Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Little beauty

What I want to know is this:

What exactly informs a two-year-old's idea of beauty?

The question has arisen for me because the other idea I was reading a Hi-5 book that I'd got suckered in to buying for Ewan. He watches them at daycare, personally I've never seen this particular bunch of kiddie warblers and for this, folks, I am endlessly grateful.
Anyway, he came across a picture of Kellie, one of the performers in Hi-5. For those who don't know, this is Kellie:



Totally unprompted by me, he stared at her picture a moment and said:

"Kellie's boo-de-foo"

Had I heard right? I asked him again:

"Kellie's boo-de-foo"

Pushed a third time he responded "Kellie's nice" (clearly he thought his daft mama had no idea of what beautiful meant).

So, where does a two-year-old get this sort of stuff from, I ask you? Of course, I can't rule out daycare because he does come home with a few eyebrow-raisers from there, though it's 99% benign.

I personally haven't really started commenting that this person or that is beautiful or not. I mean, I call him a "beautiful boy" an awful lot. Because he is, but I don't particularly say it in reference to his looks.

Here am I studying "Kellie". Typically beautiful according to the perceptions of our society. Blonde, young, slim, fun.
Beautiful for sure.

Is it a fait accompli that if a two-year-old can recognise these characteristics as beautiful then the rest of us who don't fit in this category are doomed to a life of 'un-beautifulness'?

Is it purely a matter of facial symmetry as you hear every now and then on the news after some study or another has been completed?

It was with some trepidation that I then posed the question: "Ewan, is Mummy beautiful?"

To which the response was "Yeah, Mummy's beautiful" ... but let's not focus on the hesitation before that answer, let's just go with it!!

1 comment:

Fliss and Mike Adventures said...

Oh my... is that what Hi-5 is turning into? When I left Australia to move to the US they still looked 'young'...