I read an article this week about an Instagram post that went viral. Jenna Kutcher (@jennakutcher) hired a wedding photographer to take some pictures of herself and her husband walking on the beach in Hawaii. Jenna, is a 29-year-old young lady who is an “expert online marketer” (www.jennakutcher.com). Her husband, Drew, is a 31-year-old health coach, and he is also known as “Mr. 6-pack.” In the photograph, Drew is shirtless, and he leans to give his bride a kiss. Jenna, who describes herself as “curvy,” is wearing a one-piece bathing suit. According to the article, the initial trigger that caused the image to go viral was a direct message she received on Instagram. A person rudely said, via direct message, that the individual “couldn’t believe” that Jenna had “managed to land a guy as good-looking” as her husband. Jenna, who has struggled with an eating disorder in the past, admits that she “writes narratives in my head that because I am not thin, I don’t deserve him.”
How sad is it that our society has allowed our culture to develop a hierarchy that some would use to determine who should marry whom based solely on appearance? The naivete that some people use regarding relationships is staggering. Do these individuals believe that physical attractiveness is equal to love, and when that is lost so is the basis of the relationship?
People have a tendency to teach the things they believe most to their children. Therefore, some of the simplest life lessons are in children’s books. One such book is The Velveteen Rabbit written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. It was originally published in 1922, but its message is timeless. The story begins with a stuffed rabbit made of velveteen, which is imitation velvet. It was placed in a Christmas stocking. This rabbit desperately wants to be real and views himself as inadequate because the more mechanical toys, such as the model boat, looked down on him. The only toy that was respectful to the velveteen rabbit was the skin horse. The skin horse was a hand-me-down toy from the boy’s uncle. The velveteen rabbit and the skin horse shared a conversation:
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Love is not something that one deserves based on appearance. If a man’s love for his wife changes based on her appearance, then he is a person that does not understand any more than The Velveteen Rabbit’s mechanical toys. Think about the idea that every person on this planet, who is old enough to have experienced their real first love, is within a few years of moving away from the potential of feminine or masculine perfection. By Hollywood’s standards, a minuscule percentage of people even qualify to be considered for that quality. So, why allow them to set our standards?
To Jenna and Drew Kutcher: The evidence of your love for each other is revealed in the quality of your smiles as you look at each other in the photographs. For 10 years, you have invested your life into each other, and that is what makes you and your love for each other real. All of us can learn from your example. People who assert that you don’t deserve each other based on their perception of you are only revealing their own ugliness, which is so much deeper than their skin. Their ugliness goes all the way to their heart.
What do you think we can do that will teach people around us to look for what is REAL in others?