Skin Deep

My daughter is four years old and she loves to play dress up.  She particularly likes accessories.  She will throw on a fairy dress, a couple of necklaces, a ring, a purse, play shoes, a headband and about 5 different clips all willy nilly in her hair.  I wish I could share a picture of her (this cutie is not mine), as she has got to be the cutest thing ever.  She then attempts a grand entrance and waits for her accolades.  Everyone exclaims how pretty she looks and with a satisfied grin she hurries off to try on something else.

Everyone is always telling her how beautiful she is...which she is of course...but I wonder at the long term effects of constantly hearing that wherever you go.  I have taught her that it is important to say thank you and am trying to teach her modesty as a few times she has replied with "I know".  Ugh. Eye roll.  Fine line between confidence and vanity my dear.

She often remarks on women she finds beautiful and much to a slight mixture of embarrassment and pride it is often loudly enough for them to hear.  The great thing is that what she finds beautiful is not yet what the world finds beautiful.  For example, she loudly exclaimed how beautiful a woman was at the grocery store the other day.  The woman did not turn from her inspection of pasta sauces and did not appear to hear.  I replied with, "Yes dear, she is."  I have learned that if I don't make some reply, then she just exclaims louder until I acknowledge her.  She then said, "Her hair looks so beautiful!"  The woman looked up and down the aisle and realizing that we were alone looked surprisingly at us.  My daughter was looking at her with a sort of awe and I smiled slightly embarrassed and nodded to the lady's unasked question of "who me?".  The woman replied joyously with thank you and returned to her grocery shopping with a grin.  Her hair truly was gorgeous and that is what my sweet daughter saw.  The woman was not however what the world would call beautiful and she probably does not hear it often.  There was a delivery lady the other day walking by as we waited for her brother to get out of tutoring.  Again my daughter remarked on the woman's beauty.  The woman had the most beautiful skin.  You could tell by the look on her face that she did not believe my daughter but said "thank you" anyway and sauntered off with a little grin.  I would assume that she is probably thinking, "Sure kid, here I am sweating like crazy in my delivery uniform."  She did have gorgeous skin though...like coffee with a touch of cream.

My boys are very different.  I will remark on how handsome they are or how great their new haircut is and the oldest could care less and my middle child tries to hide.  They are both much more comfortable in a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt.  My oldest likes to dress up occasionally especially as he gets older and is trying to impress and my middle child hates dressing up.  He acts as if I am torturing him.  They both seem to have positive self images.  My middle child could not understand one day why I would be plucking my eyebrows...he exclaimed in shock, "Doesn't that hurt?" and I replied that it did a little.  "Then why do you do it!?" was his forthright response.  "Well, uh..."  What do you say to that?  Women do a lot of things because the world tells them it is what is deemed beautiful.  My boys have more difficulty with being able to do something well or not...they don't really seem to care too much about their outward appearance, at least for now.

This girl thing is a bit new to me and I really want to get this right.  I do not have the best body image, but I don't want my body image issues to transfer to my daughter.  I also don't want her to think herself better than others because of her beauty.  There is a balance here and I just pray I don't mess this up.  I have amazing kids and I think Levi and I are doing a pretty good job at this parenting thing, but I can tell you that I have NO idea what I am doing.  Messing this part up can have horrible effects on our kids' sense of self and their health.

I have a friend whose mother was so critical and concerned about everything that she ate, that she ended up with bulimia and still struggles with it.  When I was in college, bulimia was a major issue in our dorm.  Our neighbor had to lock up her food so that her roommate wouldn't eat it all and then run down the hall to the bathroom.  The girl was beautiful but she just couldn't see it.  I read a book recently called "I'm no Angel" by Kylie Bisutti a former Victoria Secret model whose descriptions of life as a supermodel and starving herself so that she kept her model body were disturbing to say the least.  She quit the business when she realized how bad this was for her and out of respect for her husband.  This is what our sons and daughters see and think they have to be...but most models do not come by this body without some unhealthy sacrifices.

I also don't want her thinking that she can eat whatever she wants and just lay around and do nothing either.  Overeating is just as dangerous and unhealthy as not eating.  I am overweight and all the women in my family struggle with weight.  It is not something that I have always struggled with, although I thought I was overweight in high school and college, I really wasn't.  A lot of my weight has come with poor food choices and lack of exercise when our children arrived.  I didn't put on a lot of weight with any of the kids, but couldn't lose all of it either.  And the kids got all of my attention...I kind of lost focus or balance for self care.  I put Levi and the kids first and didn't have anything left for me. Of course my recent issues after my partial thyroidectomy and hypothyroidism have made matters worse (as well as aging).  I think I have found the solution to that as I have recently lost ten pounds.  I am very careful about what I say in front of my daughter.  I don't call it a diet, I call it eating healthy. I will talk about those choices in another post.  I am better about self-care now as it is easier now that my kids are older and don't require as much of that constant attention.  I still need to lose at least 15-20 pounds, but more importantly I want to feel good in my skin.

 Some days I like what I see in the mirror and then I will see a picture of myself or pass a mirror somewhere and feel badly about what I see.  I try to focus on loving the things I love about myself (and what Levi loves as he is the one that has to look at me everyday), working on the things I can change and accepting the things I cannot (I'll never be taller for instance and those stretch marks are there to stay).  Sometimes, though, I can get very down about how I look.  It can eat away at me and no amount of positive self talk seems to help.  I will compare myself to others and wonder why I can't look like them.  How can I keep my daughter from feeling this way?  How can I help her to love her body,  take care of it, and have a healthy body image?

I have no idea...

-I do know that kids learn by example not by what you tell them and I need to at least fake a healthy body image and not be self critical in front of her.  That whole do as I say, not as I do form of parenting does not work.
-We are doing a lot more family walks, bike rides, soccer games, etc. so that we are giving our kids an active lifestyle and I have support for my exercise.  We make sure our kids are involved in a physical activity of some kind, whether a team or individual sport, scouts, swimming etc.  We make sure they don't sit around all day and play video games or watch television.
-We are also teaching them to live healthfully and she loves helping me in the kitchen.  I want to teach all of my children how to cook so that they don't leave this house not knowing how to make anything except Ramen noodles and warming up some hot dogs and hopefully making some healthy choices with their food.
-I want to show them what true beauty is and not what the world says it is.  I have friends whose hearts are so amazing that they seem to glow from the inside out.  It is like their inner beauty spills out to make their "imperfections" on the outside not matter.  I want all my kids to have that glowing heart.

-I want to try to limit unhealthy media while she is young and impressionable.  This video is eye opening.  There is only so much that I can do about billboards and advertisements in the mall or magazine covers at the grocery store, but I will educate my children about photoshop and advertising and I am very careful about what magazines and catalogs are around the house and what commercials or other television she is allowed to watch.  I wonder how photoshop effects our young boys too...does it give them an unrealistic view of beauty?  Although, I feel a bit hypocritical about photoshop as I plan to choose someone good at photoshop for some pictures that I want to give to Levi.

What else can I do?  How do you try to instill a healthy body image in your kids?