From Racheal's Desk
Beyond the Smile
SMILE…
Such a simple word.
Soft, light - maybe even happy.
And in a perfect world, smiling would authentically be all those things.
But we don’t live in a perfect world.
We live in a world where we’re told to smile - above all else.
I know. My whole life, I was told to smile.
On the way to school, on the way to family gatherings, on the way anywhere, people might be watching -
“I want you to smile and be happy when we get there.”
Even though everyone in the car knew what had happened that week. Knew the yelling, the bruises, the suffocating weight of unspoken truth.
“You know what pretty girls do? They smile,” my grandmother would say.
“You’d be so pretty if you’d just smile… Let me see… ahh, there you go… now you’re pretty.”
“Smile,” my high school boyfriend would whisper under his breath, his grip tightening around my arm.
Translation: Don’t embarrass me. At least look like we’re happy.
Little did he know I was late to school that day because my father had ripped open the shower curtain, threw a punch at me and screamed threats in my face for daring to say his new girlfriend had no idea who he really was.
“Smile,” well-meaning people said after I lost my first baby. And my second. And my third.
“Smile! You’re young! You can always have more.”
As if one could replace another.
“Smile and push through,” when I lost my business, went bankrupt, and my own family turned their backs on me - because I refused to play the part they assigned me.
And it’s not just me.
We are taught to smile in all situations.
To make others comfortable, even when we are crumbling inside.
Smile when a man makes a crude comment about our body. Laugh it off, don’t make a scene, don’t challenge him.
Smile when you’re given extra work without credit. Be agreeable, be a team player, don’t be difficult.
Smile when you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, drowning. No one wants to hear complaints. Just push through.
Smile when someone dismisses your success as luck. Don’t correct them. Don’t assert yourself - it makes people uncomfortable.
Smile when you’re told you’re “too emotional,” “too intense,” “too much.” Shrink yourself down, take up less space, be small.
Smile when the stranger on the street tells you to.
Because it’s never really a request, is it? It’s a demand.
A reminder that your existence is meant for his consumption, his approval.
Smile when your boss downplays your contributions in front of a room full of men because correcting him would be seen as aggressive, ungrateful, unladylike.
Smile through childbirth, through the pain, through the exhaustion, because we’ve been told that the harder it is, the stronger we are supposed to seem.
We’ve been trained since birth to package our pain, our anger, our ambition into something pleasant - something polite, something easy to digest.
We become overachievers, burning ourselves out trying to prove our worth.
We become over-spenders, pouring money into the illusion of happiness.
We eat, we numb, we run, we disappear.
And through it all, we smile.
But that stops now.
We are not decorations.
We are not here to be easy on the eyes, to keep the peace, to make the world comfortable at the expense of our own truth.
We don’t owe anyone a smile.
We are allowed to exist without performing.
We are allowed to be loud, to take up space, to push back.
To say no.
To say enough.
To frown, to cry, to scream, to feel.
And when we do smile?
It will be because we damn well mean it.
About this piece
For most of my life, I was told to smile - whether I wanted to or not. I learned early on that smiling wasn’t about joy but survival. It was about making others comfortable, about performing the role of the good girl, the pretty girl, the agreeable woman.
After years of living under the weight of forced smiles - through abuse, loss, betrayal, and exhaustion - I finally unlearned the expectation that my face should always be pleasant, my emotions always palatable. I stopped shrinking. I stopped faking it. I chose truth over comfort, self-respect over appeasement, and authenticity over performance.
This piece is for every woman who has been told to smile when she wanted to scream, who has been dismissed for speaking her mind, and who has been expected to package her pain into something pretty. It is a call to reclaim our faces, our voices, and our right to exist on our own terms.
I write this as a survivor, a mother, a writer, and a woman who no longer smiles on command.