Should I have spent more on my dds’ appearance?

[Watermelon212]

I have 2 dd’s 20 and 18 both now at uni.

Growing up they were confident and talented, both in different areas- one in sports, the other in the arts and both pretty academic so enjoyed school. We sailed through early teens fairly easily, the odd friendship issue, but generally no major problems and I was proud that they were confident and outgoing as I was not at that age.

I have never really focussed too much on physical appearance, obviously have bought clothes they wanted, paid for haircuts and eyebrows and nails occasionally but not really anything else because I am fairly low maintenance myself and never really have anything done myself except for hair and eyebrows.

I am worried now that both dd’s seem to be lacking self esteem and confidence for some reason, despite being happy and having friends at uni and enjoying their courses. It’s almost like as their peers have blossomed and gained in confidence and matured and mine have regressed. It’s difficult to explain, but when I see them it feels like they are still about 15/16, whereas their friends seem much more mature and self assured.

I Secretly worry that this is related to appearance, and that maybe I have been naive and should have focussed more on this, despite neither of my dd’s being very interested at the time.

For example, my 18 year old still has braces (for 3 years now) because of the delay during covid and I know she hates this. My other dd hates her teeth but didn’t qualify or free braces so now never smiles with her teeth so always looks miserable. At the time she asked for braces but it would have cost thousands and although we could have stretched ourselves to afford it, it didn’t seem important enough, but now I wonder if I should have? Her teeth are not horrible, just not perfect, but it seems everyone else does have perfect teeth.

Both dd’s have hormonal acne, when they were younger I took them to the gp, but we never found anything that worked long term. Only short term fixes. Now they are adults I can’t really help, only advise them to try again, but that doesn’t always go down well, so it’s easier not to mention it. I wonder should I have paid to go private, but again I didn’t realise the potential long term impact. They do wear makeup but it only covers it a bit, and they end up with a rim around the edge which doesn’t look good, but I haven’t mentioned this because I don’t want to seem critical.

I do pay for contact lenses for one, and will for the other too if she wants to. And highlights once or twice a year as presents.

I suppose my AIBU is, should I have done more/paid more on appearance enhancements when they were younger or was I right to focus on other things. Have I ruined their self esteem, or is it related to other things? Would they be happier if they felt happier with how they looked and have I now missed the boat? Is there anything I can do now?

Neither has had a long term boyfriend , but they do both have lovely supportive friends. To me they are both beautiful and stunning, but they don’t seem to see this themselves.

You gave them the confidence to not feel like they need to conform and to pursue the direction they want to go in. All of the other superficial stuff has no bearing on who they are inside. I would focus on boosting their confidence that way. The acne will go and the teeth won't make a difference to how much they will love you. There is too much focus on kids conforming to norms and looking the bloody same nowadays. You've done a brilliant job, this is called being a teenager, I know I was a teenager for years past the date I was meant to grow up. Had my first child at 36 and loved my life being grunge and punk. They will be fine. I applaud you for being the best mum and teaching them what is important. They will find their way .

So appearance isn’t important to you, fine, but it can’t surely have passed you by that it is important to other people. I think you need to take your mum glasses off, they may be stunning to you but if they’ve got acne and (in their opinion) wonky teeth I’m not surprised they’ve got low self esteem. I do think you should’ve paid for braces, you say you didn’t think it was important at the time, but it was clearly important to your daughter.

I understand where you are coming from. But: I actually wish I had a mum like you growing up. I had the opposite, and no good results came out of that. Well, I guess only one: I can spot narcissistic sh*theads miles away.
You did great. Now continue to be by their side, as you do. Trust in them and their abilities and they will too.

TBH I think the majority of teens and twenty something females look like barbie dolls with fillers in their lips, thick painted on eyebrows, fake nails, etc totally false. So when you see them without their make up you wouldn't recognise them. I would not focus on how they look rather on who they are. I remember as a teen I thought everything about me needed fixing. It didn't. Feel sorry for your friends and their sons if they cannot see past the way a person looks rather than who they are. However I wonder if you are the one with low self esteem rather than your DDs.

One of my girls struggled I the first year of uni, the other thrived.
None of it had to do with looks, teeth or skin.
My youngest went to a Russell group uni and coming from a single parent, northern town family the culture shock/ differences was obvious.
Her hall mates were private school confident, worldly wise from countless exotic childhood holidays,( mine wet camping in Wales, nothing wrong with that though)
What I mean is that when I went to pick her up/ visit her the confidence and maturity of these young people blew me away, they just seemed somehow alien! My daughter didn't have any real frame of reference to bond with them even though they were lovely young people, just from totally different worlds.
She moved into shared private housing in her second year where there are a mix of students from the other city Uni, has a part time job and is learning to drive, she has found her feet, made a couple of friends and is more confident in herself.
I was so worried the first year as she didn't go out of her room apart from lectures.
Looking back she has said it was so intimidating seeing all these same age people as her but they were so, so different, polished, together and worldly wise. She has said it was a sad, lonely time and she wanted to just quit and come home but she is so glad she didn't and pushed through the difficult start.
I did tell her it is perfectly normal to feel like she did and it has given her resilience and coping skills so I am proud of her.
What I'm saying is as a Mum it's so hard to watch them struggle or feel down, we want to step in and help but just try to be there a bit more often, visit,talk, ring WhatsApp etc.
She is probably going through a tricky stage and honestly it's all a learning curve for them and you, please don't beat yourself up about desicions in the past, they may not even be relevant, just keep being a caring, interested and supportive Mum x

Ewww. These are your friends? What vacuous morons! That's all they want, their sons to marry beautiful so they have beautiful grandkids?! I want my son's to be happy and if being married and having kids makes them happy then great. But I certainly don't expect them to follow this society dictated tradition! If they do marry I hope it would be for genuine reasons i.e love, mutual interests, a real partner who they respect. This is what is wrong with society, women only being valued on looks. Horrified to be honest. The flip side of this is that unfortunately I have found in my male dominated professional career that looks do matter, if I don't wear make up for example I do get treated differently. It's not right but that's how it is! I will always regret not having braces as a child too as once you become an adult sometimes only surgery works as the jaw bones harden, and surgery is risky and unaffordable for me and couldn't justify it with kids now. So I would look into that asap for your daughter. It's something which people expect is done in the states for example and we as Brits are ridiculed there for our rubbish teeth. People will glean all sorts of information from your teeth including social status and class, again not right but this happens!! Bad teeth= poor socioeconomic background assumptions. Believe me, been there!

