Would you rather have a gorgeous daughter who becomes a model or an average looking one who becomes a doctor?

I want the brainy doctor. I wouldn’t care how my kids looked physically, I would care immensely that they were good, honest, hardworking people who respected others and wanted to make the world a better place. Working as a model and reinforcing stereotypes of beauty would not be at the top of my list, but if my kid was good-looking and made that choice for him or herself after having been raised in my home with my values, I would figure out how to get comfortable with it.

At the risk of sounding cliched, I’d rather she do what she loves. Modeling would, however, be a great way to pay for medical school. And I’m not being facetious, a friend from college did just that with law school.

I’d rather have a doctor. Model looks are for youth only while a doctor is a Dr. through all ages!

Doctor.

Doctor, like this guy (Might be a bit NSFW)

I dunno, which one is the better, more honest person?

The doctor. She has a more noble and more beneficial role in life. She can actually help people.

The model is good for nothing but horribly butchering basic answers at a pageant .

Whichever one is happier.
Sure, it’s nice to help other people.
But if you’re miserable doing it, that sucks.
Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor.

I’m with @JilltheTooth and @Nimis. As long as my children are self-sufficient, all I want is for them to be happy.

I’m with @JilltheTooth. So long as she’s happy whatever she does is fine. It’s no good being a doctor if it doesn’t satisfy her and the same goes for modeling.

I would want my hypothetical daughter to do what she loves.

My beautiful daughter is probably going to be smarter than I am. Someday.

I’d prefer to have a healthy girl who does what fulfills her, makes her happy, and allows her to take care of herself. If she could also support her parents in their old age that would be great.

The daughter that becomes a doctor. I think quiet accomplishments speak loudest.

I’m pretty sure that if I had a daughter that was average looking I would think she was gorgeous because I would see her through a loving lens. But I hedge. I want her to be whatever makes her happy. There’s no saying she can’t do both things. Being gorgeous and smart isn’t mutually exclusive of course. I know models who use their modeling to make money for school as Jillthe Tooth says.

Doctor. Models have to sell their soul, if we are to see Devil Wears Prada as a good portrayal of the trade.

Well, frankly, I’d want her to do what she loves whatever that may be. And any daughter of mine would be beautiful, to me, regardless of how others read her beauty. I wouldn’t rather have one or the other.

As long as she’s a good and decent human being, I don’t care what she does for a living. I’d want her to do what made her happy.

It depends on how successful a model or doctor she would turn out to be.

If she was beautiful and could make it as very successful model that paid well for her entire career, then I’d want that, more than if she was plain/dull looking and becoming “a successful doctor”.

There’s an old Chinese saying (and one many will hate), and it goes like this—-
“If you give birth to a daughter, give birth to a beautiful one. If you give birth to a son, give birth to a smart one.” (The words for “beautiful” and “smart” rhyme in Chinese, so the saying is a popular albeit old-fashioned one).

A model? Do I want my daughter to abstain from the pleasures of food?
No.

@MRSHINYSHOES It’s kind of old fashioned but in all honesty women can do anything with good looks.

@thesparrow You are quite right about that——the gist of the old Chinese saying——women are valued more for their looks, men more for their intelligence. When a woman and a man have those qualities, respectively, they are deemed to have a successful life.

I have a gorgeous daughter but I don’t think she’ll ever become a model. It’s not what she wants to do. I don’t know what she wants to do, but she doesn’t want to be a hard scientist or anything involving math and she doesn’t seem to want to be a performer of any kind, unless she is a dancer.

So my daughter, who is gorgeous, will be neither a doctor nor a model. I have no idea what she will be, but she is very determined and very hard working, so whatever it is, I’m sure she’ll work hard at it and probably do it well.

@MissAusten: I think it’s safe to say that your daughter will take over the world.

Modeling as a career typically sucks, unless you’re Cindy Crawford. Lots of legwork with inconsistent pay. Looks don’t last forever – better to learn a useful skill!

I really would not prefer one over the other. Models aren’t all stupid, nor are all doctors brilliant. I would just want any child of mine to find what they love, do it, and hopefully reach the level of success they aim to achieve.

