My friend Wendy had a fake tan and fake boobs. She spent a lot of time and money over the years trying to look a certain way.
I worry about her as she keeps fighting skin cancer. A growth pops up; she gets it chopped off. Another growth pops up; she gets it chopped off.
Now, with dents sprinkled across her face, she looks a certain way.
Why did she keep doing this thing that endangered her life and, ironically, ended up making her look worse?
According to researchers, a main reason people tan excessively is because they believe tanning makes them more attractive. Big surprise there, right?
I didn’t need researchers to tell me that many men find tanned skin attractive. When I was in law enforcement, I worked with mostly all guys. They constantly discussed women — whether a woman’s boobs were or weren’t big enough, whether they would or wouldn’t ‘do’ a woman. The consensus: Tan = good.
Though I knew this, I still didn’t invest time and money in tanning. Why did Wendy?
In psychology, I learned one of the reasons why: Dads can have a role in whether daughters end up tanning excessively.
Here I give two examples of how dads can accidentally influence daughters to believe they need to tan along with three ways dads can influence daughters to not tan excessively.
Hint: Telling them “Don’t do that” doesn’t usually work.
How Ken taught his daughters to tan
“Lee? She’s kind of cute, but she needs to spend some time in a tanning bed.”
That’s what Ken said when he was asked what he thought about me.
Ken was one of the bosses in our office. He was twice-divorced with two daughters.
I heard Ken’s comment second-hand. (My guys had the good sense to never discuss my boobs or do-ability in front of me. They just seemed to know that would be crossing a line, or maybe they didn’t want me to deliver a hardy blow to their ball sacks.)
Though I wasn’t bothered by Ken’s comment, I was a bit fascinated. Ken was pale. A deep pale. The kind of pale that you can only acquire from living in sun-less Detroit for years.
I thought about Ken’s two ex-wives. Both were properly tan. Both had stripped Ken’s bank and retirement accounts until he probably can’t even afford a tanning salon membership.
Neither can I. Well, wait a minute. Maybe I can. I just looked it up, and it turns out a tanning salon membership would cost me $70 — $100 a month.
How did teen-aged girls afford this?
I could afford it, but I’d have to jiggle some things around in my budget to make it work. If I cancelled my Medium.com subscription, ate at restaurants less often, plus bought cheap beers instead of my beloved-but-more-expensive stouts, then I could afford it.
If I was tan, perhaps guys who would be attracted to me would pay for the dinners and more-expensive stouts that I could no longer afford without going into credit card debt.
I had kind of hoped that my lack of credit card debt would compensate for my lack of artificial tan.
I had kind of hoped that my financial health — my 800+ credit score — would be what brought all the boys to my yard.
Are you humming that classic 2003 song now? “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.”
Sorry for planting that earworm, but here’s my point: Maybe tanned skin was the milkshake that brought Ken to a woman’s yard.
Did Ken’s daughters notice that he tended to date and marry women who were tan, not women who had good financial health?
I had just kind of hoped that when Ken, one of the bosses in our office, was asked what he thought about me, he’d answer something like, “That Lee is one of the hardest workers we’ve got. She gets the job done, even if it means working til 3 a.m., often. She drops everything to help her teammates even if that means she leaves her boyfriend hanging during a Valentine’s dinner (ex-boyfriend after that, of course). She’s a straight arrow with a load of integrity; she’s incorruptible.”
Instead, when asked, “What do you think about Lee?”, his comments were about my looks.
I wonder if his daughters overheard him talk about the woman at work, only hearing that she’s not tan enough, not hearing how hard she works and what a good job she does.
How Kevin taught his daughters to tan
I hadn’t really thought about Ken’s comment much until recently. I had a speaking event that evening, but I was meeting my long-time friend, Kevin, for lunch. I was dressed up as much as I ever dress up, wearing a little black dress with a Calvin Klein blazer and high-heeled boots. I was pretty near my maximum amount of possible cuteness.
As I got out of my car and stood up, Kevin walked over to me, brushed his lips across my cheek, and said, “Hey Lee, I’m going to need to wear sunglasses around you if you don’t get those legs tanned.”
This from another guy with legs as white as mayonnaise who complains vigorously about how much money his daughters spend on beauty products.
