So today I am a little bit perplexed being a mother of three daughters and a step daughter in today's society.
Last night I went into my youngest daughter's room to read her a story in hoped that she would calm down and go to sleep. When I went in she was sitting on her bed looking at a naked barbie.
I said to her "what are you doing?"
She said.. "mommy do you think Barbie is pretty?"
I said "She's not as pretty as you are"
She said "Well Barbie doesn't look like me, I don't look like this when i have no clothes on"
I then took a deep breath and thought now I am going to have to explain that she will not look like that until she reaches puberty..
so I started with " why does it matter if you look like Barbie?"
she looked at me with her innocent face and said. "Isn't this what pretty girls are supposed to look like? This is what you look like and Selaira looks like"
I said "well.. Selaira and I are older than you though, we have body parts that you have not yet developed."
she said "but when I get bigger and I want to get a boyfriend, isnt this what I need to look like so they will think I'm pretty?"
I stopped for a minute and just looked at her not really knowing what to say.
I have never been one for being all about what I look like, I am what I am. I don't diet (well except that one time when I went from wearing a size 1/2 to a size 12 when I quit smoking but i dieted to get back to a point where I wasn't winded walking up the stairs)
I eat whatever I want when I want and I don't care about calories.. I have never been gung ho on working out or obsessing on my figure so I was not sure why this was an issue for her, it's not like that is what she had been subjected to in her life. So I said the only thing I could say to her.
"Being pretty has nothing at all to do with what you look like on the outside, yes some people like to look like barbie but in reality what makes you pretty is your personality, your face, how you do your hair no matter what colour or length it is. What makes someone pretty is their self esteem, you must FEEL pretty to be pretty."
Of course then I realized that I over explained this to my 9 year old when she looked at me with a blank stare.
I continued by saying " Honey here's the thing, no one can like you if you don't like yourself, no one will be happy with you if you are not happy with yourself. Someday maybe you'll grow up and look like barbie and if you grow up and you look like your stuffed teddy bear it does not matter in the least. People will like you for you and your beauty will shine through in what we call confidence."
I then asked her something very important
I said to her " do you think Sheila (my best friend) is pretty?"
her face lit up and she said " yes! I love Sheila, Sheila is beautiful"
I said "ok, then.. does Sheila look like Barbie?"
She smiled and said.." she has hair like my Ariel barbie.
I had to smile at that
I said "ok but she does not have the same body as barbie does she?"
she put her head down and said " no, mommy she doesn't"
I said "ok so what do you think I'm going to say next?"
She thought about it for a minute and then I saw the light bulb go on.. she said to me
"it doesn't matter if you look like barbie cause you can be pretty any way you look"
*insert huge sigh of relief that she got it*
Here is my issue now, I see far too many of my friends who are already thin constantly complaining about their weight, trying to get thinner, trying to kill themselves to have a model type body.
It angers me that we should as mothers, be spending more time trying to show them that being beautiful is not defined by how much you weigh, what size clothes you wear or how you compare to a plastic doll or what society has portrayed as "perfect"?
Maybe we as mothers of this new generation of girls should instead spend less time focusing on looking like a model for someone else and become a role model for them?
After all who do our girls look up to the most? who do they want to be like? if our daughters think we are beautiful and we constantly are on a mission to be "better" what are we telling them about themselves? Heaven forbid they are already not happy with the way they compare to Barbie
If we spend our days dieting and trying to lose weight all we are doing is setting the ground work for them to grow up to do the same thing.
Maybe we should be taking that time we spend doing that to teach our girls about true beauty, the kind that comes from within..
The cycle needs to stop with us!!! Love ourselves for who we are and what we look like. THESE are the bodies that God gave us, he thinks he did a good job who the hell are we to change what HE made?
We cannot continue to let our girls believe if you don't look like this one or that one you aren't good enough!!
Mothers have the power to make or break our children's self esteem and thoughts on what is pretty and not.
So I say this, to all the moms out there that may not realize it. These impressionable young girls see all and hear all even when we think they don't stop complaining about yourself and start building up your child.
Not to mention that seeing skinny people complain about thier weight also insults the shit out of people who actually do have a few pounds on them. It makes them feel worse. It's rude and disrespectful.
End rant
