Anonymous wrote:Jesus, your poor daughter. Be her advocate and stand up for her. This is traumatizing for her. Say no to the portrait. Your MIL is a selfish f'ing cow.

Anonymous wrote:No, not now. Then, maybe. And again, I'm not saying parents should always encourage or entertain a teen's desire for plastic surgery. But 1) every case isn't mine and 2) parents should at least listen without inappropriately dismissing their kid's feelings.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you all for your answers. DH and I talked about this all weekend. Although it's not happening weekly, over the years yes, people have made comments to other adults right in front of me and in front of DD about her looks. Yes, people have fawned over my other two kids right in front of DD. Other kids have absolutely excluded DD and their parents have just shrugged at me like "Kids. What are you going to do? So fickle!"

DD does have various interests that we help her pursue and we do focus a lot on personality rather than looks in our family. DH and I HAVE spoken strongly with MIL about her comments regarding DD's looks. It's basically a yearly argument.

We spoke with our other two kids and told them we want for our entire immediate family to skip the portrait this summer and why. I am embarrassed to not have thought of this myself - thank you for the idea - when we told DD she was very happy. So happy in fact that she asked if she can still be part of the "cousins picture" that's informally taken on a staircase with all the kids.

Regarding the plastic surgery, DD is beautiful and adorable to us, absolutely. But we can also recognize that she isn't those things to others, and that DD picks up on that. She started asking several years ago, when she first found out what plastic surgery was, if she could get it. We've told her we'll discuss it when she is finished growing, but DH and I have already agreed privately the answer is yes. I won't apologize for this - if we can do something so others can see her the way we do then we will.

Anonymous wrote:Guys, as another "ugly duckling," I think you're putting too much stock in the "you're beautiful the way you are!!" approach. That's what my parents did, and it made me feel worse, because I wasn't blind or stupid. I could see how I looked, and it made me unhappy. Constantly being told "no! You're beautiful" or "it's what's on the inside that counts" just made me feel patronized and alone, because it clearly wasn't true, and I wasn't allowed to talk about how I actually felt or get any help with real solutions to my problem areas. I'm not saying that parents should start leaving brochures for plastic surgeons on their kids beds, but just toeing the party line isn't the answer either. It's a balancing act between acknowledging the realities of your kids appearance, the fact that society (and especially kids) can be cruel and painful to ugly kids (especially girls) AND trying to teach the importance of inner beauty. It's a hard line to walk, and I don't envy OP, but I think it's great that she's trying to really hear what her daughter is saying.