This from a guy who still wears the same cargo shorts he bought 20 years ago which have gone in and out of style twice since then because he doesn’t bother spending much money to improve how he looks.
Did his daughters overhear him making fun of women who weren’t tan enough?
Women are responsible for what they do but…
Maybe a woman hears men’s comments about the yuckiness of too-pale skin, feels bad about how she looks, runs off to the nearest tanning salon, and plunks her hard-earned money down to buy some skin cancer risk.
Fortunately, I’m quite resistant to those sorts of comments. I do my thing, and my thing isn’t going to tanning salons. I’m healthy, and I look healthy. I’m comfortable with how I look, for the most part. I know I’m attractive in the ways I’m willing to be attractive, and there are guys who like my brand of attractiveness.
Now that I think about it, I didn’t have a dad around when I was growing up. I had a single mom. She never said anything like, “Look at how unattractive that woman is because she’s so pale.”
Maybe one reason I’m resistant to men’s barbs about my pale skin is because I didn’t have a dad teaching me that pale skin was unattractive.
(Plus, we were broke, so money had to be spent on food and rent, not tanning salons.)
I’m not saying men are to be blamed for how a grown woman feels or what she does. That’s on her. She’s a grown-arse woman.
I hope a man who uses steroids in the attempt to acquire immense pecs doesn’t blame me for comments I’ve made about the loveliness of well-shaped pectoral muscles.
But we’ve got to think about where those grown women got their beliefs.
They get some of their beliefs from their dads, back when they were young.
It’s not like dads tell their daughters, “Honey, you need to do what it takes to look good even if that compromises your financial or physical health. How you look matters more than how hard you work.”
Instead, the daughters’ beliefs can form in part from what they overhear their dads say and from the women they see their dads with.
Three ways dads can teach daughters about tanning
Right now, you may be thinking, “Ok, Lee, message received. I’ll go have a heart-to-heart with my daughter this evening and tell her I don’t think excessive tanning is good and not to do it.”
Well, hang on.
Have you noticed that telling people “Doing this is good for you” doesn’t get them to do it? And telling people “Doing this is bad for you” rarely makes them stop doing it?
We all know exercise and wearing helmets when we ride motorcycles is good for us, but plenty of people don’t exercise or wear helmets. People know smoking and driving under the influence is bad for them, but they still smoke and drive under the influence.
Wendy very well knew the risks she was taking every time she crawled into that tanning bed.
Research shows that telling people “You’ll get skin cancer if you do that” doesn’t tend to deter people from tanning excessively.
Instead of saying “Do this” or “Don’t do that”, here are three ways dads can shape their daughters’ beliefs so that daughters are less likely to tan excessively.
1. Emphasize other attractive qualities.
Be a bit more purposeful in what you say around your daughter. You can point out women who are healthy and work hard and make comments about how attractive you think that is. You can point out examples of men you know who are with women who are healthy and successful.
Help your daughter see (and believe!) that some men are attracted to those qualities.
2. Teach the long-term effects of tanning on looks.
Despite your attempts to downplay the importance of looks, your daughters will learn elsewhere that women are often evaluated for how they look. I certainly did from my workplace. Your daughters will, too, from boys at school and from their own female friends.
Fortunately, research provides a way you can use their desire to be physically attractive to get them to stop unhealthy behaviors. Instead of telling them they’ll get skin cancer, point out how excessive tanning can make them look unattractive:
“People who tan a lot end up looking awful. They end up with leathery skin and scars all over their faces.”
3. Divorced dads: Date role models.
For divorced dads, remember this: Every time you date a woman, your daughter is learning, “That’s what men find attractive”.
If you date women because they look good, but they spend a lot of time and money on tanning and other beauty-centric processes, it won’t be surprising that your daughters mimic those women.
Summary
Ken and Kevin are good men and good dads. They absolutely want their daughters to be healthy.
The problem is that they may be unaware of how their own beliefs about women’s attractiveness and treatment of women can accidentally leak out and influence their daughters’ beliefs and behaviors.
You can’t help what you find attractive, but you can help what you say around your daughters, being sure to emphasize success, health, and long-term attractiveness. You can aim to date women who are attractive AND represent the values that you want your daughters to live.
I love Wendy. I respect and admire Wendy in so many ways, but I don’t want your daughters to be like Wendy when it comes to tanning. Do you?
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Previously Published on medium
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