feel festive. The food was comforting and good; we kept ordering one course after another: first some small bites… then, as we lingered, a full dinner meal… then, as we still lingered even more, a round of desserts… and then, after the grandparents had taxied back to the hotel and even the others had called it a night to get sweet Maia to bed, one more dessert as Millie and Addy continued their conversation at full speed like two sisters who haven’t seen each other in months and have SO MUCH to catch up on.
I lost count of how many times these young ladies would pause in the middle of their conversation, and stare at the other, saying, “Sorry, I just — it’s crazy — there’s someone here who looks LIKE me!”
Or, “I just can’t get over how there’s another face like mine at the table.”
Or, “It’s so weird to be with someone who looks LIKE me!”
Both of these young ladies were clearly affected by the presence of someone who looked just like them.
I hadn’t quite expected that.
At this point in the evening, only Keith and I remained at the pub with them (eating our second desserts). It was obvious to us that neither of them is terribly burdened by their port wine stains. They both enjoy looking different, and they’re accustomed to being unique. They’re used to being the odd face in the room, and they’re generally okay with that. They’re beautiful, confident, charming young women.
But that didn’t diminish the surprisingly profound impact of being in the room with someone who looks… like them. That was a new experience for both of them.
We’ve taught Addy over the years to find likeness in myriad ways. We’ve taught her to feel “like” another person with any similar trait, whether the trait is a similar hair style, same brand of shoes, matching article of clothing. We want her to feel “like” anyone and everyone, to push back any feelings of isolation that an odd-looking face might otherwise bring to her social encounters.
So it was a surprise to me that being in the presence of a face “like” hers affected Addy so profoundly. She was utterly delighted to find likeness — to find THIS likeness next to her, at the same table, looking JUST like her face.
“I can’t believe there’s someone else who looks like ME here!”
I heard many variations of that as the evening progressed, from both of these beautiful ladies.
When we finally called it a night, the pub was quiet with just a few lingering patrons, and the street was dark. Addy and Millie hugged as we departed, and we said we DEFINITELY need to do this again.
We will meet up again. After seeing the impact it had on these lovely, confident young women to be with someone else who looks “just like” them, I will be pondering new ways to meet up with new friends who also look uniquely similar.
It was, in short, a beautiful experience to meet these dear readers in person.
We thank Maia’s family for making the trip from Scotland to London (travel is never easy with a little one!). Keith and I SO enjoyed connecting with other parents in person who have thought and wondered and pondered and worried the same things we have; that’s an experience we won’t forget.
We thank Millie for making the trek across London to join us. The rest of us without port wine stains — parents, grandparents, siblings — loved connecting with this articulate young woman just a few years ahead of Addy, who could share her experiences with us.
Let’s do this again sometime.
We may live in the midwestern United States, but we’re not far from the airport, and we love to travel.
Email me at whathappenedtoherface@gmail.com to let me know where you and your port wine stain live, and we’ll gladly come celebrate it with you, too. It would be a privilege.
Keeping Your Odd-Looking Teen Safe From Online Bullies
It can be a scary thing to raise an odd-looking child.
In the best of circumstances, we come to parenting already loaded down with our own memories, baggage, and fears. Then, when we meet our darling baby and find that they look… well, unique… we suddenly worry a thousand times over that this child will be the target of every bully and the butt of every joke for the rest of their life.
It can be overwhelming.
But over time, and day by day, we equip our child to handle the loud questions, the finger-pointing, the snarky comments, and the mean encounters with humor and with grace.
This takes a lot of intentionality: talking about every encounter; equipping her to answer the questions herself; going out into the world together — a lot.
And with time and effort, we find ourselves satisfied that they’re growing into a well-rounded, socially empowered, and uniquely confident individual.
But… that’s just real life.
That doesn’t even begin to touch on virtual life.
Addy was very young when social-media culture took off like a rocket. Constant comparison, airbrushed photos, self-loathing of flaws, body insecurity… it became rampant among teens, and I was deeply concerned about launching a soon-to-be-teenage girl with an odd-looking face into that world.
Her childhood was also the era when younger and younger kids were being given devices like iPads and cell phones to occupy their attention and connect them to the world — for better and for worse.
There are enough heartbreaking stories of bullying in real life; opening up the portal to connect our odd-looking daughter to the seemingly infinite flow of virtual bullies, too, was a gamble we didn’t want to stake her development on.
So, in a rather unusual move among our peers, my husband and I decided to NOT get Addy a cell phone.
This means that Addy is now sixteen, and she STILL has no cell phone.
No iPad
No phone number.
No social media accounts.
Obviously, we’re not anti-internet; I’ve been blogging about Addy’s face for years, and my husband and I both have multiple devices ourselves so we can access the internet 24/7. But our children don’t — especially the odd-looking one who stands out.
We had other reasons to keep devices away from our kids, too: our increasing awareness of the impact of screens on cognitive development, strong addictive tendencies in both our family lines, our own lost hours scrolling, and a high value on real-life interaction skills. All of these things made us a natural fit for analog parenting.
But Addy’s face was definitely a big factor. A young girl’s confidence is already on shaky ground in the best of circumstances. Bullies are already a risk in real life for a girl with an odd face. For us, it was critical to control the flow of comparison, trolling, and negativity into Addy’s developing brain and character by limiting her engagement with the world to real life. We simply closed the door to the infinite virtual world. We’d heard too many horror stories.
An Important Note: Please know that we do NOT judge you if you make different choices. We have MANY friends who need to equip their kids with communication devices for various reasons! I’m simply sharing our experience here of making the choice to leave that can of worms closed entirely.
When other parents find out that our kids don’t have cell phones, the first question we field is this:
Hasn’t that kept her unplugged from vital connections and aspects of our now-so-virtual life?
Well, let me answer that with a story.
Once upon a time, recently, Addy was involved in an activity, and the adult leading the activity set up a virtual group chat for all the girls. (This adult is savvy & awesome and did everything right.) Addy, who did not have a cell phone (and still doesn’t) missed out on the group chat. She was not “in the know”.
Sounds terrible, right?
Missing out on virtual social interaction with her peers?
In these formative teen years when friendships are everything?
Yikes!
I recognized this disconnect, and I took Addy aside and said, “Listen hon, I’m really sorry. I know your friends are all connecting on this channel, and you’re missing out, all because your dad and I won’t get you a phone. That can’t be easy, and I just want you to know that I see that.”
She laughed at me, shook her head, and told me what she was really missing out on:
Within hours of this awesomely intentional adult leader setting up the supervised group chat… a “shadow chat” was set up, which included all of the female peers… except one. They picked a girl they didn’t like, and excluded her from the group chat. And this shadow chat became henceforth the primary channel of the girls’ communication.
Addy, not being part of this virtual group of females, was not part of this exclusion. She wasn’t part of the singling-out. She wasn’t herself singled out & excluded. She missed out on the alienation. She missed out on extra teen-girl drama and politics (as if real life doesn’t bring enough of them!).
So while I am no parent’s judge – you do what works for you – if you can avoid the phone, please do. It will help your unique-looking child avoid that whole extra universe of “Even More Ways To Be A Stinky Teenager” (with all its accompanying messes, insults, comparisons, gossip, and exclusions). Real life has enough of that stuff; spare your odd-looking kid the extras, if you can.
We have many dear friends who struggle daily with their teenagers to stem the flow of negativity coming through their handheld portal to humanity’s cesspool. They set up blocks; they turn off their wi-fi; they add trackers; they search histories; they read texts… and they’re exhausted.
