When I was in grade three, my teacher told me that I had a crooked smile.
In front of the entire class.
She was going through our school year portraits one by one, holding them up and panning them slowly for us to see. When she picked up my picture, put my wispy blonde hair and wide, gap-toothed grin on display for the class, she laughed first,
and then pointed out my crooked smile.
I will never forget it, for as long as I live. I was completely and utterly mortified.
I hate looking at pictures of myself. I hate having my picture taken even more, something I think has a lot to do with that moment back in the third grade. It was the first time I can remember being distinctly singled out in front of my peers by an adult, a figure of authority; someone I was supposed to respect. Since then I’ve always worried about my smile, what it will look like in a picture; what I will look like. When there’s a camera on me I don't know what do with myself, how to smile so I don’t wind up looking like a spaz, or a drunk, or a combination of the two. Most of the time I do this closed-mouthed, half-smile thing that, in my mind, looks cute – maybe a little pixie-ish, even – but in print is nothing more than a straight-up smirk.
A lot of the time I cover my mouth when I know a picture of me is being taken. It’s a knee jerk reaction; a reflex perfected by years of deep-rooted insecurity. Dave likes to take pictures with his iPhone – random, in-the-moment shots – and when I catch him out of the corner of my eye, holding his phone up, framing my face, more often than not, I cover my mouth. I don’t think about it, I just do it – it's like I'm back in grade three and my teacher is laughing at my picture in front of everyone and I feel very small and insignificant, and my instinct is to react:
hide your crooked smile.
36 Comments, Comment or Ping
I had a teacher once make a disparaging remark about me during a class where we were discussing what parts of ourselves we’d change. When I said I liked myself as I was, she said that was impossible and I wasn’t trying hard enough to find something wrong. (of course in front of everyone in the class. In 7th grade)
Boy did that set me up for years of insecurity. When my husband says “you’re beautiful (and he does that photo thing with his iphone too), I stop and think of all the things that are wrong with the way I look.
You probably have a beautiful smile and it probably lights up your face and makes the people around you happy to see it.
November 25th, 2009
Evil teacher. Hmph. Y’know, while we were hanging out and laughing our arses off? Never once did I notice anything other than a great smile. :)
November 25th, 2009
There is nothing wrong with a well-meaning smirk.
It was in third grade that someone of authority, other than my family members, first singled me out as “fat.” And I cannot forget that day . . .
November 25th, 2009
Oh I know that feeling all too well. In grade nine a boy made a comment about my nose which was a feature that I actually didn’t have a problem with (I was so insecure about everything else). After that I hated my nose for years and years. I got over that when my youngest was born with my nose and I realized that it’s not such a bad nose afterall.
November 25th, 2009
For me, it was being told that relation X is beautiful, Y is amazingly musical, Z is incredibly artistic, so, Miss F, you’d better hope you have some brains, because you won’t catch a man with THOSE looks. I think I was about six…..
November 25th, 2009
I’ve never had an easy smile. So pictures are stilted, frozen, ruined by me trying to smile. I usually hate them, unless they;re taken without my knowledge, then I see the real me, and I don’t mind.
November 25th, 2009
When I was in first grade, my teacher told me and my mother that I couldn’t read. Then I won the school writing contest. I showed her. And, she gave me a C, in the first grade!! I majored in Writing and was planning on getting my PhD. I wanted to email her a copy of my diploma, but my mom said to get over it. If I find her address though, I am totally mailing it to her.
November 25th, 2009
I hate having my picture taken. I like to say I’m just not photogenic, because I don’t want to admit that I actually look like that, especially the extra fatty chins I’ve acquired since my last pregnancy. But every picture comes out the same. Damn pictures.
November 25th, 2009
Early childhood experiences like that mess you up. I lived in the Caribbean, and the first birthday party I went to (every party in the Caribbean, even for the nine year olds, involves a DJ and flashy lights) and danced up a storm.
For the next three years everyone teased me about how badly I danced. “What WAS that?” asked the grade 4 children who could do the Merengue, backwards, with their eyes closed. It was nothing. It was just…. dancing.
