So which is it?

My 5-yr old daughter brought her school photo home today. She looks beautiful of course, but I'm biased. I posted it on Facebook for our friends and family to see. They too said she's beautiful and I got a few of the "she's your mini-me" comments which lead me to a realization.

If everyone says she's my mini-me and I think that she's beautiful, why don't I see myself that way? Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm ugly, but I also don't find myself beautiful. Cute? Sure. Occasionally, I take a photo where I even think I look pretty. But beautiful? Hot? Nope.

(Side note: My husband will tell you people post things like this on Facebook or wherever in order to get their friends to tell them they are pretty and boost their ego, but that isn't my intention.)

On the flip side, I have a friend who is beautiful and knows it. She gets torn to shreds by other people, women mostly, for being beautiful and openly admitting that she knows it. Most of the time they do it behind her back or worse, in my opinion, while hiding behind a computer screen.

We are told to have self-confidence but are sold a million and one ways to improve ourselves -- diet pills, make-up, hair straighteners, plastic surgery. And when we find confidence in our looks we're seen as vain, conceited, having a "better than you" attitude.

So which is it that is acceptable? To know that you are beautiful and be proud of it or to be beautiful and not realize it?

It seems like neither which makes it that much more puzzling to me.

How do I raise a girl in this world who is confident in her looks, in her smarts, and in her abilities in a world that makes a profit playing on our insecurities and allowing total strangers to rip us apart because when we have confidence?

For now I suppose I have to work on my own confidence for her because that is how they learn the most -- by example. I'm going to try Sammy. I'm going to try.