I was an ugly girl.  One of those semi- buck toothed, bowl hair cut wearing, features looking like a blob of pressed out clay, elbows akimbo, knees all a knobby type of gals.  As a teenager I was more of the same, just bigger.
I had really pretty friends.  Boys liked them.  They had great figures, Farah Fawcett hair, glossy lips and the right shoes.  I tagged along after them like their younger kid brother, except I was a girl…sort of.
But right from the very start I liked myself.  My parents liked me and that helped.  My parents also never focused on looks, which was a good thing because they were good looking and their kids were not.  Besides in high school good looks start with labels and we couldn’t even begin to afford those while we were re-washing sandwich bags.  My dad worked at McDonalds and my mom taught at a private school; that does not add up to LaCoste or Ralph Lauren, it doesn’t even add up to Sears Roebuck or Bradlees, it basically adds up to hand me downs and the Goodwill with a trip once a year to the Commissary thrown in.
As the only girl in the house I was never singled out for special treatment.  There were no party dresses or pink rooms, no ballet class or princess wear.  I wore the same matching jacket my three brothers did and had my haircut by the same set of clippers.  Some people felt sorry for me but in retrospect I feel infinitely blessed.  My mother once said to me that looks fade, money gets spent but character goes with you to the grave. 
So thank you George and Rita for allowing me to develop my confidence based on other things.  No one ever said, “Oh you have the prettiest little girl, Rita” But they might have said, “Wow she’s good at sports.”  “Gee she has a vivid imagination.”
Of course they said a whole bunch of other things about me behind my mom’s back right around the teenage years but that’s a whole nother blog.  The fact is most girls spend their entire youth with their parent’s permission working on being the most attractive, the best dressed and the most popular.  It doesn’t leave much time for character development and that’s the ugly truth.