Look Good for You? No Thanks.

I Googled, and was surprised that I couldn’t find another mom blogger venting about this stupid, stupid song!

What is up with that, Moms?

I’m not even going to link it, but it’s called “Look Good for You” by Selena Gomez.

Any time I hear it, my brain melts into a puddle of lava that my rising blood pressure spews angrily out of my ears. I let my 14-year-old daughter (who sadly, loves Gomez) listen to it once or twice in the car, and then I put my foot down. No. Never again.

Here’s a sampling of the lyrics that set me off:

“Gonna wear that dress you like, skin-tight
Do my hair up real, real nice
And syncopate my skin to how you’re breathing.

Cause I just wanna look good for you, good for you, uh-huh
I just wanna look good for you, good for you, uh-huh
Let me show you how proud I am to be yours
Leave this dress a mess on the floor
And still look good for you, good for you, uh-huh, uh-huh”

Source

Great. Now I have to go blot some lava off the keyboard just for cutting and pasting those ridiculous words on my precious blog.

I won’t even harp on the fact that this is probably the stupidest use of the word “syncopate” ever, because the whole premise of the song is so revolting to me:

I just want to look good for my man. I want to be this “14 karat, Tiffany diamond” hanging off his arm so that he looks good. So that his pathetic self-esteem can be heightened by my lovely presence. My purpose in life is to be his living Barbie doll that he can show off to impress his friends, and later, to peel my skin-tight dress off when he wants me to, so he can use me further.

Give me a break! Is this a message we want our daughters internalizing? That their worth is based on a man’s opinion of their appearance?

Listen girls: a real man will appreciate who you are inside.

If he can’t, if he doesn’t, he isn’t the one, and he certainly isn’t worth a moment of your time. End of story. Period. Full stop.

It makes me mad that a woman is singing this. A young woman who has millions of younger women idolizing her and hanging on her every word. And this is what she does with the responsibility of that innocent following, seducing them into believing that their primary purpose is to be a man’s lovely possession?

Thanks, Selena. Because it isn’t like our daughters aren’t already assaulted all day, every day with false images of beauty that they’ll never measure up to.

My daughter is naturally beautiful. Strikingly so. So much that people can’t help commenting on it. Even tiny babies are drawn to her face. It glows with beauty.

And it scares the hell out of me how pretty she is. Because she doesn’t see it. But I see the glances from young men, and older ones who should be ashamed of themselves for looking. I see how often she seeks validation through taking hundreds of superfluous selfies, how she begs me to never post a pic of her that she doesn’t deem perfect, how we battle when I’m driving over keeping her car visor mirror flipped up (me) or down (her), so she can see her reflection at will.  I know that seeking validation of appearance is nothing new for girls, but sometimes it feels extreme, the extent to which girls seek that validation today.

We’ve talked about it, probably more than she wanted to hear. I don’t know if she hears me over the din, but I compliment her soul. Her intelligence. Yes, sometimes her appearance. I tell her how I spent my adolescence resorting to bulimic behavior to keep my weight at 125 pounds, how it took me two and a half hours to get ready every morning, how I hid my sense of humor around boys because someone told me that it was important to always let the guy be the funny one in the relationship.

No. Just, NO. Don’t change your already wonderful self to meet some false expectation of others. Be who God made you to be. Let His amazing creation shine by being your natural YOU. Don’t be ashamed of any part of your story or past that made you into who you are, because every chapter, every sentence was written into your life for a reason and can be redeemed to make you into the person God needs you to be.

Does my daughter hear me? I don’t know.

But I know that at least in my house, in my car, she isn’t hearing Selena’s perversion of the truth.