But avoiding that portal altogether is, in my experience, a simpler — if rarer — choice, and it’s one I heartily recommend for anyone launching a unique-looking teen into a world full of stinky humans.
It’s not that avoiding a phone will avoid all the drama. All the same dramas exist in real life; they just come in more manageable doses in any given day, because they’re limited to physical reality. (There are only so many humans we can encounter a single day. But virtual access is practically infinite.)
Avoiding the phone can help you stem the flow of overwhelming negativity long enough to help your unique-looking child make it through these vulnerable years of cognitive development with her identity and self-esteem intact.
Fun fact: We did recently break down and get a phone for our three kids (ages 12, 14, and 16)… but it wasn’t quite the phone they had been waiting for:
It’s right there in our kitchen / dining room / living room. (We have a small house, so it’s in the middle of EVERYTHING.)
Even the dog conspires to listen in to the teenagers’ conversations.
There have been moments, as above, where I’ve questioned the wisdom of keeping our kids out of the world of virtual interaction with their friends. But then, without fail, those virtual interactions unnecessarily go sour (exponentially more than in-real-life interactions going sour), and we’re reminded that it’s still okay to make our kids focus on the real world for now.
The real world has enough stares, questions, pointing, and sneering. We simply wanted to keep Addy (and her odd-looking face) shielded from an endless stream of more of it. And it’s turned out to be a fabulous choice for all three of our kids.
(Our 12-year-old daughter doesn’t agree, but she’ll be fine.)
So if you’ve been waiting for permission to stem your kid’s handheld access to the cesspool that is the modern internet… consider it granted. Your child might balk, whine, beg, or cry. That’s okay. They probably did that when you wouldn’t give them an entire jar of frosting to eat at once, too, because you were looking out for them. You do what’s best for your kid, even if they don’t like it.
And if you want them to exclusively focus on the real world now, then you can. It’s still the real world. Empower them there now. Teach them how to communicate and handle conflict in the real word. Teach them how to make eye contact and have a conversation. Teach them to observe the world around them and be aware of each situation. These skills aren’t easy for anyone to learn, and it can require even more daily intentionality when you add an odd-looking face to the mix.
These skills will translate to the virtual world at the right time, too. Your child will be perfectly capable of carrying on with life virtually when they’re ready to get their own personal portal to that world. But they will have skipped a lot of unnecessary heartache and drama and energy drains and time drains along the way, especially in that oh-so-tricky time of awkward teenagerhood and social drama.
I do find it funny (and perhaps ironic) that Addy’s face has been plastered on the internet for over a decade now. I’ve been blogging about her and posting pictures of her for many years. Obviously, I’m not averse to the internet; I love connecting with all of you! I’m more pragmatic than paranoid.
Therefore, this isn’t a matter of sheltering my kid from reality; it’s simply a matter of helping my child develop into the human she has the potential to become, without the trolls of the world having unlimited access to cut her down 24/7 in this most vulnerable time.
In all, it’s been a remarkably simple and easy way to keep our odd-looking teenager safe from online bullies: don’t allow them a portal to her at all.
No site-tracking, no time-blocking, no contact-tracing, no erased-history-recovering, no negotiating, no internet controlling, no Wi-Fi-password-changing, no text eavesdropping, and no long letters to senators about how dangerous Meta is to teens.
It’s been absolutely delightful.
If you have any questions about getting to (or through!) the teen years, please feel free to reach out & leave a comment below. I love hearing from and connecting with other parents like you, and I’d be happy to share more of what’s worked for Addy!
P.S. Yes, she has her driver’s license, and she’s driving. Without a cell phone. She has to know the route ahead of time. Like we all had to, once upon a time. 😁🚗🗺️📌
P.P.S. Yes, we sent her off with a group to travel for a couple of weeks this summer, and they traveled to Europe. So she traveled to Europe without a cell phone. Her birthday present ahead of that trip was a digital camera so she could take pictures. I didn’t know exactly where she was at every minute; she was fine with that.
Catching Up with Teen Addy
When Addy was born, there were a few different “future” seasons that made me nervous as a mother.
❣️I was terrified of her little heart being broken on the playground in early childhood – those moments where she would run to the swings to play with new friends, only to have bewildered stares and hold-everything “WHAT is THAT?” questions thrown at her instead.
(She survived those just fine. Kids may appear rude, but they’re just exhibiting unpolished curiosity. Once they know what “THAT” is and they’re assured she’s not in pain, the swing-pushing and new friendships carry on as normal.)
❣️I was terrified of her being THAT kid in grade school. You know the one – the easy target for the class bully, who’s usually too lazy to pick on everyone, so they fixate on that one weird-looking kid instead. I was worried she’d be THAT kid, every year, in every classroom.
(She was fine. She got a few power plays from wannabe bullies, but they were few and far between, and nothing stuck. Being unique got a LOT cooler sometime between my childhood and hers!)
❣️And I was definitely terrified of the teenage years. I saw those looming ahead when social-media culture was really taking off like a rocket. Constant comparison, airbrushed photos, self-loathing of flaws, body insecurity… it was rampant among teens, and I was deeply concerned about launching a teenage girl with an odd-looking face into that world.
Well.
Addy turned sixteen (!!) recently.
And the status of the teen years so far?
Fine.
She’s fine.
Awesome, in fact.
So, since I’m probably not the only parent looking ahead to the Teen Season with some trepidation, let me catch you up with Addy and how she’s doing, so that perhaps you, too, can breathe a sigh of relief for your own little one.
✨
First: How does she feel about her port wine stain at sixteen?
Addy LOVES her port wine stain. She wants to keep it and its current shape. Laser treatments will help it fade, and fade unevenly at that. (The vessels in the front of her port wine stain are thicker and tougher than the vessels on the side of her face, which will fade faster and cause the overall shape to change.)
So, since Addy has decided that she loves her port wine stain, we have done one – and only one – maintenance laser treatment in the last few years. I write more about Treatment #44 here; in summary, we did a clinic appointment (rather than a surgery under anesthesia), and she was awake the whole time.
The best part? The treatment successfully contained some of the growth while maintaining the shape of her port wine stain, to Addy’s liking.
✨
What about her social life?
Addy loves humans. She loves getting questions about her face. She loves talking about it. She loves asking other people about their unique features.
She knows that imperfect people ask imperfect questions, have bad days, act crabby and mean, and can exhibit some awful behavior. She grew up with that awareness, as we prepared her to handle the myriad questions about her face with humor and grace.
In the teen years, that humor and grace have been incredible assets. She’s been training for this! Teenagers have bad days, act crabby and mean, and can exhibit some awful behavior; she lets most of it roll off her back. It takes a lot to get under her skin now.
And there has been no uptick in bad social encounters. So to those parents who are especially worried about the teen years, let me reassure you that by the time your child gets to high school, there’s a very good chance that all the other teenagers have probably already seen a lot of unique-looking humans, and your child probably won’t turn any heads or attract any undue attention for their odd face.
I say “probably” because anything can happen, but teens seem to be a lot LESS curious about the world around them than small children are, and will probably not even notice an occasional odd face. (And if you have your child in the same school from preschool through high school, as we do, then her face will be old news and already ultra-familiar to all her classmates.)
In fact, the classmates (and even the teachers and administrators!) at Addy’s school recently celebrated Addy’s birthmark on Vascular Birthmark Awareness Day, which I wrote about here.
