- I rarely wear makeup anymore as a working mom of three kids.
- For a special occasion one of my daughters saw me putting on makeup.
I used to love wearing makeup. Living in New York City with a fancy job title meant I attended events all the time, and I had my routine to look flawless. Foundation and mascara were not optional, and I always had red lipstick in my purse, just in case.
My mom was the one who bought me makeup for the first time. While she is not overly fancy, she does wear jewelry, heels, and lipstick every single day. As I was growing up, she focused a lot on my imperfections. She would remind me when it was time to wax my upper lip and smudged blush on my cheeks when I looked too pale.
While she never said anything about my looks out loud, I often felt like I was not pretty enough to show myself as I am without makeup.
I hadn't thought about all of this for years. But living away from family has allowed me to be who I really am. It wasn't until one of my toddlers saw me putting on makeup that I realized I didn't want my children to grow up the same way I did.
Having kids changed everything for me
When I had my first kid five years ago, I dealt with postpartum anxiety. All of my routines went out the window, and I focused on staying afloat. Suddenly it felt silly to spend time painting my face, especially around my son. I still wore makeup for special events, but the daily routine now meant getting showered and running out the door after pumping breastmilk.
Then I had twins at the beginning of the pandemic and spent my fourth trimester locked in a farm in the middle of nowhere Maine with three kids under the age of 3. I didn't even pack my makeup bag when my family left New York City for what we thought was going to be a couple of weeks, which then turned into a permanent relocation.
When our moving boxes arrived, my stuff felt like someone else's. High heels and tight skirts, piles of beauty products, and so much makeup — all of which I shoved in a drawer and left to collect dust for months. My priorities had changed drastically, and so had I.
I take better care of myself than ever before
I do take care of myself. In fact, I am better at it now than I've ever been. I get facials regularly, have done multiple laser treatments to even out my skin, and have even started going to yoga.
But my kids rarely ever see me with makeup because I only put my entire face on once or twice a year.
While I was getting ready for a special event recently, one of my twins was playing next to me. She looked up at me while I was slathering on foundation and asked, "Mamá, are you fixing your face?"
My first reaction was to say yes because that's what I've been taught my entire life — that I need to fix my face to look pretty. But my gut instinct kicked in, and what came out of my mouth surprised me.
"No," I said, "I'm just decorating it."
The truth is, my face doesn't need to be fixed. I've worked incredibly hard from the time I was a teenager to accept myself the way I am and not try to be someone I'm not.
I'm not soft-spoken, tall, or blonde, or "traditionally" beautiful. And I've never felt more confident in my own skin, even when my boobs hang low from breastfeeding, and my head is covered in gray hair.
I tweeted about my exchange with my toddler, and lots of moms reached out to say they had been moved by my answer and were going to use it from now on. Maybe we are all raising a generation of confident, badass girls who won't think their faces need fixing, just a little fun decoration from time to time.