Aliyawanders

My child came home from school today and shared something that weighed heavily on him.

He said he’s been feeling down because some classmates are still teasing him for appearing in my content before.

Others criticise what he posts on social media. Nothing inappropriate, nothing wrong — just random things he enjoys sharing.

And then there are the name-calling.

Someone even called him “five-fingers forehead.”

Words may seem small, but when they’re repeated often enough, they leave marks.

If someone truly wants you to improve, they’ll tell you how.

They’ll guide you.

They’ll offer suggestions.

But if all they say is,

“Why would you even post something like that?”

that’s not feedback — that’s just noise.

And noise doesn’t deserve your energy.

I reminded him,

“It’s your social media, not your friends’.

(Of course, with mommy’s approval.)”

When he appears in my content, it’s not for attention or validation.

It’s work.

It contributes to income — even if it’s not much.

It allows us to enjoy simple things together, like buying good food or sharing small treats.

So I asked him again,

“If you listen to your friends and stop doing something that benefits you, what do you actually gain?”

He didn’t answer.

Then came the harder part — the part about appearance.

I told him gently,

“You get your face from me and your father.

You are a combination of us — and everyone who came before us.”

I asked him something important.

“Are you not proud of your parents?”

“Do you think we are less than others because of how we look?”

If the answer is no, then why should he think less of himself?

Looking like your parents is not a flaw.

It’s inheritance.

It’s history.

It’s belonging.

To lighten the moment, I joked with him.

“If mommy looks like this, with small eyes and apple cheeks and Abi has small eyes and a jendul forehead —

and suddenly you come out looking Pan-Asian, that would be more worrying, right?”

He laughed. And sometimes, laughter is the first step to healing.

But that conversation brought me back to my own childhood.

I remember being in school — the new girl.

There were two girls who, every time I walked past, would call me names.

E.T.

Alien.

Dumbo.

Why?

Because they said my head was big like E.T.,

and my ears stuck out like Dumbo the elephant.

They were mean girls.

And mean girls rarely stand alone — they had supporters.

Did it hurt?

Yes.

Did I become self-conscious?

Yes.

Did I hate my ears back then?

Absolutely — to the point where I was saving money for plastic surgery.

What hurt even more was hearing my own father repeatedly telling me to hide my ears.

I grew up believing that certain parts of me needed to be hidden or changed in order to be accepted. And it’s ok to feel that way, we are just human anyway.

It took years to unlearn that.

I only began to heal when I met people who looked like me —

people who loved themselves without fitting into conventional beauty standards.

People who didn’t think they were “less” just because they didn’t meet society’s definition of “pretty.”

That’s when I understood something important.

The world will always have opinions, and we can’t contribution what others do.

Noise never disappears.

But learning to ignore it — that’s a skill.

A survival skill.

And that’s what I want my child to learn earlier than I did.

As long as you’re doing something that benefits you,

as long as it’s not wrong,

as long as it aligns with your values —

keep going.

Let them talk.

You don’t shrink yourself to make others comfortable.

You grow — and let the noise fade into the background.