Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Back in the day when I was about 9 years old, I remember eating lunch in the cafeteria with a bunch of my classmates. The topic of discussion was beautiful mothers. All the other kids were talking about how beautiful their mothers were, etc., etc. Funny how only all the girls were saying that. The focus of the conversation inevitably turned in my direction when one of the girls asked,

"Hey Vince, what about your mom? Is she beautiful?" I dunno. I'm sure she had some redeeming qualities about her that was beyond my ability to understand or articulate at the time. But to answer the question, if we were just basing everything on appearances the answer would be...ummm....well, let's put it this way. At the time my idea of beautiful was something like a fairy: long flowing hair, slim, delicate, musical voice, light-footed, and graceful. Mom's hair was always on the short side as far as I could remember, big-boned, after bearing 4 children you can imagine her body habitus and gait, I could always tell where she was in the house whenever she walked around, and we were always causing trouble so that Mom would be practically hoarse from yelling at us. So of course my answer to that question was,

"Um...mwpehernl." Lucky for me my classmate continued to rant on about her mother and was oblivious to my response.

Fast forward 23 years.

The following subject came up, again but this time with Gah and Lup. Their conversation, as described from an email from Gah:

I (Gah) asked her (Lup) "who thinks you're beautiful?
Lup: No one
Me (Gah): I do. Who thinks I'm beautiful.
Lup: I do.
Me: Ha. You lie!! Not once have you said I'm beautiful.
Lup: You're beautiful on the inside.
Me: BAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Yeah, thanks a lot.
L: You were beautiful.
Me: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! (even louder) You mean I'm not anymore?
L: I saw old pictures of you and you were beautiful. You still are beautiful, except older now.
Me: Rolling on the floor by now.

Bad genes on the female side? Who knows. Maybe it's just one of those behavioral things that crosses the generations. Like how most parents take away all the candy from their kids after Halloween night. Or like how most kids love being in toy stores. Maybe most kids don't think their mothers are beautiful, anymore, after 10 years of parenting.

Just to put things in perspective, though, I had to babysit everyday from sun up to 5pm during my junior/senior year in high school during the summer. I had no sleep, I was irritable, and exhausted all the time. 10 years of that, and I'm sure I wouldn't look that great, either.