That said, we still have some hilarious encounters, but they’re usually with younger children (like those in grade school or early middle school).
✨
Here’s an example:
One evening recently, Addy was sitting next to me in the bleachers at a high school basketball game, and we were just a few rows up from the court. Two girls walked by in front of us (they were maybe 10 years old), and when the girl closest to us saw Addy, her eyes practically bulged out of her head and her jaw dropped open.
She kept walking to keep up with her friend, but I saw her tug on her friend’s elbow, turn back, and point toward us. Apparently, her friend hadn’t seen Addy, so when there was another lull in play a couple minutes later, these same two girls walked coolly and slowly in front of us, very intentionally walking ramrod-straight, facing forward, eyes STRAINING to the side to stare at Addy as they walked by. I chuckled – I knew exactly what was going on – and pointed it out to Addy. She thought it was adorable that they were trying to get another good look at her odd face.
A few minutes later, these girls returned with a third friend, and did the same thing, ostensibly ‘showing’ their friend the sight they’d discovered. It was hilarious. These girls were clearly thinking, “WOAH!” but they were also trying SO HARD to play it cool and not stare, but they were totally staring as they did the walk-by, and it was extremely funny to watch.
Addy made sure to turn her head slightly for full visibility to satisfy their curiosity. They were delighted; they still played it cool.
So overall, the social encounters have been fewer and farther between, and as funny as ever.
✨
What about makeup?
Addy has what I’d call a healthy relationship with makeup. She uses it to enhance her features, including her port wine stain. She uses a tad bit of foundation on her face, but avoids putting it over her port wine stain, choosing instead to leave it at its full natural color. She enjoys blush but usually leaves it off, preferring to maintain a high contrast between white cheek and port-wine-stain cheek.
She’s heavy on the sunscreen, knowing that her port wine stain will be a bit more sensitive to burning and she wants to avoid injuring that skin. Smart kid.
She loves to look elegant, dressing up for school dances like a modern-day Grace Kelly.
(Had to share: For her formal last year, this lucky girl got not one but TWO parents as chaperones! Every freshman’s dream, right?)
(She had no parents chaperoning this year’s dance.)
✨
Finding Likeness
Addy still loves to find likeness in the world around her, finding her port-wine-stain pattern in everything from plants to French macarons.
✨
Addy remains the same outgoing kid who loves to interact with humans. I call her a “human golden retriever,” after the one canine breed that’s as easily social as she is.
She doesn’t worry excessively about her appearance, perhaps because her face has already been the topic of so much conversation and work over the last sixteen years, from strangers’ questions to laser surgeries and doctor’s appointments.
She doesn’t worry excessively about what other people think, perhaps because we had to train her early to let go of any concerns there, and prepare her to turn heads (for better or for worse).
She does worry about other people’s hearts, knowing that when they exhibit mean behavior, they’re probably acting out something they’ve already received themselves along the way, and she wishes better for them.
✨
The teen years were an unknown factor in the early days of our journey with Addy. Now that they’re here, I want to reassure all of my fellow parents of odd-looking children that it’s SO much better here than I anticipated.
Perhaps it’s better because we’ve already been “in training” for so many of the teenage dynamics. After all, when you’re parenting an odd-looking child, you prepare them intentionally to handle things like meanness pretty early.
Now, here in the teen years, that humor and grace are paying dividends, and it’s awesome.
This is a really fun season.
Your kiddo will be fine.
.
.
✨
P.S. I want to mention one additional note about our approach to the teen years that has helped simplify the journey for us:
Addy has no cell phone.
She is sixteen.
I will write more about that strange choice soon.
(Please know that I’m NOT judging you if you make different choices. I know many parents who need to equip their kids with communication devices for various reasons! But I will tell you that it has made the teen years MUCH easier to keep that can of worms closed entirely.)
Parenting Strategy #9: Be Honest About the Error
Parenting Strategy # 9: Be Honest about the Error
In my last post, I said that it’s important to treat facts neutrally. Your child needs to know the basic facts about her face: you have a birthmark. The birthmark is a port wine stain. A port wine stain is extra blood vessels.
And (are you ready?): That birthmark is an error.
The port wine stain is an error. Something went wrong in utero, and the nerve that was supposed to send a signal to its related blood vessels to “Stop growing!” never did. So they kept growing, even though they weren’t supposed to.
That’s not negative commentary, it’s a fact. And we face that fact honestly and neutrally.
Let me stress that – you must be neutral when you’re honest! You don’t mope, groan, cry, exaggerate, or sigh when pointing out that an error occurred. It’s simply a value-neutral fact. It’s an error.
I can’t tell you how important this is. It is the foundation of grace. Addy knows that she’s beautiful and that she’s fearfully and wonderfully made, and that she is not perfect… Because no human is.
Let me repeat that: no human is perfect. That is the message your unique child needs to understand to the depth of their soul. We all have errors. None of us is living in the Platonic ideal of a human body. We have moles, we have quirks, we have genes, we have illnesses, we have mutations – many of them just too small or out-of-sight to notice. Someone like Addy might wear their error front & center, but everyone is flawed, somewhere, somehow.
That’s why the fact that a port wine stain is technically an error doesn’t have to be negative. I’m flawed, you’re flawed, everyone is flawed! Her port wine stain doesn’t have to be ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than any of your features. It simply is.
We can, and should, learn to appreciate the beauty in other humans’ traits, many of which are themselves errors. (Even adorable freckles, after all, are little bits of pigment gone awry.) But remember that you don’t have to erase the fact that an error exists in order to call it beautiful.
We’re afraid that if we call a feature less than perfect, we’re somehow being negative or derisive. And so we call it perfect instead – as if anything less than perfect can’t be beautiful.
But it’s okay to acknowledge an imperfection, even to the point of working to fix it with powerful lasers, and also see the beauty in it all the while. It’s not either-or. It’s both-and.
Don’t be afraid to call that beautiful birthmark an error. It may actually, unexpectedly, feel validating for your child to know that yes, something went wrong, and that’s okay. She doesn’t have to feel ‘perfect’ about it. This isn’t a big deal. Everyone’s got something. And even while the laser surgeries make progress on fixing the error, she can feel beautiful with it all the while.
As your child understands that this birthmark is an error, she may start noticing all the other errors around her. This is healthy; she’s finding camaraderie. Addy loves knowing that my spine is shaped like a long ‘S’ from scoliosis, and that her dad has a dark birthmark on his side. She loves finding strange markings and alopecia and missing limbs around us. Because she knows that everyone’s got something a little ‘off’, and she thinks that’s pretty awesome.
So when you’re talking to your child about their birthmark, go ahead and be honest about the fact that it’s an error. It’s an error, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful; it’s absolutely beautiful. It simply means that she’s not perfect.
Which means, really, she’s just like everyone else after all.
.
.
A few other “Strategies for Parenting a Unique Child”:
Parenting Strategy #8: On Talking
Parenting Strategy #7: Get Out
Parenting Strategy #6: Find Likeness
Parenting Strategy #5: On Makeup
Parenting Strategies, Part 2: On Beauty
A Few Parenting Strategies…
Parenting Strategy #6: Find Likeness
Continuing my theme of “Strategies for Parenting a Unique Kid” (see #1-3 here, #4 here, and #5 here)…
Here’s one for combating a very real fear facing (no pun intended) parents of strangely-marked kids:
Parenting Strategy #6: Find Likeness
One of the fears we face as parents of odd-looking children is that our darling baby will grow up to feel isolated in their uniqueness. Marked with something like a big port wine stain, they’ll probably be the only such face in every room they ever enter, throughout their entire lives.
