The youngest of my two daughters is 7 and obsessed with her own cuteness. And I don't know what to do about it.
Some recent examples of her obsession are these:
I once used the word agenda in front of her and she asked me from the back of the car, "What does agenda mean?" When I told her, she proclaimed, "Well, my agenda is being cute."
When her now 11-year old sister (who may be obsessed with her own intelligence, but that is another story) was talking about possibly receiving financial aid from a private school and referring to it as a scholarship, and teasing her sibling that she will never have a similar opportunity, my youngest shot back, "Please, my face is a scholarship I am so cute."
Another time when we were driving, and I heard sirens and I teased her that the police may be coming after her, she responded, "My only crime is being cute."
Troubling, right? Maybe even to the point where it is criminal.
But also funny, and, well, cute, especially the way she does it.
And one of the problems is she is so damn cute. Of course, most kids are, especially girls, and especially girls around her age. And of course I have zero objectivity on the matter, and I am sure every dad or mom thinks his or her child to be the cutest thing going. But it seems like a disproportionate amount of people find her cute, and use that word to describe her.
Like the gas station attendant who volunteered that she could have the candy bar I was buying her for just a dollar. "Normally, it's two," he said. "But for you it's one, because of that cute face."
Or the time we left a rambling voice mail message together at this limo rental office inquiring about prices, not just for a rental but maybe for purchase (guess whose idea that was) and the still-chuckling owner called back 15 minutes later and said it was the cutest message he has heard in 20 years in the business. He did not offer to reduce his purchase price to a dollar, by the way.
So what is a parent to do? Do I curtail this behavior? Do I tell my daughter she is not cute, or at least not THAT cute? Or somehow explain where she falls on the bell curve of cute-itude. Or just encourage her to, whatever she does, never refer to her own cuteness.
I mean, I may find her act cute but I am sure there are a lot of people who if they witnessed her saying some of these things would think she was in need of an immediate swirly.
I have tried to talk to her about humility and, fortunately, she did not respond by saying something akin to, "Come on, how can I be humble with a face like this?"
But what do I do?
Therapy? Discipline? Ignore it?
Are there whole chapters in parenting books about this?
Cuteness - The Double-Edged Sword.
Cut Out The Cute.
Too Cute For School.
Ok, enough. Now I am trying too hard to be cute.
I will just stop and leave the cute to the cute expert.
And enjoy it as long as it lasts.
Of course, at the height of my concern, when I inquired with my own agenda how long she thought she would remain cute and what she would do if she were not any longer, she did not hesitate to say, "Oh, don't worry - I will be cute forever."