I have a gorgeous daughter that got a modeling contract and blew it off before she was to go to italy. she’d rather hang with her friends and boyfriend. What’s she going to do? I hardly think she’ll be a doctor- I do think she’ll have a varied life and hopefully not make the mistakes I have. ps—I was a doctor and it didn’t make me happy, wealthy or any of that.

@digitalimpression

Before I even clicked the link, I knew which one your comment was referring to.

Did you know that a few years later she was on the Amazing Race? She stated in her intro interview that she was doing this to show people that she wasn’t as stupid as that pageant interview made her look.

She didn’t succeed in that attempt either.

Should have let sleeping dogs lie, IMHO. Now an even greater number of people know what a dimwit she is and that the pageant answer wasn’t just an anomalous fluke due to nerves or a “gotcha” question.

:)

I’d rather have a child who was doing something they loved. If modeling makes her happier than medical school so be it, and vice versa. I know it sounds cliched, but it’s true. I would just hope that she ends up happy.

As long as it was a legal and genuine career, I would want my daughter to do whatever she loved to do. As @JilltheTooth said though, there is no reason why she couldn’t be both. A pretty girl who can make money modelling so she can fund her education. I can’t see anything wrong with that.

I’d have my daughter be whatever she wants to be so long as she’s happy, which I do & she does…..which is nice :¬)

Thanks to you all and lurve as well for your answers.

I don’t think I posed this question exactly the way I wanted to. My point was that this was a kid who came from a background of no education, life long welfare for generations, etc. But somehow she broke away from that and has studied hard and succeeded academically. However when her photo was viewed by a female adult friend her comment was not to laud the amazing scholastic achievement, rather to comment on the accidental youthful beauty. It made me feel badly for the kid. She didn’t work for her looks she worked for the marks. I think I will ask another question along this line and see how that turns out.

@KatawaGrey Strangely enough, you aren’t the first person to tell me that. I think taking over the world would cut too much into her reading and sleeping in time. Currently she wants to be a wildlife biologist.

@MRSHINYSHOES But a woman with BOTH intelligence and good looks is like a golden nugget.

The women I admire the most were nothing great visually. I admire ground-breaking women who have shown what we are capable of, not dumb airheads like the role-models we have now for young girls. Instead of giving young girls something to strive for, they show them images of big boobs and blonde hair. Not that male role-models are any better…

excellent point @thesparrow – I am always saddened when female elite athletes for some reason feel the need to pose naked for one reason or another. They have achieved greatness on something other than looks but they don’t seem to think that is enough.

I would hope if I had a daughter that I would have instilled in her a need to do more with her life than to parade around in clothes designed by someone else or no clothes for that matter. I would sincerely hope that it would take more than that to make her feel happy and fulfilled.

@thesparrow has something there I’ve always been irritated by as well. When a woman has high visibility, be it for politics, performing, academia, etc. then it seems the ultimate in her “15 minutes of fame” is to pose naked somewhere as if her sexualized self is the pinnacle of her having it all.

@Neizvestnaya – I have never understood the reasoning but maybe that’s it, the ultimate 15 minutes of fame is public nakedness, sad commentary on what message females are receiving about their worth to society!

I don’t know. This whole thing just makes me really sad.

@rooeytoo and @thesparrow and @Neizvestnaya—where does your irritation at famous women stripping for photo shoots come from? Why does it bother you?

I imagine that a lot of women are proud of their bodies; particularly athletes; so it might fill a kind of ego inflation role for them. Men like being featured in magazines, too. They are famous for whatever, but their picture is in the zine for more prurient purposes many a time.

It’s part of who we are that we look a bodies as well as paying attention to minds and personality.

In any case, I’m curious as to what bothers you.

Are you serious?

I am not going to have this conversation with you.

You’re not? So this opinion is a bunch of nonsense since you have no desire to explain it? Now that’s sad!

I’m not asking you to even question your assumptions. Just to explain what the problem is from your point of view. I’m not arguing with you or trying to persuade you otherwise. All I want to know is why you think what you think. When I think about it, it’s actually quite obnoxious to just throw out some random opinion and then not bother to answer any questions about it. I’ll remember this.