Being noticed is occasionally fun, like winning an award or hitting the red carpet, but the thought that your child will never not stand out can be overwhelming. And not a bit isolating; after all, we often find camaraderie in other humans who are (or look) ‘like’ us.
There are a few ways to help your child combat those feelings of isolation.
One way is to teach them to intentionally find likeness with humans who are similar in a hundred other ways. Their faces may be different, but they do have other things in common, if you know how to look. Maybe she braids her hair like that one girl from dance class. Maybe he likes soccer, just like the kid down the street. Or maybe her sneakers are green, like the kid in the grocery store aisle.
Any common ground you can find shared between your child and another person is excellent material for pointing out natural camaraderie, and staving off any possible isolationism. Teach your child the valuable skill of spotting likeness in other ways, perhaps small or unexpected. There’s always something, even if it’s not obvious to them; point it out often!
Another way is to widen the scope and find likeness in other different humans’ eye-catching features. Addy walks up to lovely bald folks with alopecia and talks about how it feels to look unique. She thinks that veterans with missing limbs are pretty much the coolest guys, ever. She feels solidarity with her cousin in a wheelchair, because he’s noticed, like, even more than she is! These other humans may not look like her, but she feels ‘like’ them in being unique.
But your child may still feel isolated at some point, knowing they’ll rarely, if ever, see another face like theirs.
So… when you can’t find their likeness in any other humans, you find it in non-human places instead! Examine your child’s unique feature, and start finding it in the world around you, even in unexpected places.
Our port-wine-stain radar picks up anything, anywhere, that might resemble a pink, red, or purple ‘splotch’ on a pale Nordic background. Here are a few things we’ve found:
Cupcakes: Addy’s birthday falls near Valentine’s day, and her classroom-treat cupcakes always bear some combo of pink and white frosting – but these were, by far, our favorite. Port-wine-stain-face cupcakes: half pink, half white!
Flowers: The kids picked out flowers for planting in our garden one spring, and the girls picked out petunias. Eloise told Addy she should get the “port-wine-stained petunia” (like this one), and so Addy gleefully planted the special flowers that ‘looked like’ her face:
Stuffed animals: Addy’s favorite stuffed cat happens to have a big pink mark, just like her face:
Sequins: Eloise flipped exactly half of her magic-sequin sweatshirt so that one half of the dog’s face is a different color than the other half, and proudly showed big-sister Addy the “face like yours!”
Addy feels a lot of camaraderie in this world. Sometimes she shares common features, clothes, or interests with other humans, even if she doesn’t quite look like them. Sometimes she just shares ‘different’ with other humans, even if they have hardly anything else in common.
And she may never see a doll with a face like hers, or a Barbie with a face like hers, or a print model with a face like hers, but that’s okay; she’s seen cupcakes and sweatshirts and flowers and a hundred other wonderful things ‘just like’ her, and that feels good, too.
You may have to open your eyes just a little wider than normal to see your abnormal child’s ‘likeness’ in the world around you – but pretty soon, you’ll start seeing it everywhere. Point it out, often, because your child may not pick up on such similarities on their own, and you don’t want them growing up without this skill to spot camaraderie in unexpected places. Point out any shared trait, any similar uniqueness, and any inanimate object even remotely resembling your child’s odd feature – point it out, and say, “Look at that! Just like you!”
This world can feel isolating sometimes, even for those of us who don’t stand out in a crowd. The more your child learns to spot the similarities, the less likely they’ll be to feel alone for too long. Because at some point a flower will bloom, or a cat will walk by, or a leaf will fall with markings ‘just like’ theirs, and they’ll be reminded to keep their eyes open for likeness in unexpected places. There’s always something in common – even if not, exactly, their face.
Parenting Strategy #5: On Makeup
Continuing my theme of ‘Strategies for Parenting a Unique Kid’ (see #1-3 here and #4 here), allow me to share with you my thoughts on…
Makeup.
Parenting Strategy #5: Teach her to Enhance, not Hide
I remember an informal debate arising among my college friends about why we women wear makeup. An answer was, of course, was never conclusively reached, but I found the arguments intriguing. They mostly seemed to agree with the premise that makeup was a shallow but necessary evil, the sad product of our modern culture’s social pressures. (One or two might have gaily dissented, asserting that wearing makeup is just plain fun.) But most of the debate revolved around why we liberated women all get sucked into wearing it anyway.
Some friends said they felt pressure to cover up their natural face, because that’s just what we all do, and they’d look ‘weird’ in public without it. Others said that men were expecting it, making it hard to navigate the single scene otherwise, and they’d never wear makeup if only women were around. Yet others said we really only wear it to cattily impress other women, never men, and there would definitely still be pressure to cover up our natural faces on a women-only desert island.
I disagreed with the premise underneath these arguments. I didn’t think of makeup as a shallow, necessary evil. And while I certainly couldn’t speak for all women, I didn’t think society pressure in whatever guise need be the primary driver behind it.
Makeup doesn’t need to hide or change us (as the debate seemed to assume); rather, it can enhance and frame the beauty that’s already there. I wasn’t wearing makeup because I felt ugly; I was wearing it because I felt beautiful.
After all, you don’t frame a work of art because it’s ugly, you frame it because it’s beautiful – so beautiful that it’s worth a gorgeous setting. Like a diamond elevated in its precious-metal ring. Can a Van Gogh stand on its own? Sure, but why not surround it with an amazing frame? A great frame doesn’t obscure the artwork; rather, it announces, “Ta-daah! Isn’t this gorgeous?”
And that, I asserted, is what makeup does. The rouge added to our cheeks isn’t unnatural; it’s an enhancement of the color already there. A line on our eyelid follows the eyelash line that’s already there. A dash of contour enhances the shadow implied by our natural bone structure.
When done well, makeup (and clothing, and jewelry, and any other enhancement you may feel guilty for using) draws attention to the beauty that’s already there.
Part of makeup’s usefulness comes, counterintuitively, from making a face look more naturally like itself. It diminishes eye-catching distractions like acne or dark circles, deviations that show up when I get less sleep and health than my skin needs, so there’s no guilt covering them up. It’s okay to eliminate those distractions and let my natural face shine through.
Right?
Right. Easy. Made total sense.
I enjoyed a guiltless makeup routine for years.
Until… Addy came along.
Suddenly, with Addy, the debate exploded into my mind all over again; because now, this little human was watching me, and she had a face with a Thing on it – a face that I wanted her to proudly show the world in full unmodified beauty someday. Why on earth was I applying makeup in front of her? What pressure was I feeling? What message was I sending?
With three children ages three and younger, the dark circles under my eyes had taken on a touring-with-the-Stones intensity, and I covered them up daily. But… why? (Other than the legit concern that I might be questioned about escaping from a rehab facility if I didn’t.) Just because I have an imperfection, do I need to cover it up? Who am I trying to impress? How dare I use concealer in front of my marked daughter? Am I setting her up to shamefully conceal her own lovely imperfection someday?
I was tempted to tell her to never ever use makeup. I was tempted to tell her that she’s so perfect, she won’t ever need it. I was tempted to tell her that it’s only society’s pressure that makes us want to wear the stuff anyway, and she’s above that.
