My daughter is graduating this year from high school, so we went out with a photographer to get some headshots to put on her announcements. She has very little confidence in her appearance so to say she wasn’t thrilled about getting her picture taken is an understatement. It doesn’t matter that every day I tell her she’s pretty, she thinks I’m mom so I have to say that.

The big day finally came, and there my daughter stood in a dress and boots (her first choice of outfits), standing the the snow with her hands clasped in front of her because she didn’t know where else to put them.

The photographer starts running around my daughter, snapping pictures like every second. After a few minutes of this the photographer drops her camera and looks my daughter in the eye.

“You have the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen,” she says.

And she really does. She wears no makeup but has a flawless complexion with naturally rosy cheeks and dark eyelashes and eyebrows. I would kill to be able to get out of bed and see features without having to paint them on every day, but blonde eyelashes and eyebrows are my lot in life.

You could see my daughter’s shoulders rise just a little bit at the complement. And she stopped clasping her hands with such force it made her knuckles white. It took a few more minutes of complements before my daughter started to really get into it. She transformed before my eyes, her expression blossoming with pleasure. And lucky for me, someone was there to capture it on film.

I wish it wasn’t true but it does make sense that a mother’s praise is never as potent as a strangers, especially for a teenager.