There's a Warhol exhibit in town and I took my 3-year-old daughter to see it. One of the installations was a small theater room running a film featuring a series of models looking at the camera acting like they were looking at themselves in a mirror. When the girl above came out my daughter exclaimed, "Look! She looks like Mommy!" Then she clasped her hands together, held them to her chest and said, "She's soooo beautiful!" I blushed as the other patrons smirked and casually looked from me to the model and back again. There was no physical resemblance of course - except maybe the disdainful facial expression - but I smiled and ruffled my daughter's hair.
When recapping the incident to my husband, and showing him the picture, he said, "You're her frame of reference for everything, baby. If she sees something beautiful in someone, it's probably because she saw it in you first and that's why she thinks it's beautiful."What an ominous role to fill. I started to cry. And now I'm off to change my outlook on life and my ways of thinking in order to truly become someone my daughter can look up to.