Because I was terrified that she’d be tempted to use it someday, to cover her own face up, and that fear stopped me in my tracks.
In time, and after many guilt-ridden concealer purchases, I came back home to my original conclusion. I am the artwork; my makeup is the frame that enhances my beauty. Do I need it to ‘be pretty’? Not at all. But am I worthy of a lovely frame? Absolutely. When sleeplessness steals the color from my eyes, I can defend my face by enhancing what’s there – showing again the beauty that’s really naturally mine.
I wanted to help Addy understand makeup’s proper role (and avoid the pop-culture discomfort many of us feel around it). I wanted her to understand that she, too, could use makeup to enhance the beauty that’s already naturally on her face, if she wanted to. And, of course, I wanted her to see the port wine stain as part of that beauty – worth framing, rather than obscuring.
So I started talking through my makeup routine in positive terms when she was around. When I applied blush: “I LOVE having pink cheeks.” Or eyeliner: “It’s fun to make my eyes a little more visible.” Or eyeshadow: “I like the color of my eyes, so I pick an eyeshadow that helps bring out the color.” Or the emotionally-loaded concealer: “I like the color of my skin, so I’m using this to make it more consistent.” When wiping off an excess of any of it: “Whoops, that was too much. I almost covered myself up! I don’t want to do that.”
She now seems to view makeup as a good thing, not as a cover-everything escape. She sometimes adds blush to her other cheek before an event, so that it matches her port wine stain cheek. She plays with eyeshadows, dusting her lids and feeling glamorous. And sometimes she just slathers ALL the colors onto her face at once, because, hey, why not? Face color is fun.
Of course, the teenage years are around the corner, and I can’t promise that she won’t suddenly decide to cover it all up one day. The thought still scares me.
But I hope she will have learned by then that that’s not what makeup is for. I hope that, when she does start wearing it, she uses it to enhance, and not hide, what’s already there – including the right side of her face.
Talk your child into a healthy relationship with makeup. She will encounter it one day, whether you like it or not; by then, she should see it as a tool to enhance her beauty: nothing more, and nothing less. Provide a running commentary of comfort and confidence when she’s watching you do your makeup routine, whatever it may be. She’ll grow to see it not as a necessary evil, or a product of a deranged popular culture, but rather as something that can frame the beauty that’s already there.
It took me a long time to come to peace with the concealer in my makeup bag. I felt like a hypocrite. But covering exhausted eyes or irritated skin doesn’t mean I’m changing who I am. My natural features are still there. I’m worthy of a good frame. Our daughters are, too.
A Few Parenting Strategies…
How do we raise a child to love her unique face? To be self-aware, without being self-critical? Prepared for, but not scared of, encounters?
Addy’s port wine stain forced us to think through parenting moments that might have otherwise passed without notice. Getting her to a point of comfort with her face (and keeping her there) took some careful attention.
Along the way, we developed some strategies for raising a unique-looking kid. Knowing that many of you, my dear readers, are also parents and grandparents, I share 3 of them with you here.
Some of these tips might seem incredibly obvious, but they don’t always flow from us naturally.
So, bear with me if I start by stating the obvious, but here, definitely at the very most-important top of the list, is “Parenting a Unique Kid” Strategy #1:
Parenting Strategy #1: Tell her she’s pretty.
It sounds so simple.
But there is so. much. cultural noise around raising females today. And, honestly, I disagree with many of the ‘enlightened’ modern directives: “Stop telling little girls they’re pretty, or they’ll never become scientists! Just tell them they’re smart and strong instead!”
Bah, humbug. As if we’re afraid that she’ll never accomplish anything if she thinks she’s pretty. As if telling her she’s a great engineer somehow conflicts with telling her she’s pretty.
Confidence is not a zero-sum game. Building up her confidence in one area of life (brains) doesn’t take away from another (looks). So we compliment both. Profusely.
The world around my daughter will tell her, whether through magazines, billboards, TV shows, movies, fashion, petty girlfriends and rude ex-boyfriends, that she’s not pretty. Whether that’s good or bad isn’t up for debate (it’s bad). But the fact remains that there will be a hundred different ways that the world tells her she’s not pretty.
It’s my job to tell her a hundred and one (at least) that she is.
Tell your daughter she’s pretty. You’re not making her shallow, and you’re not over-emphasizing looks when you do. It’s simply an insurance policy against the jabs that this world will sling at her.
And it’s the truth anyway (right?), so speak the truth. Don’t be afraid of it. Tell her she’s pretty. And that she can run the world. Those compliments don’t conflict, no matter how much our confused culture tells you they do.
We complimented Addy’s looks all the time, from her shiny little shoes to the port wine stain splotched on her face. This girl learned early & solidly that she’s pretty. Any weird encounters over her face couldn’t even begin to burst her confidence bubble. Calling her anything less than gorgeous would be like calling Mt. Everest an anthill: simply, humorously, Incorrect-with-a-capital-I.
Yes, she also knows she’s brilliant. And funny. And creative. And empowered. We built her confidence up in all those areas by affirming them verbally, all the time.
But she needed to hear she was pretty, before the world told her she wasn’t.
So don’t worry that you’ll ruin your daughter’s brains by calling her pretty. You won’t. Tell your little engineer that she’s beautiful. She needs to hear it.
Parenting Strategy #2: Tell Her You’re Pretty
Now, take it a step further: tell your daughter that YOU are pretty.
Seriously. Look into the mirror yourself and say out loud, “I feel really lovely today.”
I know, I know – the cultural noise says we’re not supposed to. “Don’t model vanity to your child! Teach her that looks don’t matter! Focus on other qualities instead, or she’ll become a petty, vain, critical woman!”
Well, at some point, she’s going to look into a mirror. Mirrors are a part of life. And our endless human striving for self-improvement means that she will find things to improve when she does look into a mirror.
The question is, will there be any other internal self-talk running in the background that keeps that self-critical drive in check?
“I feel really pretty,” is what my daughter has heard me say for years, when doing my makeup, checking my hair, pulling on a sweater, doing anything looks-related in front of a mirror.
I started talking to my reflection like that when Addy was a baby. I realized that I would need to model a healthy relationship with the mirror; after all, this was a baby whose every glance into every mirror would be a sharp reminder that her face is not like everyone else’s around her. Every glance would show her that her face has ‘something’ different on it.
And so, I decided to vocally associate Looking in the Mirror with “Self, you’re pretty.”
Addy caught on. She began to regularly smile every time she looked into a mirror. Because as far as she knew, that’s what we women do. Her reflection smiled back.
As you can probably tell from my stories here, she is not a petty, vain, critical female, even at eleven years old. She simply knows that her reflection is lovely, and that her port wine stain is part of that reflected loveliness.
Speak out loud. Your child can’t hear your internal monologue, so say it verbally for them. And if you don’t feel pretty today, then fake it ‘til you make it, and tell your reflection that you’re pretty, because your little copycat is listening.
Can I go even further?
Brace yourself.
I also say “Cool” every time I step on a scale.
Crazy! We’re supposed to never let our daughters see us step on scales, right? We shouldn’t even own a scale, right? Otherwise, we’ll all turn into self-hating weight-obsessed confused anorexics, right?
Wrong. In my opinion, weight is a simple, factual (and sometimes even helpful) number. Facts don’t have to be scary. Checking weight is a normal part of well-child pediatric checkups, pre-op appointments, and surgeries. It’s a number. Let it be so at home. Model that.
