I think a lot about the examples I’m setting.

Not the big, obvious ones like manners, working hard or showing up when it matters. I mean the quieter examples – the ones my kids absorb without me realizing it. The ones that settle into their bones long before they ever have words for them.

Lately, with three girls looking up to me…that’s meant thinking about beauty.

I want my children to feel beautiful no matter what. Not “beautiful if,” or “beautiful when,” or “beautiful as long as.” Just… beautiful. Period.

Here’s the honest part: I despise putting on makeup. Truly. With my whole heart. I curse the person/people who ever decided this should be a requirement. I hate that it became a standard for women, especially in professional spaces. Somewhere along the way, a bare face stopped being neutral and started being interpreted as a problem.

If you don’t wear makeup, people ask if you’re sick. If you don’t wear makeup, they tell you that you look tired. If you don’t wear makeup, there’s an unspoken assumption that you didn’t try hard enough – or worse, that you’re not professional enough.

That’s the part that really gets me!!!!

Makeup has become our “normal face.” Not the face we were born with, but the one we’ve been trained to present to the world. So when we show up as ourselves (truly ourselves) it feels like we’re somehow lacking. Like we’ve forgotten something essential.

It took me a long time to get here, but I can finally say this out loud: I feel prettier without makeup.

I can’t wait to get home at the end of the day and wash it off. It feels like exhaling. Like coming back into my own skin. And if I’m not at work, chances are I’m not wearing makeup at all! Not because I’ve given up, but because I’ve finally let go.

I don’t want my children growing up thinking their natural face needs fixing. I don’t want them believing that confidence comes from a compact or approval comes from how closely they meet someone else’s standard. I want them to know that their worth isn’t something they put on in the morning and take off at night.

There’s a spiritual layer to this for me, too.

I believe we were created on purpose. Not accidentally. Not as unfinished drafts waiting to be improved. Scripture tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and I don’t think that verse came with a footnote that said, “after mascara.”

God didn’t make a mistake when He made our faces. He didn’t overlook our features or miscalculate our worth. And when I cover myself in layers because I’m afraid of how I’ll be received, I have to ask myself – who am I trying to please more: the world, or the One who made me?

That doesn’t mean makeup is wrong. It doesn’t mean women who love it are shallow or misguided. For some, it’s art. For some, it’s fun. For some, it’s empowering… and that’s okay!!!!

But obligation is not empowerment.

So I’m trying to model something different. I’m trying to show my kids that confidence can be quiet. That beauty doesn’t need permission. That showing up as yourself (even when it feels uncomfortable) is an act of courage and faith.

Because one day, they’ll stand in front of a mirror too. And I hope when they do, they don’t hear the world asking what’s wrong with their face. I hope they hear the truth instead.

“You are enough. You always were.”

(Paige Gurgainers is a mother of three girls, and a digital journalist for Webster Parish Journal.)