I love myself and other truths worth learning
by Alfonsina Betancourt
My goals as a parent have always been to raise kids with healthy self-esteem. Our daughter Isa taught me that we can perfectly love ourselves and accept ourselves with our greatest parts and our areas of improvement without arrogance. When she was four years old, I found her in front of the mirror, looking at herself and saying, "I love myself, I love myself..." It was not an affirmation but rather a casual comment of someone who holds a truth between her hands. That was an enlightening moment for me that made me reflect on my own self-esteem.
Thirteen years later, I found her four-year-old brother, Leo, playing with his toy cars. He was recreating imaginary conversations between the three cars he had in his hands when I heard him say, "I am very smart, and I am very good at drawing."
As parents, we are bound to make tons of mistakes. It is unavoidable. Today, however, I realized the self-esteem lesson is coming across clearly. Or maybe it is the fact that they are both Leos (like in the zodiac sign). Who knows?
Just as my son was making up the dialogues for all the characters in his game, I began considering several sides of an argument. Where does self-esteem end, and where does the ego start? Are they both exclusive, or could they cohabit peacefully? The more I thought about it, the more distinct each became. I found seven important differences between the two that might help us choose what is the parenting strategy that could benefit our kids the most.
LEVEL OF CERTAINTY
The ego is the most delusive advisor we can have. It is basically built on a lie. It is an interpretation of the truth that we insist on believing as if we were looking at the world through a foggy glass called Ego, where everything looks as we want it to look. Self-esteem, on the other hand, is a truth, undeniable. It comes from our guts, our intuition, from our more factual side. That is why it can see the good and the bad without being deflated.
2. ORIGIN:
The ego is built from what we lack. When my sister and I became teenagers and started getting our feet close to the dating pool, my mother often said, “Tell me what you boast, and I’ll tell you what you lack.” She could have also said, “Be careful of big egos.” Egos are the perfect shield to hide our deficiencies. The more it needs to hide, the larger it gets. It is like it needs to build bigger blankets to tuck away what we don’t want the world to see. Self-Esteem grows on what we already have. A kid that is naturally good at dancing will feel secure on that, or on sports, on being persistent, or on being kind, and then extends that self-assurance to any other discipline or value. But growing a plant is a very fragile process that can be halted by the judgment of our parents and caregivers.
3. APPROVAL:
The ego feeds from EXTERNAL approval, what others say or think. Self-esteem relays on INTERNAL approval. That is why the role of parents and early caregivers is crucial, because as kids, we don’t judge ourselves as strongly, but we hold on to the judgment of our loved ones until they become our “truth.” They become our internal voices. If we parent put a muzzle to many of those judgments, our kids learn to discover those truths independently until their identities are based on what they see. It pains me when I see hurt in the eyes of a child after a parent tells them, even in the most subtle way, that they are not good enough. It feels like a flower losing a petal of self-confidence one by one until there are none left.
4. ACCEPTING:
We have all known at least one narcissist, the highest egotistical people there are. Have you ever tried to argue with one of them? It is impossible! Why? Because they always believe they are right and they don’t have anything to improve. They are perfect, and the rest are wrong. A person with healthy self-esteem knows what he or she is good at and what can be improved. It knows how to evaluate without judgment. We can’t excel at everything, but it takes a good dose of self-esteem to accept that, something the ego will never do.
5. COMPARISON:
Because it needs external approval, the ego always competes to be better than others. Its value is based on that comparison. Self-esteem accepts itself as it is, which does not mean it conforms and decides nothing needs to change. It is accepting that even when things are not perfect, our sense of self isn’t diminished by that.
6. TOLERANCE:
Because the ego believes it is THE best, it can never accept anyone who thinks differently. As previously mentioned, ego and judgment go hand-in-hand, so it is quite challenging to converse with an egotistical person because they usually respond to convince others, not to express their opinions. A person with good self-esteem doesn’t feel threatened by someone who is or thinks differently, and so he or she can hear arguments and be self-confident to express opinions without having to win the argument.
7. GOAL:
The ego needs to be tamed, it is quite an out-of-control beast. Self-esteem is usually learned and adapted when we are kids. But it can also be learned as adults, although it takes a lot of personal work and/or therapy. The beauty of it is that it can be expansive. If we acquire self-confidence in one area, it will also bleed into other aspects of our personality.
I think it is easy to come to the conclusion that ego and self-esteem are both very different. However, there is one characteristic in which they both coincide: they both grow if we feed them. As parents, we are the crucial feeder of both ego and self-esteem. But we can only teach what we know. A mother constantly bashing herself in front of the mirror because of her hair, weight, and wrinkles is teaching girls to do the same. She is killing their self-esteem by example. A dad constantly telling his boy that no baseball throw is enough is teaching him that he is never good enough at anything. He is also teaching him to sew a gigantic blanket to disguise it. I have seen with my own eyes, in front of my bedroom mirror, on the floor between car toys, and on after-dinner discussions, that having healthy esteem does not make kids that settle; only kids that love themselves enough to see how lovely they are and how they can improve not to find other people’s approval but their own. And I can assure you, nothing makes a person glow more than holding on to the truth of who they really are behind doors when no one is looking or judging. That is something that can’t be faked, and it certainly can’t be tamed, either. Have you told yourself today you are beautiful, that you love yourself, that you are smart and good at something? If you can’t, turn off the voices that tell you you aren’t and feed your self-esteem until you have enough for yourself and whoever is learning from your example. Take my word for it: it works.
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