One night, my eight-year-old son, Zakariya, and I were scanning the TV listings for something to watch.

"Oooh, there's a beauty contest on," I said. Zakariya asked me what a beauty contest was, and I explained that it was a contest to choose the most beautiful woman in the world.

Then my son thrilled me by asking with complete sincerity, "Why aren't you in the contest, Mommy?"

by Tommy Litchfield Najjar
Excerpted from Woman's World
from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul
© 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Barry Spilchuk