When you step on your scale to check your weight, nonchalantly say “Cool”, no matter what the number is. Because your child doesn’t need to hear a vacuum of silence around it.
You lay the groundwork for your child’s internal monologues. These are the lines that will be playing in the back of her head every time she makes a mistake, earns an achievement, puts on a new lipstick, walks into a new lunchroom, steps on a scale, and looks in a mirror. Don’t let her inherit a vacuum of silence from you, because there are other influences ready to fill the void with commentary about how she doesn’t measure up.
Instead, equip her with confident words. Show her what it looks like, teach her what it sounds like, to be comfortable with your own self. Your own reflection. Your own body.
You won’t make her vain or shallow. It’s cool. You’re beautiful. She’s beautiful. Speak it like it’s true.
Because it is.
Parenting Strategy #3: Tell Her Others are Pretty
Are you ready? Tell her others are pretty, too.
That’s right. I provide commentary on other humans’ beauty, too.
I can already hear the chorus of enlightened shouts: “You should never comment on any other woman’s physical qualities! You’re teaching your daughter to be critical and competitive! We’re above that!”
Again: beauty is not a zero-sum game. Confidence in my own beauty doesn’t diminish my recognition of yours. Likewise, recognizing your beauty doesn’t diminish confidence in my own. It’s not an ‘either-or’ proposition, it’s a ‘both-and’.
To put it in art terms, you can admire both the clear lines of a Renaissance masterpiece and the fuzzy impressions of a Monet without diminishing either work’s value to the canon.
In human terms, you can admire the delicate lightness of an Audrey Hepburn, the glamorous strength of a Serena Williams, the stunning height of a runway model, and the voluptuous curves of an Adele – all without diminishing your perception of the others’ (or your own) beauty. Appreciating one trait doesn’t have to reduce your appreciation of a different, or opposite, trait.
But here’s the catch, parents: Appreciation doesn’t always come naturally. Visual appreciation of great art doesn’t come naturally, or children would stare at a Titian instead of a tablet for hours on end. And visual appreciation of other humans definitely doesn’t come naturally, or world affairs would look quite different. It is up to us parents to endow our children with a deep appreciation of that which is truly beautiful in the world, including other humans.
Too often, we’re told never to comment on anyone else’s looks, because that should be left to our shallow, self-obsessed, critical, vain, popular culture, and we should be above that.
But if that’s the only commentary your child hears (and until a nuclear apocalypse wipes out said pop culture, your child will hear it), then you’ve left a vacuum of silence where there should be positive appreciation.
So compliment the beauty in others. Freely tell your daughter what you find beautiful. I’ve complimented many different birthmarks, skin tones, heights, ages, and weights to Addy. Thus, she has learned that there is beauty in those various birthmarks, skin tones, heights, ages, and weights (including, naturally, hers, wherever she may be in life).
Your commentary allows your daughter to begin spotting beauty in other humans to a greater degree of diversity than she might otherwise pick up on her own. You just have to help her spot it in the first place. This is critical. Don’t let her get silence from you on this.
Because later, she will be tempted to feel down on herself for not ‘looking like’ the Beautiful People… a feeling that usually rests on a pretty narrow view of beauty. The more variety she sees as beautiful now, the harder it will be to peg down exactly what requirement she’s not meeting later.
Point out the beauty in all the other humans; compliment a full spectrum of diverse features, so she learns to appreciate them all. Then she’ll learn to appreciate hers, too.
For Parents: How To Encounter Humans, Part 2 (of 2)
Last week, I shared a few embarrassing moments that have taught me respond with grace when people comment on my daughter’s face, even when they seem ‘ignorant’ at first glance.
“Is that a hemangioma?”
“What happened to her face?”
“What do they call that?”
I’ve learned over the years that the very people who are asking often know more than I do, or they wouldn’t be interacting at all. Because of this, I welcome their questions.
But if they don’t? And they still remark on the stain?
“Oh, that’ll go away!”
“Wow, didja slap her?”
“Get some sunscreen on that baby, she’s burning!”
Yes, that will happen. And it’s totally okay.
You’ll want to feel indignant, you’ll want to reply with sass, you’ll want correct their manners… but: it is so, so much better to extend grace. Because it will keep you sane, and, really, the world needs a little less sass and a lot more grace.
But grace isn’t always easy.
So, to help, let me offer what we’ve found to be the typical sources of all those questions and comments. Because in our experience (over a decade now), we’ve noticed that there are a few consistent reasons why people comment or ask about our child’s face.
This list I’m giving you may not be comprehensive, but these are the most common reasons that will pop up again and again, driving people to remark or inquire. Remembering these will save your sanity when you get a comment or question from a stranger:
Reason #1
They comment because: They’re human.
I know, it’s a broad category to start with, but hear me out.
You know what a totally natural part of being human is? Awkwardness. We’re awkward. We’re imperfect; we make mistakes, all day, every day. No true conversation is scripted or rehearsed; it’s impromptu. It’s messy, it’s full of awkward missteps and blurtings-out that make you want to put your head in your hands and hide. But it’s Life Among Humans, and it’s all we have to work with if we want genuine interaction.
The inquiries, comments, and tips you’re getting may be awkward, but they’re spoken, open and honest. If awkwardness is the price of genuine human interaction, I’ll take it.
Reason #2
They comment because: They’re concerned.
Probably half of the inquiries, comments, and tips we’ve gotten, especially from young children, have been due to genuine concern that she was in pain.
When they bring it up, what they mean is: “Was she burned??” “Does it hurt??” “Is that a sunburn??” This is a blessing, and reminds us that the world hasn’t yet gone to hell in a handbasket. Thank them and the Good Lord for their unnecessary concern over your offspring.
Reason #3
They comment because: They’re curious.
This is not a bad thing! As humans, we’re wired to look at the world around us, take it in, assess it, and survive together. We want to know each other’s stories; we want to know what happened and why. We want to know each other. This is a good thing!
When we see a Different Human, we’re naturally curious: Why is he in a wheelchair? What is his Story? Why is she missing an arm? What is her Story?
Curiosity is good. It’s a cousin to Concern, above. Let them build empathy.
How did you become like that? Was it hard? Did it hurt? Did you fight the dragon and win? What’s your Story?
Reason #4
They comment because: They’re a cognitively or behaviorally challenged adult who looks normal on the outside but is in fact operating at a child’s maturity level.
Autism, closed head injuries, and other disorders look normal, but come out as socially ‘awkward’. These people may be totally blunt, and may even seem rude. If an otherwise normal-looking guy is mopping the floor and makes a weird comment on your child’s face, he may have had a motorcycle accident 20 years ago, and that’s why he’s mopping floors. Give him grace.
If you pay attention to exactly who is saying the seemingly ‘rude’ things regarding your child’s face, you’ll notice that a higher proportion of them seem more socially awkward than their outer appearance might otherwise command. They may have a cognitive or behavioral issue, and deserve your politeness as much as anyone with more developed social graces.
Reason #5
They comment because: They’re mean-spirited and enjoy making you feel bad.
We’ve had…one…maybe two, I think, in Addy’s first decade of life. With rates like that, they’re easy to shrug off.
