ugly.

When I lived in Texas, I heard a mom say the worst thing to her tall, blonde, tan beautiful daughter...

“Don’t be ugly.”

It was in reference to her attitude but I was so taken back. Why on earth would a mom ever tell her daughter she was ugly??? I didn’t have kids yet, but I did know everything and I knew that mom sucked.

And then I had kids.

Daughters.

And then they became teenagers.

I saw all sorts of girls they went to school with who were beautiful girls with designer clothes but were also the most hideously mean little snatches I ever did see.

And I understood.

THAT is ugly.

It’s a wonder I didn’t see it in my own experiences with women. In hindsight, there are many girls and women in my life that had all the outward signs of beauty. They had all the right clothes, the right friends, the right husbands. They knew all the right people, drove the right cars, had the right hair. But when it came to how they treated the people around them, they were, simply put, ugly.

I have also been fortunate enough to have women in my life who are stunningly beautiful. The thing they have in common is not their hair, their cars, their perfect husbands or their clothing. It’s the grace with which they allow others to be who they are and love them endlessly. Those are the women I actively seek out, who’s beauty is warming and hopefully contagious.

Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.

It is in the way we treat one another.

So to my girls…Soapy D, Little Miss and Mini McGee…and for good measure-Little Man too…to you I say, don’t be ugly, for it IS a choice.

I strive to be beautiful and raise beautiful children.

And if they also happen to have great hair than I’ll take that too!

-McGee