“Dear Mum, I was seven when I discovered that you were fat, ugly and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful - in every sense of the word.... But all of that changed when, one night... you said to me, ‘Look at you, so thin, beautiful and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly and horrible.’” So begins Kasey Edwards’ powerful essay about the impact of her mother’s poor body image on her own self-image and her effort to define a new path forward for her own young daughter. Time has given Edwards a new perspective on her mother, however: “I know that blaming you for my body hatred is unhelpful and unfair. I now understand that you too are a product of a long and rich lineage of women who were taught to loathe themselves... Now I understand what its like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalising these messages. We have become our own jailors and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is crueller to us than we are to ourselves.” Edwards’ final message, though, is a positive one: “But this madness has to stop, Mum. It stops with you, it stops with me and it stops now.... Your granddaughter is only 3 and I do not want body hatred to take root inside her and strangle her happiness, her confidence and her potential.” So, she concludes, “When Violet looks to us to learn how to be a woman, we need to be the best role models we can.... Let us honour and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs.” You can read the entire essay via the link below. For a great parenting book about fostering positive body image that addresses the issue of moms grappling with their own body image issues, check out “You’d Be So Pretty If...: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies -- Even When We Don’t Love Our Own” at amightygirl/you-d-be-so-pretty-if For more resources for parents on encouraging a positive body image in their daughters, including the excellent 101 Ways to Help Your Daughter Love Her Body, visit amightygirl/parenting/body-image-self-esteem If youd like to foster a positive body image in your Mighty Girl, youll find dozens of empowering books for girls and young women in A Mighty Girls Body Image section at amightygirl/books/personal-development/life-challenges?cat=378 In our post, 15 Self-Esteem Boosting Books for Mighty Girls, we also feature our favorite books that tell the stories of girls overcoming challenges to their self-esteem -- and weve added several additional selections to help parents raise confident Mighty Girls -- at amightygirl/blog/?p=4233
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 19:45:01 +0000
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