Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Mommy, Is My Nose Too Big for You to Love Me?

"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much."

Tell that to parents, who according to some new research treat their more attractive children better than they treat their less attractive childlren. Now, in all honesty, the data seems hardly scientific to my untrained eye, but it's still a pretty sad hypothesis. As if people weren't self-conscious enough about the way they look already, let's just add another log to the fire and tell people that if they're not pretty their parents didn't love them as much.

Call me an optimist (and I'm not generally one), but I tend to think this research must be flawed. I do not think that all the talk about love being blind is false. I think love forces you to appreciate someone so much that you don't see them for their physical characteristics. My friends kvetch to me about being fat or whatnot all the time, and I always think it's silly because I just don't think of them that way, I don't see them in that light (and they are NOT fat or whatnot anyway). And maybe I'm being naive again, but I do also believe that parents love their children, love them enough to see past their physical defects.

Basically, I am just not mekabel this article. I refuse to believe that parents take better care of their prettier children. And if for some reason I'm wrong (not that that ever happens, but if it did ;), I think it's a super-sad commentary on our society. I mean, how much more steeped in physicality can we get?

4 Comments:

At 5/3/05, 3:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

See this thread...
http://www.hashkafah.com/index.php?showtopic=9621

 
At 5/3/05, 11:39 PM, Blogger TRK said...

Eli7,

It wouldn't surprise me. Society is so geared towards external beauty as it is. I'm not surprised to read that there is a difference between parents as well. Does Daddy treat his pretty young girl better?

Also, if we talking about major differences in beauty such as a child who is physically deformed, then I imagine the issue becomes exacerbated.

TRK

 
At 5/4/05, 7:34 AM, Blogger Eli7 said...

I guess. It just seems like if you want to say teachers treat pretty kids better, bus drivers, cashiers, doctors... I buy all that. I do think that the mrore attractive you are the easier you have it in some ways, but parents! I mean, parents are the ones that are supposed to love their kids unconditionally, perfectly. It's a scary concept that even parents could be affected so much by the way their kids look, especially cuz their kids are a product of their own genes!

 
At 5/4/05, 11:48 PM, Blogger TRK said...

Well, I hate to say it, but I think a lot of parents are crap. There. I said it. Mine weren't, but I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone is as lucky as me.

 

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