When I was little I thought my mom looked exactly like Linda Carter.
And this is what my daughter thinks I look like.
So I'm watching Gilmore Girls the other day (is there really any better way to spend one's time?) and little Sully looks up at the screen, points to the two main characters, and says "Mommy! Daddy!" My thoughts were something along the lines of "Why, yes, dear...those two beautiful actors do look remarkably like your parents. How clever of you to point that out."
Of course, we do not look like Lauren Graham (that hair!) or Scott Patterson (that jaw line!) but you know, if the kid thinks we do, then that is perfectly fine by me. Then we watched Tangled the next weekend and Sully points to Rapunzel and says "Mommy!" and points to Flynn Rider and says "Daddy!" Well, of course I'm flattered to be compared to a blonde cartoon character (at my age, I'll take what I can get) but I'm starting to wonder what my child REALLY thinks I look like since it's obvious that the raven-haired real life Lauren Graham and the animated blonde (and very very tiny) Rapunzel are about as different as you can get when it comes to representations of the female species.
BUT, you know, who am I to point out that mommy isn't a svelte blonde?
Then that night, while getting ready for bed, we start reading 'The Napping House'. For those of you who have read 'The Napping House' you can imagine where this is going. In 'The Napping House' there is a Granny (a snoring Granny). And Sully's little face lights up and she points to the old woman (who is, by the way, very old looking, she has huge feet and is wearing a frilled night cap circa 1892) and shouts "MOMMY!" Um, no. No. No. No. No. "That is not Mommy." I say. I then try to explain the difference between mothers and grandmothers and very old women in picture books that look 150 years old. No luck. Every time I turn the page that old woman appears and every time Sully shouts "MOMMY!" My husband, of course, thinks this is hilarious.
I realized that my daughter assumes that anyone over the age of 12 must be a 'mommy' and the male version is 'daddy' and anyone else is 'baby'. She isn't pointing out these people because they look like me, she is pointing them out because she is learning to sort out people and their various labels. At least, that's what the child development books say, but for all I know she REALLY does think I'm a skinny blonde. I mean for years I thought my mom looked like Linda Carter. Now, of course, my mom actually does look like Linda Carter, but that, my friends, is entirely beside the point.
P.S. No offense to Maggie Smith (pictured as the Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey). She is absolutely one of my favorite actresses of all time. But as the Dowager Countess she does rather perfectly represent what an old woman in the late 19th/early 20th century would have looked like. I'm pretty sure the Dowager wore a night cap too. Not that she'd let anybody see it.