I still won’t dance. My boss tried to make me do it at work and I started to cry.
November 25th, 2009
(This post reminded me of the line in The Firm – a film better known for having the Quaker Oats man saying the word fuck – where Tom Cruise’s brother tells Holly Hunter he likes her crooked little mouth.)
Anyhow…
I don’t think your smile is crooked. I think you need to let go of the opinion of someone who really doesn’t matter anymore and embrace your pixie smirk.
November 25th, 2009
It’s amazing how a simple one line thoughtless comment can live with us forever. I have a few of those that plague me even now despite the fact that they happened decades ago.
November 25th, 2009
I hate having my pic taken, too. Makes me nuts. And every picture I see of me…all I seem to notice are the flaws. That sucks ass. So with my daughter I make a point of telling her she’s beautiful..and that’s she’s beautiful because *I’m* beautiful. Fuck what the camera says. :-)
November 25th, 2009
Crooked smiles are the BEST! So much more lively that a totally symmetrical one. Enjoy, you lucky thing!
November 25th, 2009
I want to smack teachers like that. People for that matter.
She probably meant you were adorable but we have to be so so careful with what we say.
November 25th, 2009
You’re beautiful. Breathtakingly so. (Dave agrees. He’s smaht.)
One of the hardest (and most guilt-inducing) things about having children (for me) is that I never know what stupid thing I say is going to implode upon their little heads and stick.
I had a similar experience (My, you could hide anything in those dimples, couldn’t you?) leading me to try to NOT smile for years.
Also, HOW MEAN.
November 25th, 2009
It’s amazing that some people (especially teachers!) can make remarks like that without considering the impact it might have. My wedding photographer told me, as she was touching up my make-up, minutes before walking down the aisle, that my mouth was crooked. Gee, thanks.
While I have not seen a picture of your smile, I’m sure it is beautiful. Most importantly, you have a beautiful soul.
Smile!
November 25th, 2009
Wow, what a dumbass teacher.
November 25th, 2009
If people would just think before they speak, it would save so much heartache. It’s crazy how one comment can stick with you for years and years. And it’s happened to me many times.
November 26th, 2009
It’s amazing how something stupid said by an adult at such a young age can totally mess with you the rest of your life. What a stupid idiot that teacher was! And she probably thought nothing of it. I remember my Grade 7 teacher telling me in front of the class that I had big hips. WTH? I’m sure your smile is charming and lovely.
November 26th, 2009
Although the picture doesn’t give away much, the writing does… That smile is fucking fantastic… never mind the teacher.
November 26th, 2009
what makes people beautiful are the things that make them unique. perfection is boring.
November 26th, 2009
Oh, dude. I totally do the same thing. Totally. Because for years I had slightly crooked front teeth. Also, because I hated my nose. So, yeah. Pictures were basically my eyes and hair.
Now I do it because, you know, wrinkles.
November 26th, 2009
God, people suck sometimes. *sigh*
I’ve been self-conscious in pictures ever since my mother commented on my big nose. My orthodontist didn’t help matter any when he pointed out the “bulge” that “ruined the line” of my face (baby tooth that had to be pulled into place).
I *hate* having my picture taken.
November 27th, 2009
When I was in 6th grade I had a teacher tell the entire class that my father had to fight my battles for me (after she put me back two reading levels because she didn’t want me to be ahead of her son).
She singlehandedly changed my opinion of authority figures forever. I wasn’t sure whether to thank her for that or prank her at halloween.
November 27th, 2009
People are so thoughtless. And when you’re a child their words hit you so much harder. It wouldn’t matter how many people told you your smile is fine now. You’d still hear that awful woman. I’m sure the whole thing has made you a much more thoughtful person when talking to other, especially your child. Which is far more important than a perfect picture smile.
November 27th, 2009
Lauren Hutton, Cindy Crawford, Barbra Streisand were all told to change the one thing that makes them unique. And look where they are now. Because they didn’t blend into the crowd!
My smile is crooked too, due to a neurological disorder 20 years ago. It is very slight but I notice it, and I actually embrace it. It makes me look like I am me.
