For My Future Daughter: Don't Be Pretty

My baby cousin is all grown up.  Well, maybe not - but she's entering high school next year and just got e-mail and gchat (no facebook yet and she just barely got a phone, she's pretty busy with basketball, piano, and tutoring... go Tiger Aunt!).  Since I'm always on gchat, she'll message me from time to time and we have fun conversations where I try to give her advice.

Me: UCLA is good but smaller schools like CMC mean less classes.  All my friends at UCLA had to take class and lecture.  My biggest class was maybe 20 people.  At big schools, the TA teaches a lot.  And, if you're pretty and not that smart (like some people I knew), and the TA likes you, he will give you all the answers to tests and that is not cool for everyone else.
My Cousin: So you're saying be pretty?
Me: No, don't be pretty.  Pretty doesn't last.  Smart does.  Be smart.  Just be pretty when you need to be.  Actually, hopefully nobody will think you're pretty (except for your family) until you're in college.
My Cousin: ok haha yea true true
Me: the prettiest girls I grew up with were also the meanest.  And none of them are married yet.  Who's laughing now?  HAHAHAHA umm... me.
My Cousin: wow it happens in movies too.  pretty = mean

I'm not sure if that was the right thing to teach her... but if it keeps her away from boys and keeps her focused on college and everything good... I'm okay by that.  And I know there are a lot of Mormon girls who are really pretty and nice (at least from their mother's blogs, that's how it seems), but my high school was more like Mean Girls.  Petty.  Silly.  Competitive.  Vindictive.  Manipulative.  Mean.  Ugly on the inside.

Oh, and there was also the constant threat of getting your butt kicked by the pretty girls (one I experienced first hand many times... yes, I hid behind the dressing room in Contempo Casual, scared for my life as one of the girls who wanted to fight me was spotted at the mall).  Don't get me wrong, I had an awesome high school experience (after the mean girls who wanted to beat me up left me alone after freshman year).. but do I want to go back? Heck no!  Do I want to relive it?  Never in a million years!  I know most of it probably had to do with my own insecurities then, but it was still not a fun time.

I kind of feel the same way about my 20's.  In fact, the closer I get to 30, the happier I am to be where I am now.  Here is good.  Almost 30 is good.  Much better than 20.  I am still muddled by the materialistic and rather superficial things from time to time.. the coveting I try to minimize (my poor husband always has to hear me tell him how nice everyone else's house and inside set-up is)... the obsession with my hair (it's too flat.. I wish I could perm it... but my mom would kill me, even at almost 30... err), clothes (it doesn't fit! it's too tight, it's too loose.. UGH!) or why I can't be as trendy as that mom and her cute kid... but those thoughts are fleeting and aren't all I obsess about.  No, there's too much to worry about with baby, work, cooking, cleaning, volunteering, etc.  The only thing I'd like is my 20 year old metabolism.  No scratch that.... my 16 year old one is better.  Yes, I'd like that back please.