Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-04-19 - 8:03 p.m.

I Love Me

I took Stork Child shopping again today. We tried to go yesterday, but partway through the store she dished out a healthy dose of Queen of the Universe crap, so I power-tripped her over who held the pocketbook. No new clothes for you today, young lady. Ha! But the fact remained that she still needs the jeans, so we went again today.

No jeans; even the slims don't work. But she did find some summer t-shirts that were acceptable to her. Her favorite choice was a black tank top with the rhinestone legend, "I (Heart) Me." I Love Me. I bought my child an I Love Me t-shirt.

Wow.

When I was eleven, I loved me, I guess. I loved me enough to know for sure that I was unutterably right all the time, and way superior to all the people who didn't see that. I also hated me, in equal or greater measure, for the odd peg I was and was always doomed to be, for my unshakable uncoolness, for being in some undeniable way flawed beyond repair. I was heavy into adolescence by that time. Wear an I Love Me t-shirt at eleven? Wear an I Love Me t-shirt at 45? In FRONT of people?

My kid's going to do it. In fact, she likes the shirt so much she's NOT wearing it today, because she's smart enough not to risk having to put the precious shirt in the wash on the weekend and having Mommy flake out on the laundry so it's not clean to wear Monday. She loves herself and she's planning on having the world read it right off her chest, starting Monday morning.

This kid scares me.

People say we're focusing too much on self-esteem these days with our kids. We're not making them earn feeling good about themselves; we're just ramming it right down their throats. It doesn't matter what you do, you're perfect. Okay; I'll buy some of that. How do you teach a child math when he's already been taught that any answer he comes up with, using any method he chooses, is right? That any behavior is acceptable?

But think, just think about it for one minute. Could you wear an I Love Me t-shirt? No, it doesn't count if you put a sweater over it. No, not if you button your coat. I mean right out there? Could you?

You couldn't, could you? Because you'd be embarrassed. Because people would THINK stuff. They'd think, "Look at THAT jerk. What an asshole. He's crazy about himself. He's (conceited, arrogant, stuck-up.) And then if you saw them laughing, well, you'd have to take the shirt off because it would be a lie, because you'd be all, "Oh, you're right, I forgot, I am fundamentally flawed, I hate myself again." Then they'd like you again. Without the shirt.

Stay with me, here, because this is pretty fundamental. We're SUPPOSED to love ourselves. Not blindly, maybe, not without knowing there are things we want to do better or less or whatever, but still - of all the things in life we offer our compassion, who should be top of the list? "Love thy neighbor AS THYSELF." It's basic. But we don't do it very well, most of us, and we don't take it on as a project, either. "This year I am going to find more ways to express my self-love, going to remember to tell myself I love me more often, going to try to show it more every day." Right.

No huge epiphany here, I guess. Just that my child, who is entirely too well-balanced to be any relation to me, has once again come out ahead of her mother. I'm a dollar short and few decades late. I wouldn't wear that shirt on a dare, but you know what? It's going to remind me of something important and wonderful every time I see it.

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