I was tidying up my 11-year-old daughter’s room this morning, and as I was picking up books off the floor, I randomly walked across a sketch book (I wasn’t snooping around at all!). I looked through her drawings and came across a personal note on her latest crush and the “Glow Up Plan” that would get his attention.
A glow up is a total transformation or an update of yourself; an attempt at being the best of you. As a mom, I had hoped my daughter would not be interested in boys for a few more years, so she could focus on becoming a strong and independent woman rather than rely on someone else’s opinion to feel special.
I think I was scared because I remembered me as an 11-year-old and how tender my heart was. I recalled the heartaches and the desperate tries to get boys’ attention. In the 90s, I didn’t have much of a glow up plan. I solely relied on teen magazines and on mimicking other girls to step up my game.
Today, the glow up plan has been taken to a whole other level. Between articles, tutorials, blogs, podcasts, every inch of the glow up plan ought to be fully detailed and fail proof? A lot of work ahead of my daughter. Here is an 11-year-old strategy at bettering herself with a clear objective in mind: getting her crush’s attention.
1. Listen to glow up podcasts:
Glow up podcasts usually consist of inspiring women giving advice to others on being the best version of themselves. Tips go from making your bed, drinking grape juice, putting your phone down, to guided meditation. The few podcasts that I listened to were positive and uplifting. After all, we all need a good kick in the butt sometimes.
However, I am also an adept of the Dolce Farniente and the necessity of sometimes being bored and taking a day off. I’m not sure that an 11-year-old can understand that as with eating chocolate, watching TV or bickering at her sister, moderation is her best friend and seeking perfection is exhausting. Even princesses fart after all…
2. Become popular:
The next item of my daughter’s glow up plan was to start hanging out with the popular girls at school. I kind of stared at the page and thought I had missed something as a parent. Are popular girls always mean girls? I don’t hope so. People can become popular for winning trophies, for having a great sense of style or simply because they were born charismatic.
Trying to be someone you are not or saying things only to stand out will make you fake and popular for the wrong reasons. Being popular makes everyone feel good though, so I can understand why she’d want to be part of that group.
I hope my daughter will become popular because she is a talented flutist, a fast runner, or because her drawings are beautiful. More importantly, I hope she’ll be remembered by her friends for being funny and kind.
3. Raise my style, wear makeup and curl my hair:
I expected that one. Childhood seems far gone and teenage years have definitely commenced. Thank God her school has a rather strict dress code. At least, I won’t have to deal with anything mini, transparent or trashy. I looked like a stolen car too many times wearing excessive makeup when I was a teenager. Hopefully, she’ll embrace the “no makeup” makeup look!
I count on the (too) many tutorials out there to teach my daughter how to apply eyeliner, because I’m uncapable of doing it myself. We also bought a diffuser for her curls and went shopping yesterday. Trying to be supportive…
4. Get Snapchat:
I have never used Snapchat, so I tried to learn about it yesterday. Here is what I have retained from my reading. Snapchat is a messaging platform on which messages are meant to disappear after being viewed. Photos and videos, rather than messages, are preferred to build a story through which a map of your visited locations will be created.
Filters are of course welcome because we all are flawless, happy people. Friends can be added through a QR code to avoid any potential human warmth and kids can easily end up with numerous virtual friends that only wish them well.
The application scores you based on how much you snap, and the ultimate goal is to achieve Snap streaks. It’s basically like when you were having a friend sleepover as a kid and trying to stay up all night, but for several days in a row!
To top it off, promotional offerings are often out of line for tweens. I don’t really want to co-parent with Botox/plastic surgery abusers, but apparently it is unavoidable.
I am nostalgic of my 90s glow up plan that limited itself to buying blue nail polish at the market, reading Cosmo and stealing my mom’s mascara. Hopefully, while my daughter is making those changes to get Mr’s attention, she will remember that she is already glowing shinier than she thinks and that being herself will always be enough.
Do not forget the Glow Up Playlist on Spotify for an extra boost to your glow up plan!
In the same line of thoughts, you might also like How to Feel Alive Again.