November 27th, 2009
Awww…that was really terrible of her. I’ve seen pictures of you smiling and I think it is quite beautiful.
November 27th, 2009
In grade 1, a teacher once pointed out that myself and another student had “ski-jump” noses (i.e, upturned at the end, instead of straight down). I’m not sure how we got onto the topic; I think maybe a character in a book had been described as such. Anywho, she didn’t miss a beat in calling out, specifically, the 2 of us as sharing the same characteristic; it was clearly something she had actively thought of previously. She said it in a nice, laugh-y kind of way, and told us we could go out into the cloakroom to inspect for ourselves. So, me and the other kid both went out and peered into the mirror, having a merry laugh at what we realised were, in fact, “ski-jump” noses. Then we returned to the classroom and forgot about it.
…However. A few years down the track, when I was old enough to be crushingly critical of my appearance, I began to wonder if perhaps my nose was a little too “cutesy”. I didn’t wonder for long, before the memory of being hand-picked out of a group resurfaced, with our “funny!” noses a valid subject of discussion. The rest of the class looking on with interest, before the 2 of us went to laugh it up in the cloakroom. I wasn’t laughing now. I can accept that it was meant as an innocent comment with no malice intended, but at age 25, I still think of that teacher almost everyday I look in the mirror.
Around the same age the ski-jump comment resurfaced, I was also starting to discover some of the other joys of puberty. Namely, after being a certified bean-pole throughout my childhood, I was discovering for the first time what terms like “pear-shaped” were all about. Initially, I let myself believe that my changing shape wasn’t as bad as I thought, and that no-one else noticed. Until my nan told me, with a voice full of wonder: “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, I was expecting you to be tall and thin. But you’re not, you’re short and dumpy!”. THANKS NAN.
November 28th, 2009
I have a crooked smile, too–
actually, one whole half of my face scrunches up more than the other, so I end up looking like I have some sort of palsy.
My aunt maintains that the women in my family are made for moving pictures, not stills– we all get caught with freakish in-between expressions that normally pass by so quickly they don’t get noticed.
A nice thought. But maybe we’re all just freaky-lookin’.
On the other hand, having the sort of smile that inspires more smiles can’t be a bad thing.
Maybe we smile on opposite sides. Maybe if we stood next to each other while smiling, we’d end up with one perfectly symmetrical smile!
That’d shut up your stupid third-grade teacher, wouldn’t it.
November 28th, 2009
Not only am I a teacher, I am also the mother of a son who DOES have a bit of a crooked smile. A precious, preciously crooked smile. It would never occur to me to point this out if I were his teacher (in front of anyone or not) and as his mother, I cherish the sweetness it brings to every grin. As a mother it brings out a raging monster instinct that inspires me to crush anyone who seeks to marginalize my children. Don’t cover your mouth. I think you’re lovely.
November 28th, 2009
And I’ll bet that your crooked smile is one of the most beautiful features on your face, on top of your other already beautiful features. It is THE crooked smile that makes you special, unique and stand out from the rest. So stop hiding it, honey!!! Practise!!!
November 29th, 2009
What a totally clueless and cruel teacher, though maybe I’m giving her too much credit by saying she was clueless, and she is just plain mean. Seriously, who does a critique of photos of children?!
I’m glad you have a husband who obviously loves you and takes lots of photos. Please know that your true spirit and dynamic personality comes through, I bet if you always thought of your children when you were in front of a camera you wouldn’t cover up, who wouldn’t want to see all the love that was in that smile?
November 30th, 2009
What a bitch. I hope she has assmites,.
Drew Berrymore has a crooked smile! So do I. :)
:)
November 30th, 2009
I’ve always been camera shy and that is why I’ve always enjoyed being the one who takes all the pictures at all the functions. :)
December 1st, 2009
what a bitch.
December 4th, 2009
For some reason this reminded me of Marilyn Monroe and her crooked smile, and how she practiced in the mirror to smile “straight”. Often in movies you can see her lips “twitching” as she smiles, and it was because she was so self conscious about it that she would be trying to keep it straight all the time.
Train youself to uncover your face, all smiles are wonderful. Truly.
December 14th, 2009
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