I don't really care what people tell children - when you believe

The words of Julie Burchill—“I don't really care what people tell children—when you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, one more fib won't hurt. But I am infuriated by the growing notion, posited in some touchy-feely quarters, that all women are, or can be, beautiful”—are a thunderclap of brutal honesty in an age of comforting illusion. Beneath the sharpness of her tone lies a truth that many fear to speak: that not all truths of nature are gentle, and not all comforts are born of truth. Burchill’s words slice through the sentimentality of false reassurance. She accepts harmless fictions for children—but despises the deception of adults, the notion that by denying the diversity of human appearance and the nature of beauty itself, we create kindness. To her, this is not compassion—it is cowardice masquerading as virtue.

To understand her meaning, one must see beyond the provocation. Beauty, in her vision, is not a moral right nor a universal gift—it is one of nature’s uneven distributions, as arbitrary as talent, wealth, or chance. Burchill’s fury is not directed at women, but at the growing cult of false equality, the idea that self-worth can be maintained only by insisting that every individual must possess the same kind of loveliness. She calls instead for courage—the courage to find worth beyond beauty, to build identity on truth, not flattery. For when society begins to lie in the name of kindness, it teaches its children to seek comfort over honesty, illusion over integrity.

This idea has ancient roots. In the philosophy of the Greeks, kalos (beauty) was intertwined with aletheia (truth). Plato taught that physical beauty was but a shadow of a deeper, eternal form—the beauty of the soul and mind. To praise every form of appearance as equally beautiful would, to him, have been to deny the very purpose of beauty: to awaken aspiration, not complacency. Likewise, the Stoics believed that the wise man should accept what nature gives without resentment, for virtue, not appearance, is the true adornment of the human being. Burchill’s words, though modern in setting, carry this same ancient fire: they are not an attack upon women, but a defense of reality, and the dignity that comes from meeting it unflinchingly.

History, too, bears witness to this. Consider Queen Elizabeth I, whose face bore the marks of smallpox, and yet whose power and intellect made her one of the most formidable rulers in history. She never sought to pretend she was beautiful in the conventional sense; she painted her visage in white not to deceive, but to symbolize authority and endurance. Her majesty lay not in her reflection, but in her mind and her command. She embodied what Burchill demands of modern women: the rejection of sentimental falsehood and the embrace of a truth far more profound—that worth is not beauty, and that beauty itself loses meaning when stripped of honesty.

Burchill’s anger, then, is not against tenderness but against deception disguised as compassion. To tell a child that Santa exists harms no one, for it nurtures wonder. But to tell a woman that she is beautiful when she knows it is untrue breeds insecurity, confusion, and quiet shame. In trying to protect her, society instead denies her the strength of self-knowledge. It is far nobler, Burchill suggests, to say: “You are not beautiful, perhaps, but you are fierce, intelligent, and free.” For truth, however harsh, empowers, while flattery enslaves. Those who live by illusion must constantly seek its renewal; those who live by truth need only stand.

The deeper origin of this quote lies in Burchill’s defiance of cultural conformity. A journalist unafraid of controversy, she stood against the sentimental tide that sought to redefine reality through comforting slogans. Her words echo the prophets and philosophers who have always warned that when a people begin to prize comfort above truth, they lose both. Beauty, she reminds us, is a natural hierarchy, but worth is not. Confusing the two corrupts both ideals. True equality lies not in pretending all are beautiful, but in recognizing that every soul, beautiful or not, is deserving of dignity and respect.

So let the lesson be this: do not fear truth, even when it wounds. Let your worth be forged not by the mirror, but by the measure of your courage, your mind, and your compassion. Teach your daughters that to be powerful is better than to be pretty, and your sons that admiration of beauty must never eclipse respect for character. When the world tells you that everyone must be beautiful to be valued, answer as Burchill did—with the quiet strength of one who knows that truth, though rough-edged, is the purest form of love. For illusion comforts only for a moment; truth sustains for a lifetime.