My daughter asked me if she’s pretty

I would brush it off. Vanity is not an attractive quality.

When Diana Manners, one of the stunning beauties of her age, asked her Nanny something similar on her wedding day, the brisk reply was 'don't be silly dear. No one will be looking at you. '

Exactly.

Yeah it doesn't really answer her question otherwise. It could come over like trying to say no without saying no.

Watch yourself OP! Why did she have to ask? You are in danger of making a thing of it by not praising her. You are not your mother! Give DD a kiss and tell her she’s gorgeous. Often. Tell her you’re proud of her, the way she gets herself organised for school, is a good friend, helpful, keeps going when her homework is tough, whatever !

Are you the dowager duchess?

Same. I always tell my daughter this

@AmyDudley I’m only talking from my own personal experience, growing up (and I’m not suggesting I’m special because I don’t doubt this happens with loads of children!), I always used to get told how pretty I was, strangers would stop my parents in the street to tell them, and as I got older sadly I felt like it was a massively important thing to maintain. Even as a teen and adult people would say snarkily “oh it’s a good job you’re pretty”, “you’d be dangerous if you had a brain”, things like this. Despite the fact that I was a bright child who performed well academically, the focus was always on me being “pretty”. I’m a senior manager now for a large company and I suffer with awful imposter syndrome because sometimes I feel like that’s all I had to offer growing up, so yes it may feel extreme but I don’t want my daughter to value looks over the things that really matter. So yes of course I’ll still call her “gorgeous girl” and “beautiful baby”, just like I do now, but if she’s asking me as a direct question then I’m going to steer her towards the areas that actually matter! Just my opinion anyway, I don’t mind who agrees/disagrees with me, we are responsible for raising our own children after all 😊

I always tell my kids they’re beautiful (they are) but I also tell them how someone looks is the least important thing about them.

Or you just say yes...

I was constantly told I was pretty as a child “all the boys are going to be after you when you’re older” type thing 🤢

It did make me feel a bit like being pretty and slim were the most important things.

When my DDs have asked me things about their appearance I usually say something like “of course you’re pretty, and you’re clever and kind and healthy”.
I think the most important thing is day to day attitude though, don’t criticise your own or anyone else’s looks, praise other women and your DD for things other than appearance “she’s such a great singer” instead of “she’s so gorgeous” for example

Always say yes even if they aren’t objectively pretty. She doesn’t need to be told she’s the most stunning girl in the word but when asked directly you say of course you’re pretty, you’re also x,y.z….

Funnily enough an over-emphasis on kind can also be damaging for girls. There's nothing wrong with being kind, it's definitely a desirable thing, but over-emphasis probably plays a role in gendered socialisation.

I assumed I was really unattractive, had a hang up for years about it and still
do to an extent. I picked up on my mother’s aversion to me, for some reason she never thought I was pretty, and certainly not compared to my sister. When I look back at photos of me I’m surprised as I actually was very cute and pretty as a little girl. I don’t know what the hell was going on with my mum. I wish she had thought of me as gorgeous and instilled that belief in me. They only ever used to call me clever.

Agree with pp who said it's normal for little girls to want to be pretty. I think it's a non-issue, it's far more damaging imho when parents are overly focused on how a child looks and on perceived flaws. I still struggle in middle age with my self-image because my parents were excessively focused on how fat I supposedly was, which when I look back on old photos I realise I actually wasn't - they just had (and my mum still has) a distorted image of what constitutes fat.

Your mother sounds like my narc abusive mother who was obsessed with image and especially putting mine down, I have always felt the same on not focussing on looks, however I tell my DDs all the time how beautiful they are, along with talented, smart, funny, loving and so on. Don’t hold back on telling her she’s beautiful otherwise you’re more like your mother than you want to be. And more importantly she’s still controlling you because of it.

my DDs are into the trending skin care and beauty stuff, I tell them they are beautiful without it but don’t restrict them, beyond appropriate levels ( too young for certain things) but if they buy themselves I won’t complain. I want them to be confident and open with me, I dread they fear being anything other than open with me, I could never trust my own mother and don’t want that for my DDs.

This reminds of the time I was about your DD age. I was with my mum and I must have been having a similar conversation and I remember thinking I was a bit pretty at the time and maybe I came across as I bit cocky ( I will never know ) being quite a shy child I don’t think I was though. Anyway all I remember is that my mum made feel dreadful as she said there were very few beautiful people in the world. I remember feeling internally devastated. I used to play the conversation in my head.
i have always had insecurity issues.
please tell your DD she is beautiful/ pretty/ amazing etc giving your daughter confidence is everything.

