Style, Self-Worth, and the Scroll

An Instagram reel made me rethink what we’re teaching girls

Photo by Christopher Ryan on Unsplash

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
― Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s

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I was scrolling Instagram late one night when a reel brought me to a full stop.

A young mother had spread her bedroom floor with outfits for her three daughters — tops, bottoms, shoes, small accessories arranged in careful rows. One by one the girls came in and made their choices, mixing pieces together, adding their own flourishes. Every decision was met with enormous, theatrical applause, as though something genuinely momentous had just unfolded.

It was sweet. It also stayed with me, because those girls were far too young to be worrying about how they styled an outfit.

Nobody taught me to style an outfit as a child. The subject simply did not arise.

We had no money for that kind of thing, but even setting material constraints aside, there were just other preoccupations. Library books with cracked spines and that faintly musty smell you could never quite place.Swimming lessons where the chlorine stayed in your hair all afternoon regardless of how many times you rinsed it.

Saturday mornings watching cartoons with my siblings, the day entirely unscheduled and nobody pressing us to account for it. Ordinary, unhurried time that no one thought to photograph or turn into a moment.

I loved those hours without knowing it. You never do, at the time.

My mother had opinions about appearances — strong ones, delivered with confidence. But it was one facet of life, not the organizing principle of it.

I did not fully appreciate how healthy that proportion was until I had a daughter of my own.

Honesty compels me to admit there were afternoons I would have welcomed more of that kind of attention growing up: the fussing, the being made to feel polished and set apart. The appeal is not lost on me.

But there is a real difference between a treat and a way of living, and that difference carries weight.

There used to be places called Glamour Shots — studios where ordinary people could have their hair and makeup done, borrow elaborate outfits, pose for photographs under flattering lights.

You went once, perhaps twice. It was an occasion, something that lodged in the memory.

Now a version of that ceremony is available every day, from one’s own bedroom, and a great many people take advantage of it. Whether we have fully come to terms with what that changes is another matter.

There was a reel where a mother had taken her eleven-year-old for eyebrow waxing and a manicure. The girl seemed content enough.

But I kept returning to the question of whether she would have cared as much without a camera present — whether her enjoyment was genuinely her own, or whether it was inextricably tangled up in being watched enjoying it.

That is probably an uncharitable question. I cannot answer it even about myself with any confidence.

Then there was a mother taking her three-year-old for a manicure. A child of three. The little girl appeared pleased, and perhaps she was, but there is a brightness children produce when they sense they are performing well for someone, and it is not quite the same thing as being genuinely delighted.

The distinction is difficult to articulate. It is nonetheless real.

The account that gave me the longest pause belonged to an influencer with two sets of twins, now expecting another. Beautiful woman, warm-looking content on the surface — bath times, hot chocolate, evenings that telegraphed coziness and abundance.

You might have taken it for an unguarded glimpse into an ordinary family.

But the children. They already know how to pose. They know what to say and precisely when to say it. When a brand needs showcasing, they tap the packaging on cue.

These are small children, and they have already absorbed their role in the production. Nobody, as far as one can tell, asked them whether they wanted one.

I do not say that to be unkind. I understand that content creation has become a livelihood for whole families, and I understand the pull of it.

But those children will be grown one day, and I do wonder what conclusions they will eventually draw about their early years — whether they will feel something was taken from them, or whether they will find my concern entirely misplaced.

I did my own smaller version of this. Mother-daughter manicures, spa birthday parties when my daughter was young. She relished the fuss, and I relished making her feel special.

But her real formation was happening elsewhere. She read compulsively, wrote constantly, entered every literary competition she could find. By secondary school she was editing her own literary journal.

Those years of absorption in something that had nothing to do with her reflection in a mirror — that is what actually built her.

She is twenty-three now and more than fine. But I think often about the girls growing up today who are stepping into all of this considerably earlier.

Beauty appointments at eleven. Carefully arranged photographs. Comment sections telling them they are gorgeous before they have formed any considered view of themselves.

None of it is necessarily harmful, and I am aware I risk sounding like every older generation that has ever worried about the one coming behind.

Even so.

They have decades ahead in which to cultivate being stylish, polished, camera-ready. Childhood is — or it ought to be — the portion of life where evaluation is suspended. Where you are permitted to be interested in things, incompetent at things, bored, inventive, private. Where you can work out who you are without an audience in attendance while you do it.

My sincere hope is that enough of that kind of time remains available to them.

They will have ample years to be presentable. They have only a brief window in which to simply be young.

Did you grow up with much fuss made over appearances, and do you believe it served you? If you are raising girls now, how do you navigate it? And what do you make of children who have learned to perform for a camera before they have learned much else?

A version of this story originally appeared on Medium.

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