Three out of my four daughters were in either Cheer or Pom squads as they were growing up. Some did it for many years, some just for one. I spent a lot of time watching cheerleaders.

Have you ever noticed how uniforms attempt to do what the name suggests? They are used to create uniformity. Uniformity is good to create the visual impact of a team working together. Identity and purpose is based on the team.

But uniforms did the opposite for me. They focused my attention on what made each individual cheerleader just that, individual. The uniform created a standard base by which I could see how they were all different, all beautiful.
 
And what made them beautiful? It wasn’t how they were similar, it was how they were different from each other. If there is one thing of utmost importance for a parent, especially a father, to instill in his daughters, it is that he sees them as beautiful in their uniqueness, in how they stand apart and are themselves, not how they look like everyone else.
 
That doesn’t mean you denigrate their desire to fit in. We all want to fit in, and that is ok. But as they work to fit in they will always find that they don’t completely. When they experience that, it’s a parent’s job to build the value of their uniqueness, the beauty in it.
 
If a woman isn’t proud of her unique beauty, she will only be proud of how she appears to be like someone else. That doesn’t lead to true self-confidence, just the temporary illusion of it.
Beauty and Proportion mug
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
 
“There is no excellent beauty that hat not some strangemess in the proportion.” – Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, Englishman, 1st and Only Viscount of St. Alban