I grew up with my mum telling me I was an ugly bug.. I wasn’t.. but she loved to put me in my place!

id take the advice of the other poster say you are bumming gorgeous and move on. It just sounds less vain.

And your complete avoidance of telling her she is pretty will tell her you think she is ugly.
No reason why you can't say 'you are gorgeous, and funny and clever and kind etc.' without avoiding mentioning looks.
Almost all people at some point in their lives have a bit of anxiety over their looks and need reassurance, it isn't A Bad Thing, to want to feel attractive (in fact it is very damaging to constantly feel unnattractive), feeling attractive doesn't eliminate being clever or kind or funny or whatever, it doesn't take precedence over those things, but it is a nice feeling if your parents think you are all of the above.
I can never understand the thinking, from people who wouldn;t hesitate to tell a friend 'you look great today, or that hairdo is lovely, that dress is lovely on you' but angst over giving their child a compliment.
telling your child he or she is pretty won't damage her, giving her some weird right on speil so you don't have to say she's pretty, will.
If a friend asked you if they looked nice and you said 'You are kind. clever funny, smart etc' instead of saying 'yes you look fabulous' you'd think they were a total loon.

Give your kid asmany compliments as you can on every aspect of their being. because they will ineveitably come up against people who are more beautiful, cleverer, kinder,funnier, wealthier, more successful than them in their life, and giving them a solid base of confidence in every aspect of themselves, will let them be totally at peace with life's inequalities.

You’re thinking too hard about this OP. Yes you’re gorgeous, you have lovely X and lovely X. Give her a boost. She will realise as she grows that there are other wonderful aspects of our being beyond looks. But trying to convince yourself that her ONLY focusing on her personality and abilities is a pipe dream. We’re human, it’s how we think.

I am average looking. I grew up thinking I was beautiful because my parents told me frequently I was beautiful and that is my inner voice. Sometimes they were gushing, sometimes casual. But the compliments were frequent and sincere. Crucially, they made a point to compliment my intelligence and how helpful and kind I was too. The words your parents use can be so powerful.

It was the opposite for me. Strangers told me I was pretty/beautiful all the time and I never believed them because my family never said anything like that about me. I thought they were just being polite by saying those things but didn’t actually mean them. My family focused on my intelligence/academics, which I could see for myself and didn’t really need more focus on.

Like @InBedBy10 , it led me to have low self-esteem and in my case avoid relationships when I was younger because I assumed that I wasn’t attractive enough to be in a relationship.

How do I ensure that she has healthy self esteem without making too much of a fuss about her appearance?

You will wreck her self-esteem if you constantly ignore or downplay her appearance. She can test and understand her own intelligence quite easily but appearance is different and requires observation from others. Your focus shouldn’t be on tearing down your daughter in any way, including trying to humble her about her looks. She’s only nine, asking innocent questions. Don’t make things more than they are and cause damage because of your own insecurities.

To be honest, children/teenagers aren't silly and they tend to assume that the majority of parents tell their kids they're pretty etc anyway.

They're far more inclined to believe what unbiased people think of their looks.

That's what'll do the damage if any is to be done.

I was never told I was pretty growing up and it massively affected my self esteem. Which lead to me getting into the wrong relationships because my self esteem was so low. Only now in my 40s ive finally built a bit of confidence for myself.

I make it a point to tell my children how beautiful they are all of the time. I also stress how smart, funny, kind etc... they are too.

The fact that your child has had to ask you, are they pretty? Shows she doesn't feel it. And you struggled to tell her, yes?? God I hate parents like you!

My dd is one of the traffic stopping beautiful people and it’s actually brought her a lot of unhappiness and unwanted attention. But despite my feminist values it would be churlish for me not to acknowledge how stunning she is. We actually are quite a piss taking family so she (and her siblings) get a lot of ‘grounding’ and we equally celebrate her other qualities - how kind and intelligent she is.

We have also taught them that what the world might value, we as a family love them no matter what. So her beauty is acknowledged as a ‘thing’ but as of no import to us. We joke about her using her pretty privilege to get us a good table when go to a restaurant (and you’d be amazed at how often she does!) But if she were to lose her looks overnight, she’d be no less valuable to us.

I think this mix of acknowledging the different qualities of all our DC has meant that they’ve all grown into self aware young adults with healthy self esteem. So yes, she’s pretty, but she knows that’s only one amazing aspect of her.