I started out with all sorts of reasons to participate:
- The most virtuous reason was to raise money for a worthy cause -- 100% of the proceeds benefit the local YWCA Breast Cancer Resource Center
- The most frivolous reason was to try out being a model. I mean, when else will I get the opportunity?
- Some minor justifications were:
- because other cancer survivors had described it as fun
- because what could be better inducement to get serious about exercising than knowing a ballroom full of people will be looking at you?
- because I could write a totally rocking blog post about it
Sally is content with her reason. This is a real cash cow for an 8-year-old.
But me? All those reasons for participating went up in smoke during the first practice.
Here's a play-by-play leading up to my "What Am I Doing Here" moment (which then nicely resolves into a cathartic Moment of Realization With Important Life Lesson. That's the standard structure of a parenting blog post, in case you haven't noticed).
The First Practice
The first fashion show practice took place in a high school cafeteria. The only way I found the cafeteria was by joining forces with a middle-aged African American woman who was hanging around the school entrance worrying that her frail elderly mother -- another cancer survivor and fashion show model -- wouldn't be able to find the right door. When we figured out where we were supposed to go, she said "Well, praise the Lord!"
I took a seat beside a tiny Hispanic woman with a hazy fuzz of hair just starting to grow back after chemotherapy. We chatted about our treatment experiences and our 8-year-old daughters. Hers, all sweet smiles and twirling energy, was thrilled to be in the show. Mine, meanwhile, sat sullenly doing her spelling homework and only looked up when she heard an organizer say, "Everybody help yourself to a doughnut."
Never mind, I told myself. This will be a Good Experience for both of us.
The organizers marked out a "runway" with masking tape, and we models -- about 30 survivors, family members, oncologists, surgeons, radiology nurses -- were told to strut down it. I took my place in line, and the music started pumping...
Doubt hit me the moment I hit the masking tape runway. It might have been the music (not my style); it might have been the mental image of me strutting (not my method of locomotion) on a runway (not my scene; my idea of dressed up is changing out of my PJs).
That's when I asked myself that horrible question, What was I thinking?? I hate having people stare at me! It's every introvert's nightmare. Egad, I had to take valium to make it down the aisle at my wedding without freaking out about everyone turning around to watch me. In grad school, I did fine as long as I had a PowerPoint presentation, a laser pointer, and decent data. But without those props, I'd feel... exposed. This is not what I want, I thought in a panic.
But it gets worse. As I looked back to see how Sally was coping with the loud music and command to strut, I realized, this is not what I want for my daughter.
Why, oh why, did I bribe her to be in a fashion show? That's completely counter-productive when trying to be counter-cultural in my parenting. Fashion shows are Superficial Central, right? They're where our culture's unrealistic, unattainable ideals for physical beauty leach out of the world of high fashion and latch onto the psyche of women everywhere, leaving them dissatisfied and self conscious, never feeling well-dressed enough or accessorized enough or thin enough or tall enough or curvy enough or slinky enough or whatever enough.
I don't want that for my daughter. I've done what I can to protect her from questioning how she measures up to culture's anorexic concept of beauty. In fact, I've probably gone a little extreme in the other direction, since I don't even take her clothes shopping.
The Cathartic Moment of Realization
Let's cut to the cathartic part. I beat myself up for a few days about putting Sally in a fashion show; then I talked it over with my wise friend Genna, and she helped me realize something important: at my daughter's first-ever fashion show, she will not see a parade of unrealistic, unattainable physical ideals of beauty. She will see a tiny Hispanic woman with fuzzy baby hair and a frail, elderly African-American mother with the wire glasses. She will share the runway with my super-smart, Korean-American (male) oncologist who laughingly told me it's hard to cut back on desserts when your wife is a great cook. She'll meet the soft-spoken, idealistic, young African-American school teacher who lost her mother to cancer, and the brave, chemo-bald Indian-American woman who only wears her wig half the time, and the super-star local surgeon who wore warm-up pants to practice and runs marathons in her spare time.
At my daughter's first fashion show, she will see real beauty that comes in all skin colors and ages, all body shapes and sizes, none of them perfect but all of them beautiful. She will also see that fashion modeling isn't the most lauded type of modeling at this event. The doctors and nurses and other care providers are modeling lives of compassion and service. The volunteers and donors at the show are modeling lives of activism and selfless giving. The survivors and their families are modeling lives of gratitude and courage and joy. And we are all there to celebrate life, something those affected by cancer don't take for granted.
And I think to myself: Yes! This is exactly what I want for my daughter. I am proud to be a part of this.