As your child grows, you can teach her both pity and concern for the poor souls who have such a miserable life that they treat others miserably. Teach her how to keep them at arm’s length, but kindly. Pray for them together, and I don’t mean in a patronizing way – truly plant seeds of concern in her heart for their misery, and she’ll learn to let their miserable comments roll off her back with wisdom beyond her years. The mean child might be the girl who hears she’s ugly from her own parents; it might be the boy who’s been bullied as long as he can remember; it might be the spoiled brat whose lazy parents ensure his imminent failure in adulthood. In any case, they deserve our grace, not our fire.
Reason #6
They comment because: They know someone who “had one just like it!” Listen for these carefully; as you can tell with my own humble experiences, they don’t always start out sounding wise & experienced; they usually start out quiet & awkward (because, you know, humans). These encounters are as valuable as gold – learn all you can from them, for these folks know what it’s like to be in your shoes.
In my experience, just about every comment & inquiry you’ll receive will fall into one of these 6 categories, with most being good-hearted & awkward attempts at conversation.
It might be the old lady at the checkout line making Awkward Human Conversation by commenting, “Boy, you need to use more sunscreen on that baby’s face!” because she doesn’t know what else to say, and in the seven years since her husband’s death, she hasn’t gotten out much and is starved for Human interaction and is lobbing what she can over the conversation ‘net’.
It might be the normal-looking guy mopping floors who ‘rudely’ asks, “Woah, didja slap her?” because, in his childlike mind, it’s a funny thing to joke.
It might be the mom just a bit older than you, giving your child those sidelong, judgy-looking glances that you hate so much, who’s really just glancing over discreetly to see if it’s the same thing her own daughter has, wishing she could strike up a conversation about it if she weren’t so introverted.
Grace, grace, and more grace. We taught Addy early on to take every interaction openly and with a smile; “Yes, that’s my port wine stain! I just had a laser surgery.” It’s not a secret, it’s not shameful; it is a fact, and we’re okay with it.
When an adult tells me, “Oh, my son had a hemangioma like that, and it went away,” my exhaustion could easily respond with: “For the millionth time, this is NOT a HEMANGIOMA and it WILL NOT go away on its own!” But instead I reply: “Oh, that’s awesome! This will go away, too, but only with laser surgeries.” There: I’ve affirmed their kind attempt at conversation (probably meant to encourage me), and I’ve responded with warmth and truth.
So. When I’m out in public with my kiddo, when she gets some stares, when I hear the old: “Wow, what a sunburn!”, my indignant Mommyhood could easily respond with: “So help me, for the LAST time, this is NOT A SUNBURN, it’s a birthmark, and it WILL NOT HEAL, and not only will it not heal, but she’s had FORTY-THREE – did you hear that, FORTY-THREE! – laser surgeries to try to zap it off AND IT’S STILL THERE. NO! IT IS NOT A SUNBURN!”
But I’ve trained myself to observe who is making the sunburn comment. It’s an awkward cashier — the old lady starved for conversation. It’s an awkward guy mopping the gas station floor, too awkward to be cognitively healthy. It’s a bank teller who has to make conversation because her computer is processing too slowly, and it’s a fine opening attempt.
So instead, I smile and with a quick laugh say, “Actually, it’s a port wine stain, but it totally looks like a sunburn! We get that a lot.” And then either the conversation is done (transaction over), or they want to know more (inquisitive Humans), and I oblige.
After all, they’re taking time out of their day to learn about my offspring, and what mother doesn’t want to talk about her perfect & precocious offspring?
I’m grateful that they lobbed an attempt over the conversation net. I’m grateful that they’re open enough to the world around them to look at other humans. And more than anything, I’m grateful for their ever-human curiosity and concern over a child they didn’t have to notice. To me, all of their comments and questions are beautiful things.
For Parents: How to Encounter Humans, Part 1 (of 2)
When you encounter other humans and they comment on your child’s face, there’s an overwhelming array of responses, not all of them nice, running through your head.
I have been there.
I have heard the misinformed, “Oh, that’ll go away!”
I have heard variations on the ever-humorous, “Wow, didja slap her?”
I have heard meddling old ladies tell me, “Get some sunscreen on that baby, she’s burning!”
I have felt defensive. I have felt like screaming. I have felt like rolling my eyes and snarking.
But.
I don’t. In spite of overwhelming temptation (and a culture that tells us to be offended by every word and look), I don’t. I give them room to be human. Because I’ve been deeply humbled in a few encounters with other humans myself.
Allow me to share 3 of those encounters with you here; three times when I’ve embarrassed myself with my own indignance and pride.
I’ll continue the theme of how we ‘encounter others’ in my next post, but for now, just let me share my embarrassment with you today.
Parents, I hope these encounters help ease your mind and empower you with grace when encountering humans in the world, even when you’re not feeling very gracious.
1. I’ve written about this one before, but it bears revisiting.
One day, I was standing in line for ice cream at a crowded, noisy, charming small-town candy shop. Little Addy (probably almost 2 at the time) was in my arms, looking backward over my shoulder. Suddenly, a guy behind me boomed out with a loud voice (BOOMED! AUDIBLY!): “HEY! SHE HAS A BIRTHMARK!” My back stiffened, my arms tightened, my jaw locked; I checked Addy to see if she’d heard, and began turning around slowly (expecting, I suppose, to death-glare the nitwit into submission, because acting on any other maternal instinct would have gotten me arrested).
Before I could turn all the way around to glare down this ignoramus, he continued, “JUST LIKE ME!” And, voila, there before me stood a tall, handsome, confident young man, maybe 30 or so, with a HUGE port wine stain on his face that was indeed just like Addy’s, only even bigger and even darker. It wrapped up onto his scalp, which was proudly clean-shaven.
He wasn’t ignorant. He was confident – and I saw in one glance that it must have been a hard-won confidence. He had earned it. He definitely knew more than I did. His enthusiasm was contagious, and it was exactly what I needed.
This marked stranger was generous and happy to welcome us into his club. I was ready to crawl into a hole, but we struck up a conversation about laser treatments instead, and he warmly answered my many questions about his experiences growing up with his stain.
I have never forgotten that feeling of welcome, of relief in finding the camaraderie I hadn’t even realized I’d been seeking.
And I’ve also never forgotten how close I came to shutting out such a rich experience, simply because I ignorantly assumed that anyone speaking a single word about my daughter’s birthmark must know less than I do.
2. Addy underwent her first laser surgery when she was 5 weeks old, and then for the next two years she had a surgery each month. So we spent a lot of time at Children’s hospital, hanging out in the pre-surgery waiting room with other families about to be admitted for various minor outpatient surgeries. Dr. Z. scheduled his laser surgeries for the same day each month, and the play area was often dotted with other port-wine-stained kids and their apprehensive parents.
One morning in that waiting room, around her 9th surgery, I struck up a conversation with a mom whose healthy-looking 12-year-old daughter was sitting beside her. Addy was crawling all over my lap, and her unique face came up naturally in conversation. I began telling the mom what Addy was here for, and how Addy’s had a number of surgeries already, and how her face gets bruised every time. (At this point, we had more experience than many other laser-surgery parents there, so I was used to answering questions.)
This mom replied that her daughter was also here for a laser surgery with Dr. Z. I pointed to the play area and inquired which little one was hers, since the older kid next to her was clearly fine. “Oh, no, it’s this one,” she said with a laugh, putting her hand on her twelve-year-old. “She’s got a port wine stain all over her back, and also all the way down both legs, and it’s really thick, and she’s had a ton of laser surgeries already. We lost track ages ago. She’s on swim team, since contact sports aren’t great for her, and she used to get embarrassed about wearing a swim suit, but she’s just had to make peace with it now that she’s on the team. We try to laser it whenever we can…”
I was amazed. This healthy girl was hiding a stain like Addy’s? And an even bigger one? And I can’t see it? And an even thicker one? And she’s had more surgeries? And she’s struggling with uncovering it for swim team?