That attitude IS shallow! It says more about your friends than it does about your daughters. Would you really want your daughters to have boyfriends or mother in laws with such a shallow attitude?

In all honesty op, the make up might be causing or worsening the acne. My daughter also piled on make up because of acne. She recently decided to avoid daily make up and ditch a lot of her skin care routine after seeing girls on TikTok say how their make up was causing skin problems. She has expensive brands, always spent a lot of money on make up and skincare, researching good brands. But she decided to let her face breath and just use water to wash it and we noticed a difference in her acne within days. I know it can be hard to stop covering up, but it might help.

Fun and laughter makes everyone beautiful and is much less expensive than hair, makeup and nails,
They maybe struggle right now but their happy days will come.
I used to be asked if I wanted half fair when I was 40 and at 48 was ID Ed in a night club (it was dim lighting but my daughter told me off). Being young for your age pays off in the long run!

honestly being at uni probably won’t help with skin problems 😅 my diet consisted of maccys and Tesco meal deals. My skin was bleh most of the time. However maybe try out one of those built for you face treatments you can get online. You need to send a pic of them in and describe their issues (probs get them to do it with you) it has some antibiotic in it for the acne side. It was pretty good for me. Because of medication I’m on I get really bad cystic acne patches every now and again so I use Mario badescu buffering lotion, that and sudocream at night works great. Other than the teeth you haven’t done anything wrong, they are 18 and 20 they have loads of time to blossom! They’ll start to come into their own style soon and experiment with what they like and won’t like. I only say except the teeth because I don’t really know how “bad” they are and is it a case of comparing to her sister getting braces? I didn’t have braces and very much have imperfect teeth but I’ve grown to really like them and couldn’t picture myself without them😅. Uni is tough. Everyone’s stressed. Everyone used to be at the top in their schools and now that’ll even out. They are looking around at their peers who look like they’ve got their shit together but they probably have their one stuff going on. I know people that I thought were beautiful at uni who post throwbacks to that time taking the mick out of their hair or makeup etc. instead of worrying about all the beauty regimens you didn’t instal in your girls maybe try to help them love who they are as much as you do.

I don’t think you have done anything ‘wrong’ particularly, I think it’s important to encourage them in their hobbies which is sounds like you did.
I'm low maintenance myself so wouldn’t have done anything different apart from the braces for the child that didn’t qualify for them.
I think as a parent if you can, it’s important that their teeth are as good as they can be. One of mine has a small gap between their front teeth, the gap isn’t bad enough to qualify for free braces but we’re already putting money to one side for them once all adult teeth are through because he’s really self conscious about the gap and I know if we didn’t it’s something that would bother him as he gets older.

I suffered with bad hormonal acne after I had my kids (youngest is 3) and for the past 6 months I’ve been using dermatica religiously and my skin has never been better is completely clear and amazing would definitely recommend to help with that.

They are young and plenty of time to decide their future . both my daughter and I have crooked teeth , mine got removed and replaced with dentures , my daughter is not bothered . We both have had no trouble finding love matches . I myself don't have nice parents, so I navigated my own life without support. My daughter works while bringing up her son , both my daughter and grandson are autistic, that's not prevented them moving forward . I divorced my daughters dad over 35 yrs ago , and remarried 24 yrs ago , my second is lovely and successful. I've don't well too regardless of rubbish parents . You come across as lovely, that's all your daughters need for now , they will find their way to navigate their lives, enjoy their company.

Just wondering if you had acne and/or crooked teeth yourself? My mum suffered with her skin and persisted with doctors until my acne had gone. She knew herself how soul destroying it can be. We didn’t have piles of money either but she thought it was important.
I also had braces on my teeth. My son was whisked to an orthodontist as soon as I realised his teeth were not going to come down straight. I didn’t smile properly for years until my very wonky teeth were fixed.

Hi OP you have a lot going on
Teenage years during covid delayed treatments so dont beat yourself up
You sound like you did a lot with private gynae stuff, MRI's etc
Supporting them in their sport is brilliant.
Unfortunately injuries in high achieving sports really impacts their confidence and mood so not surprising your daughter is down its been part of her identity and its been taken away from her
My older son (21) had Private orthodontic treatment as no NHS contract locally at the time
My younger son (18) had his braces off last week and his teeth look amazing! Very tricky teeth, orthodontic surgery as little jaw so NHS route used
I had tricky Orthodontics (teeth remoded under GA) when I was a teenager and then again post children and had another tooth removed
Yours daughter weight loss concerns me as at Uni the crap diet tends to lead to weight gain, food restriction/weight loss could be about power and control due to the loss of sports etc
During Uni I used Dianbette (the pill) for acne and my husband used Roacutane as awful acne, both worked really well
Acne can be really pain and impacts confidence
Good luck with it all though
Parenting babies, toddlers and primary aged kids was a breeze compared to the tricky transition to adulthood, especially in this looks orientated social media culture
I often think that having girls with all of this image stuff must be really hard
All we needed in the late 80's/early 90's was a perm and a pair of Levi 501's!