Will dying my hair affect future generations' self-image?

I'm a low-maintenance gal. Most days, my makeup consists of a smear of ChapStick®. I get a $12 haircut two or three times a year. My minimalist style is partly rebelliousness, having heard my mom, a retired beautician, nag, "Comb your hair! And why don't you put on some lipstick?" throughout my teen years. But not until my stint as a fashion reporter did I go totally anti-beauty. I saw firsthand how fashion magazines shape the societal beauty standards that make girls feel inadequate. From then on, I pledged my appearance would be au naturel.

That is, until I spotted my first real gray hairs.

We women are much stronger than we think.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having my first mammogram—aka “the great smoosh.†As I stood there in yet another of the many humiliating poses women strike in front of medical personnel, I thought about the strange sense of strength I feel during these uniquely female moments.

When I was pregnant with my first child, my husband and I dutifully attended our “How to Have a Baby†classes. (That wasn’t the actual name. It was probably something clever like “Great Expectations.â€) One evening the class covered pain management. On the drive home, my husband said he thought I’d probably want an epidural. “You’re kind of a wimp about pain,†he explained. Big mistake.

Where real rest begins

The other morning, my husband, Kris, read aloud from Jeremiah 50:7 that God is our “true pasture.†It’s an odd name for God: grazing land for livestock. These days, I hear the word pasture used mostly as a negative reference to retirement: Out to pasture. Chomping grass all day. Getting swaybacked and fat around the middle. Worthless.

The word has special meaning for Kris and me, though. Early in our marriage, when we raised cattle full time, we spent our days in the pasture—checking our heifers, moving cattle into the next field, killing thistle, brushhogging, sowing winter wheat, plowing up a paddock to sprig it with Bermuda grass. We attended all-day forage workshops and devoted entire summers to making our pastures into food for the cold, dry months ahead: cutting the grass, raking it, tedding it if it got wet, baling it, transporting the enormous bales to the barn. To this day, to me the smell of summer is the smell of hay. Newly cut hay. Hay curing in the sun. Hay caramelizing in bales rolled up too damp.

What could possibly be wrong with helping my daughter to be healthy, happy, safe, and strong?

“The Parable of the Neighbor Lady†is a story I made up several years ago after a futile attempt to control the universe, or at least the part of it my youngest daughter inhabits.

Just barely 20, she’d moved 500 miles away from home to create a life of her own. Because I wanted her to succeed in this new venture, I set out to “help†her.

Since I couldn’t reattach her umbilical cord, I made do with several phone calls a day, just to say “hi†or to tell her about job leads I’d found online. I sent regular care packages of toilet paper, microwave popcorn, candy, books, gift cards, bath towels, and cosmetics.

I paid for a gym membership so she could exercise and meet people. I even wrote letters to women’s ministry leaders at churches I thought she should attend, asking them to pray for my daughter and maybe invite her to church.