The other morning I found a video of Say Yes to the Dress Lancashire by accident. Well, ok, not really by accident, it’s sort of a guilty pleasure. I simply adore Gok. I think he’s pure magic with women who have body image issues and I’m totally here for it.
But I digress.
The bride on the episode is absolutely gorgeous, with lovely shiny hair and big eyes and the sweetest dimples. And she just happens to be a Little Person with the same form of dwarfism as my girls.
It’s like every other episode of Say Yes to the Dress Lancashire. The team at the shop helps her select an absolutely lovely gown, and at the end of the episode she selects one of the dresses as hers for her big day.
On a whim, I showed the episode to Sunny and Sprout when they got up. Sprout, at age 4, missed the point and got bored fast, wandering off to find something else to do. But Sunny? She was transfixed.
At the end of the clip (it’s about 8 minutes long), she asked me some very serious questions. “Mommy, that girl? That lady? She’s like me?”
Me: “Yes, she is a Little Person who has the same form of dwarfism you have.”
Sunny: “But she was so pretty!”
Me: “Yep! Just like you.”
Sunny: “So you mean I could get married some day?”
Me: “Yes of course you could!”
She asked a few of the questions again, phrased differently, and eventually grew contemplatively quiet.
She has brought up the episode over and over again since seeing it. “Mommy, I could be like the lady in that video! I could get married some day!” “Mommy, I want to wear a dress like that. Like the pretty lady in that video.”
One episode of Say Yes to the Dress made my girl feel 1) seen, 2) beautiful, 3) like her life has possibility. That’s amazing. I wish I could thank that bride for doing the show.
Because representation matters so darn much, I’m constantly looking for books where the characters reflect my kids in some way. They desperately need more books they see themselves in, so they can understand where they belong and what their possibilities are and to feel like they are not alone. They’re a challenge though: Asian, Burmese, Muslim, Little People, transracially placed in foster care with a white non-Muslim average sized family.
So I’ve decided to start writing some children’s books that contain characters a little more like them. Honestly, if I included all of their characteristics, no one would believe the characters could exist in real life. But I can break things down a bit, and write a few books for them. The first book, called Fatima’s Two Families, is about a little girl who is Muslim and in foster care, and who is gradually shaping her non-Muslim foster family into the family she needs.
Who knows if it will ever see the light of day – I need a publisher and an illustrator and getting a children’s book published is notoriously difficult. But, I’ll give it a shot, and submit it to a bunch of small independent publishing houses to see if I can get any bites. If all else fails I can always self publish, though I’d prefer a real publisher of course.
I enjoyed writing the book so much I whipped off a second story not long after. Ideas for a third are stewing in the gray matter I call my brain. Maybe something will get published, and some other little kid will find him or herself in the pages of my story.
sprinklesonachaoscupcake.com 