I have said so many times, it is so difficult for a woman to be taken seriously on so many levels. When you have one who has succeeded in this world for something other than looks or body, then demeans it by posing naked, to me it is once again making it more difficult for the others.

I think equality means that a woman can be not beautiful but still be recognized for the accomplishments that she has achieved through her own devices, not an accident of nature or lucky genes, something she has done nothing to achieve. Look at news readers on the television, there are some really older and not attractive men, but most all of the women are young and beautiful.

The best example is of a woman in the military trying to be accepted as an equal when across the street some other woman is taking off her clothes for money. It just reinforces the male point of view that females are basically a couple of anatomical parts or a receptacle for their use.

But, @rooeytoo, you seem to be buying in to an idea that it’s men whose opinions matter on this. That is, you seem to suggest that it’s the men watching (and paying money to watch) the woman take off her clothes, who somehow still have an upper hand in deciding value.

Why not take the position that men who pay to watch women disrobe have demeaned themselves? In fact, it’s curious to me that as a woman you don’t take that as a default position. (I pretty much take that position, and I’ve even been in the audience.)

In fact, the woman in that position – unless she really has demeaned herself by having no choice in the matter any more, being forced to do what she does because of a drug habit, lack of education or better alternatives in employment – who has the upper hand in the “relationship”.

I agree somewhat with CWOTUS. Actually, women tend to have the upper hand in personal relationships as well, if they’re secure and know how to maintain themselves and keep themselves attractive. So I think sometimes it CAN work to our advantage ;)

As for disrobing for the public.. it’s something some women want to do. It’s not something I want to do. Let them do what they want and let me do what I want. So far I’ve never had anyone come up to me and tell me that I should be disrobing, and I’ve gained a fair enough reputation with my academic colleagues just being myself.

@CWOTUS – I do feel sorry for the men as well. It seems as if the brain should have the power to override but it doesn’t seem to. But I disagree that undressing gives power to the woman. I think it means she has very little self esteem or confidence that she can do something requiring more than anatomical parts.

@thesparrow – I am not out stopping anyone from doing anything they want. As I said above I would hope if I had a daughter that I would have instilled in her a need to do more with her life than to parade around in clothes designed by someone else or no clothes for that matter. I would sincerely hope that it would take more than that to make her feel happy and fulfilled. Add to that, taking off her clothes for money. Is it a life you would choose for your daughter?

@rooeytoo

I don’t “feel sorry for” either of the participants in that act. It’s not my place to make judgments on either of them. And I certainly wouldn’t say that “undressing gives power to” any woman, merely that as the performer in that act it’s her choice (one hopes) whether she does it or not, and in that way she is totally in control of whether the act even occurs or not. Otherwise I would generally agree that “stripping in public” is not an empowering act.

As for the self-esteem and confidence issues, I’ve heard from some women that performing in that way helped them to build their self-esteem and confidence. And regarding “anatomical parts”, we all work with what we have in terms of body, brain, talent and aspiration.

I don’t think that “feeling sorry for” her (or him) should enter into the picture unless there’s a true lack of choice or option. If the only way I could put food on my table was by unwillingly showing off in front of people I didn’t care about or even actively disliked at places and times that I didn’t choose, and if it made me feel degraded on top of that, then I suppose sympathy would be a proper response.

@CWOTUS – well I allow myself to feel sorry for, judge, think about, evaluate, etc. the actions of others. I would not go up to a stripper and tell them I don’t approve of their actions, but in my head I feel I am allowed to think what I want.

There are many theories, statistics and the like that support the idea that stripping, prostitution and other jobs in the sex field (interesting term) are not first choice occupations but rather what one stumbles into because of no education, need to support drug/alcohol addiction. So it is not necessarily the primary choice. And yes I agree it is a choice but one brought about because the women didn’t realize they had other tools at their disposal.

So yep I feel sorry for them.

@rooeytoo I agree. Go ask a lawyer, a doctor or a professor if she would drop her profession to be a stripper. Although to be honest sometimes one gets surprised.. recently a friend in her 2nd year of university confessed she might want to strip part time at a club ..