The whole time I’d been talking to this mom, I’d been assuming that she probably didn’t know much about port wine stains, and that I was ‘informing’ her, while in fact she knew much more than I did. Again, I wanted to crawl into a hole, but she was gracious and warm.
3. When Addy was just a month old and her port wine stain was still very dark, Keith & I brought her over to a friend’s home to meet his whole family, including his parents and his younger siblings (whom we ourselves didn’t yet know very well).
In that first month of Addy’s life, I had already received a lot of warm but maddeningly erroneous encouragement from ignorant people telling me, “Oh, don’t you worry, that birthmark will go away.” Even the nurses at Addy’s birth had said it. I had wanted to scream at every single wrong one of them: “No it won’t! Not without laser treatments! A LOT of laser treatments!” They’d meant well, but they’d been confusing port wine stains with hemangiomas, and by the time that first month had passed, I’d had it *up to here* with bad advice, and was ready to snap if, so help me, I had to hear to that glib dismissal one more time.
We arrived at our friend’s house, and two younger sisters enthusiastically began giving me & Addy a tour of the house, talking over each other as we went. “Ooo, what’s that thing on her face?” “Is that a birthmark?” “That’s so cool! Our little brother has one—“ “Yeah, but it’s like almost gone now—“ “Yeah, it’s like SO MUCH lighter than it was when he was born—“ “Because it was SO DARK when he was born—“ “But it went away!” “Yeah! Hers’ll go away, too!”
There it was. I wanted to snap. If they hadn’t been so charmingly exuberant, I would’ve just about lost it. But I kept my cool because I love this clan. I tried to diplomatically cut in with, “Well, you know, this isn’t a hemangioma, it’s a port wine stain and –“ “Yeah! Yeah! That’s what he had!” And they were off again, chattering on the tour, completely oblivious to their own ignorance.
Later, we all gathered back in the kitchen to chat and to “ooh” and “aah” over Baby Addy, who was now asleep in her car seat. Our friend’s mom gently pulled me aside and asked me with a sidelong glance at my baby, “So… Have they told you about Sturge-Weber syndrome?”
I looked at her, dumbfounded that she would know about Sturge-Weber, a series of difficult complications unique to port wine stains. She called over her youngest son, brushed his hair off his forehead and said, “This is where his port wine stain was; you can still see spots of it.”
The other siblings started excitedly talking over each other again: “Yeah, it was really dark!” “And he had LOTS of surgeries!” “And he had other problems from it, too!” “Oh yeah, he definitely had other problems, too!”
Ahhhhhh… okay… So, when the sisters had said it had gotten lighter… they’d actually meant that it was lighter *after* a lot of laser surgeries… And they were trying to encourage me, to tell that me that it could get lighter with those surgeries… And they were living with Sturge Weber Syndrome on top of it.
They’d known exactly what a port wine stain was. They were walking that same path, many steps ahead of me. With many, many more bumps along that path. And I had tuned them out, not even hearing their wisdom between the lines.
In each of the three moments above, I had assumed, without even trying, that the people around me were somehow more ‘ignorant’ than I; that they somehow needed to be ‘educated’ on My Baby.
The truth, in each instance, was that their bumbling hid not ignorance, but wisdom – which I could heed or ignore at my peril.
There’s a 4th story here – but in this one, the tables were turned. It has nothing to do with birthmarks, but it definitely made me chuckle.
Back when I worked in banking, I got into the elevator at the end of a workday. I worked on the 26th floor of a building filled largely with bankers and lawyers, and every stop on the end-of-day descent added another suit.
The doors opened to a law firm floor, where a family was waiting to get on – a lawyer, his wife, and their young son. It appeared that Mom and toddler had visited Dad’s office at the end of the day to pick him up, and now they were all leaving together.
This mom looked tired and frazzled, and she spoke just a bit sharply at her toddler when he ran into our crowded elevator. I smiled at the boy; he was cute, and he wasn’t doing anything naughty (other than being a toddler, and he could hardly help that).
As she navigated his empty stroller into the elevator with deep sighs, she looked at my obviously pregnant belly and my indulgent smile, and said to me with pursed lips, “Ahh, well, this will be you soon.”
Ohhhh, sweetheart. I laughed out loud with my hand on my belly: “This is number three,” I clarified for everyone.
The suits around us chuckled. She turned beet red.
She had probably assumed by my suit, age and departure time that I must be expecting my first child. Not an unreasonable assumption. And she had therefore assumed that she knew more than I did about toddlers; this clearly left her indignant that I, an ignorant stranger, would dare to silently comment on her mothering with my naiively indulgent smile.
In fact, I’d been in her shoes (twice already), and I’d had those days (twice as many). I’d had many, many of those days. Only with, ahem, TWO toddlers at once and a very pregnant self, thank you very much.
So even when you think that someone’s behaving ‘ignorantly’ and you’re annoyed, take a deep breath and give them room to be human. Not only will you keep yourself from saying something that hurts them, but you’ll keep yourself from saying something that embarrasses you.
Because if they’re interacting with you at all, there’s probably a reason why. They probably see some common ground. And there’s a good chance that they might actually know more than you do. Assume the best, give them grace, and listen for their wisdom between the lines.
Our Influence
A while back, I wrote of two encounters: a port-wined-stained girl hiding in her hoodie, and a confidently lovely Starbucks barista.
These two encounters have always reminded me and Keith that our influence matters as we guide Addy through her identity with a port wine stain. Because Addy could end up like either girl.
Knowing that we wield considerable power when it comes to this mark, we want to parent it right.
Are there factors other than parenting? Certainly – the Hoodie girl might have had crueler classmates in school, been subject to more relentless teasing and bullying, or experienced some other heartbreak entirely. The Starbucks barista might have skipped through life among daises and kittens. I don’t know the whole story.
I simply know that we, as parents, face the challenge of using our influence to build Addy up. To be frank and honest with her, to build her self-esteem, to prepare her for a world full of flawed, and sometimes cruel, humans.
But really (and this is what intrigues me)… isn’t that what every parent faces? These challenges are universal among parents who want to launch a confident, well-adjusted and healthy-self-esteemed child into the world, while protecting them from its cruelty in the meantime.
Not every child is born with an obvious malformation on their face, but the challenge still rests quietly on the parents’ shoulders to wield their influence wisely, simultaneously shielding and empowering, striking the right balance between shelter and exposure.
It’s not something we want to get wrong. Someday, it may mean the difference between a confident smile and a tucked-up hoodie.
I’ve thought through parenting tactics inside and out, backward and forward, in an effort to empower my lovely daughter, with a Thing on her Face, to face the world confidently. That hoodie terrifies me.
And I’m glad to share my insights here. Many of my loyal readers are themselves parents of uniquely marked children, and they’re afraid of the same things I am.
But I also realize that many readers here are simply parents… and because you’re parents, you, too, face these very same fears. And so I hope my insights encourage you, too. Your path is no less precarious than ours; I’ve just had more occasion than most to sit down and think through these things.
May we encourage each other to raise children who confidently know their own beauty, whether they’re birthmarked or not.
Jennica
What Happened To Her Face? 