Marianna loves her daughter exactly the way she is. But unfortunately, all her loveisn’t enough to protect her from the future hostility she will face because, even though she is just a toddler, she is already having to endure comments about how different and unattractive others believe she is.
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Angel kiss
Marianna’s daughter Angelica was born with alarge birthmarkon her face known as a port-wine stain, or nevus flammeus in medical terminology. This benign mark on her face can look reddish or purple but is not painful and completely harmless.
In Angelica’s case, this mark extends over both halves of her face. Her mother Marianna sees it in the shape of a heart, which is why she has given this mark the loving nickname, ‘angel kiss’.
Like every mother, Marianna is head over heels in love with her daughter,which means it hit her particularly hard when she received the multiple comments saying how ‘unattractive' people think her daughter is. She hears horrible comments, some of which are truly despicable, online as well as in-person and recently took to Facebook to reveal how she truly feels about this.
Derogatory comments
But she has decided not to just ignore these awful comments and recently opened up about the values she hopes to teach her daughterin the future. She wants her to realise that her port-wine stain is just one of the things that makes her beautiful and unique. Simultaneously, she has also been using her social media accounts to help raise and spread awareness about her daughter's skin condition. She explained to the Daily Mail:
‘I think it’s important to help raise awareness of the condition while also normalising it in our community. We rarely see people with these kinds of differences in the mainstream media.’
Because as we all know, beauty standards don’t have to be set in stone, but we should in fact be demonstrating that various types of beauty exist. Unfortunately, it has become commonplace for people who do not conform to these 'standards' or stand out in other ways to have to deal with hostility and judgement in society on a regular basis. Just like this mother of four when she went to the swimming pool or this woman who is unfortunately bald as a result of her condition.
Speaking out to show there is nothing wrong with being different
Her daughter is much more than just the birthmark on her face. Marianna has been thinking about the fact that Angelica will be confronted at school because she looks different, but she is sure that her daughter will be strong enough and confident enough because of her port-wine stain to be able to handle these situations in the future.
The trained beautician even emphasises her skin condition with the use of glitter and her daughter loves to see herself in this way. Through her amazing creativity, she is proving to the rest of the world that you can look different and still love your own body as well as the bodies of others.
'It breaks my heart to think about anyone being mean to her. But I see her now, and she is such a confident little girl and she isn’t afraid of anything. I am sure she is going to get through anything life throws at her. She is more than her birthmark. She is her own person, and she is not different from anyone else. It's her superhero mask. She wears her heart on her face.’
