Smiling Too Much
We spent New Year’s in Pebble Beach at a dear cousin’s home. We walked Carmel’s beach and watched picture-perfect blond women walking scores of blond retrievers.
Beautiful women, beautiful children, beautiful dogs.
Some posing for pictures with beautiful teeth to add to the mix.
Watching the Pacific along 17-Mile Drive
We saw vacationers smiling next to the 17-Mile Drive Lone Cypress. We watched couples cheesing next to Tuck’s Box and along the Pebble Beach coast line. We watched families in designer dress trip merrily along the streets.
We noticed the pressure to be looking as if you’re not caring that you’re being looked at, to look away when your eyes meet another’s. I found my eager smile quickly pushing people’s eyes away, leaving me cheesing for no one. I wondered if I was smiling too much for this area.
But I maintain my conviction that everyone appreciates a genuine smile, especially the most cool, the most surly, the most aloof.
A genuine smile from Finn at sunset
Honest, into your eyes, smiles–a hard won virtue to practice. I started practicing when I left my little Christian school for a public one at the beginning of my senior year. I’d leave for home each day amazed at how few people smiled back.
A difficult art form because you can
smile too much,
falsely
automatically
without your eyes
or, even worse, too long. Some snapshots of some cheerleaders illustrate this perfectly. Their smiles well, I’m sure I can’t believe them.
Photo credit: http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/11/18/ncaa-football-weekly-locks-week-12/
On my wedding day, on the long walk down the aisle to meet Dale, I felt this frozen, smiling exhaustion. Even while I was happy.
I began the walk smiling and then tried to meet each pair of eyes with a broader smile.
Even on my wedding day, I was not okay unless I could make everyone else feel okay. Talk about codependent.
I had nothing wider to offer Dale when I got to the end. My cheeks were trembling with the effort, but one look at him and I knew he knew I was happy, just with a glance at my shining eyes. My lips could relax and sit down until I was asked to turn to the audience again and perform.
Tired, peremptory smiles.
Forced, obedient smiles.
Dale watched a young family with two girls yesterday outside our restaurant. The younger whining when the older wouldn’t share her bread. One adult offered hers, but pulled it out saying, “Now, I only give bread to girls that are smiling. Can you give me a smile?”
How do we teach younger ones to smile?
That is not the kind of forced cheerfulness I want to see, or to expect, from Finn, from any young girl,
from any grown girl.
I’m reading God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue by Daniel Walker these days. I have to intersperse it with The Wind in the Willows to keep from disgust and hatred for men who prey on women and children (more on that in an upcoming post “How to Spot and How to Treat a Chauvinist”).
Walker describe his undercover work of watching the forced, obedient, tired smiles from girls as young as six to women in their twenties, from teens in Atlanta, to women as far apart as South America, Asia and Las Vegas, all bound together by subservience to sexually pleasure a man.
The beginning of doing what we hate, masking who we are, walling away what we feel from others and from ourselves, begins with a forced smile. It starts with requiring a smile to get a child to behave better. It can end with manipulation, deceit and losing touch with who we have been created to be.
But another year of this is too much. Change among women can start for you in 2012.
For this year, may we practice the virtue of goodness toward this broken and beautiful world. We can begin by smiling as genuinely toward the stranger and those we love as we smile for pictures.
Practicing our Smiles in 2012 - this morning along the Pacific
January 3rd, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Beautiful. It made me smile;)
January 3rd, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Such a great post.
January 3rd, 2012 at 9:39 pm
I agree how asking a child to smile for the sake of earning her bread sends the wrong message entirely. In our affectionate latino family, it’s seen as a sign of disrespect if my boys do not offer kisses to their abuelitas and tias. My eyes beg their forgiveness, while theirs are telling me I should control my children and teach them to respect our elders by giving them a kiss. Dr Sears writes about this and gives great encouragement to allow children the choice to give affection as they feel led, and not because of societal expectations. Because there are plenty of societal expectations that I hope they feel brave enough to reject, now and in the future.
January 4th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
I have a funny story about this very thing on my Latin side of the family. One very elderly, highly lip-sticked Aunti claimed my not yet three year old brother every time he met her.
“Jacob!” she’d cry, “Give me a hug and a KISS!”.
One time, unwilling but not sure how to express himself Jacob ducked out of her reach and said, “I go around.”
That story has become a family classic. My grandpa will invariably say, “Poor Jacob.” And as someone who could never bring myself to duck away I know how he felt. It doesn’t seem fair that we require the most young to share so much physical affection (not to speak of their vulnerability to germs) or emotional gladness as in smiling. ESPECIALLY when they show understandable reluctance or sadness.
I believe this speaks to it, “Like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar on soda, Is he who sings songs to a troubled heart” (Proverbs 25:20).
Thank you, also, for sharing Dr.Sears’ ideas on letting children choose to share affection!
January 4th, 2012 at 9:20 am
Makes me think about when I’m smiling for real, and when I’m not. I’m actually a big smiler because it seems to just come popping out a lot, but I can think of plenty of times when I smiled and it was because I felt I should, not because it was felt. I also have memories of being made to kiss people, including relatives – on the mouth – when I didn’t want to as a kid. I think it was a generational thing.
Recently I saw a friend (Maybe this would be more appropriate for your friendship with women blog, but I think it also applies here.) who I haven’t seen for a couple of months. She has almost completely shut out all of us who have been her friends, claiming she needs time to work on her relationship with her husband. She has mostly frozen us out. She finally called when she thought she broke her ankle in a small hold hidden by leaves in her backyard, but when I got her voice mail to follow up and see how she was doing, she refused to return my phone call. She emailed saying she didn’t know how to take my request for an update on her injury and offer to help. I always thought when you’re burdened you share with your friends. She always acted like everything was great with her husband until BAM the announcement was made she needed time alone, and none of us had a clue. He was not around her enough when we were there to know the difference. She had so tightly controlled the whole thing and kept it to herself, and now (in hindsight not a suprise to me) won’t allow us to share it with her. When I saw her recently I could tell she wanted the warmth and acceptance and lots of smiles and everything she had in our relationship before, but all I could do was be kind, friendly, and open, but the warmth and smiles weren’t there. I felt like smiling would be false. I also felt bad about not faking it to make her feel better. Now I’m glad I was there for her while being self-honest.
I’m really looking forward to a blog about how to spot and deal with a chauvinist in a God-honoring healthy way.
January 4th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Mandy,
I understand this need to smile less on friendships that have lost closeness (btw, always feel free to comment about friendship here as Ruby Slippers is my homepage for all things woman
)
Or perhaps, to smile differently?
There are some friends I cannot roll my head back and laugh big with. So any smiles with them are also affected.
Glad you’ve found a way to be kind and honest with your friend.
January 11th, 2012 at 11:45 am
I knew a girl in college who smiled contstantly. (I wish I could drag out that last word for emphasis!) It was actually draining. Strange, isn’t it, that I would feel that way about a smile?
I agree with you in that we should smile more, but it should be genuine.
You’ve wet my appetite for “God in a Brothel.” I’m looking forward to reading it!
God Bless!
January 13th, 2012 at 11:00 am
Jennifer,
I know those perennial smiles. It makes me tired.
It makes me even more sad to think we train young girls to be like this from way young.
If you pick up God in a Brothel, let me know! It’s clear and honest without rose-colored glasses or unnecessary graphic details.