A sweet, beautiful little girl sees her reflection as she gets her hair done by her loving mom. And then she utters three little words that would break any mother’s heart:
“I’m so ugly!”
Her mom gasps, instincts kicking in. “Don’t say that!” But by then the daughter has already broken into tears. It’s hard to watch this innocent child’s self-esteem so devastated.
Luckily, mom knew exactly what to say to help her daughter remember her worth. It’s easy to see why this touching video has now gone viral.
“You are so pretty,” mom repeats over and over again, trying to deprogram the negative self-talk.
“You have this beautiful chocolate skin…you got these dimples. How many people got two dimples? You got two dimples! Look at them pretty white teeth!”
Going into cheerleading mode, she says:
“No, you not gonna cry. You are a beautiful little girl. You are the prettiest girl in class. Boom! Tell ’em straight up. When you go to school tomorrow, you gonna be like ‘oh look at my hair, oh look at my shoes’…Baby girl you are beautiful. Black is beautiful, and if don’t nobody ever tell you. I will tell you, you are gorgeous. And you gonna grow up and you gonna be everything that you can be. The greatest…whatever you wanna be. What you wanna be?”
“The teacher,” she says quietly.
“Your teacher mean to you?”
The daughter nods.
“So guess what, when you become the teacher, you don’t be mean. You be the nice teacher.”
And this is not only how you lift a child’s spirit, it’s how you show them a better world is possible.
Though the daughter keeps trying to stare back at the mirror, mom guides her eyes back to her own. Her last words are “You hold your head up,” and they share a loving embrace.
There’s another snippet where the daughter says “Hi, I’m black, and beautiful” and blows us a kiss. It’s quickly followed by a hilarious “Girrrrrl, whatchyou doin’ with my phone?” Apparently her courage was restored enough to record a quick video in secret.
The final thing we see is both mother and daughter grinning ear to ear, and it truly is beautiful. Way to go, mom. This is a moment her daughter will be able to return to anytime her confidence is compromised.