Ah, @Knowsstuff - you are male. That explains why you aren’t really tuned into how fraught this topic is, and you think your own conversations with your mom are comparable. I assure you that they are not. Not saying that a conversation with a male offspring couldn’t go awry, but women have so much more to contend with regarding others judging their looks. Like - 100 times more. So they are generally far more sensitive to it than men are.