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The Paleo Running Momma

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4 Body-Positive Messages for My Daughters

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I chose to find out the sex of my babies before they were born. Why? The big reason was that I was scared of the prospect of parenting girls. I know that sounds nuts. I mean I probably should have dealt with this fear before getting pregnant at all. I just didn’t anticipate what I would actually be feeling when I started imagining everything my daughter would be faced with growing up. After finding out my first child was a girl, I cried for twelve hours straight. My childhood, teen years, and early adulthood sat in front of me and I imagined my daughter experiencing the same. Yes, there were pregnancy hormones pulsing through me, but I also clearly had some unresolved issues with being a woman.

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Having girls scared the crap out of me. Go to the checkout area of any supermarket or turn on your television and you’ll know why. I spent years of my life fighting with myself not to give into the horrifyingly strict beauty standards we are bombarded with and brainwashed into accepting as little girls, teens, and women. I still struggle with these standards and I’m not sure I’ll ever be completely free of their pull.

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It’s one thing to deal with something on your own, but most parents find it more difficult to know that their children will be faced with the same struggle. And as parents, we can’t help but feel responsible for shaping our children’s views, protecting them from harm, and providing them with tools to see beyond society’s worst messages. It makes me sad to know that at some point, my daughters will look at themselves in the mirror and criticize what they see. Only see the “flaws” and want to hide them. It makes me sad to know they’ll look at other girls and women and feel they don’t measure up. And it makes me really sad to know that at some point they will equate their self worth with how beautiful OTHER PEOPLE think they are.

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I could go on, there are so many ways that women’s self esteem is shaped by the state of our society and we are far from raising happy and confident girls and women. So what can I do? Here are 4 messages I have and will continue drill into my daughter’s heads, so they are always there, somewhere inside them, on the darkest days.

1. Do not ever rely on your physical appearance, body, or weight to make you feel “worthy.” At some point we are all tempted to focus on our looks over our mind and heart. I want my girls to know that this is not an option – your brain, heart, and character always come first. If you are feeling bad about those things, trying to be beautiful or sexy will not fix it. If you are worried your friends hate you or you’ll never get into a good college, you need to confront and deal with those issues, and not shift the focus onto your appearance, weight, or getting boys to think you’re pretty. It doesn’t work, and it’s very damaging.

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2. Treat your body with the care and respect that you would treat someone you love. Your body, even if you think you don’t like it or feel like you hate certain parts of it, deserves to be taken care of under all circumstances. By failing to take care of your body you are sending yourself the message that you are not an important human being, and this is simply not true. Even if you think the world is against you, you still need to take care of your body. How do you do that though? Never deprive your body of what it needs.

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3. Healthy living is not deprivation. We need to BREAK the association of “healthy living” with dieting. They are two completely different things, and dieting is not healthy mentally or physically. Living a healthy life means taking the time to listen to your own body and figure out what it needs. It means resting when you’re sick, eating nourishing food that makes you feel good, sleeping enough, exercising so you feel energized and not exhausted, and accepting that your body might not be as thin/curvy/muscular as you might think it “should” be based on what you see and hear.

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4. Exercise should be for pleasure, not punishment. Never forget how great moving feels. Running around, dancing, doing cartwheels and handstands, riding a bike, swimming, taking a walk, throwing a ball – those things are all about fun. It doesn’t have to change. Just because your friends are all talking about whatever the current fitness trend is, or how many calories they burned in spin class, or how many times they “worked out” this week doesn’t mean you have to do any of that to stay fit. Do what you love to do. Never force yourself to exercise because you “should” if you don’t feel good about it or if it feels like a punishment. Never exercise because of the hope or promise of losing weight – it doesn’t do you any good anyway if that’s the only motivation.

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And of course there is more I could say. As you can see from the photos, they are already hearing the messages and adjusting themselves accordingly.

I also know that boys can’t be completely left out of former “womens only” issues, and I’ll be sure to write about the messages I try to send my son another day. But for now, I’ll leave you and my two daughters with this.

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What are your fears about raising girls? What would you add to the messages our girls need to hear?

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Reader Reviews & Comments

  1. My biggest hope is that I don’t get a girl FIRST…
    Same as you, I don’t want to deal with all the emotions of a girl, and the self-esteem roller coaster they will experience.
    At the same time…girls are usually the more obedient, naturally helpful, compassionate kind (sorry dudes). So it will be nice to have one in the mix.

    I myself was an extremely shy, confident girl. I was tortured by that. I felt ugly. I felt left out. I felt unwanted.

    I want to teach my girls confidence in who they are (like you wrote about). I’ll do this by loving the day lights out of them and building them up consistently. I also want to teach them to love others unconditionally.
    If you love yourself, you can love others. And be very, very happy.

    Everything you said about health was spot on. That’s so important, and will be ever more so as time goes on. Gah, it’s so annoying that we have to deal with all these false messages from the world. Thanks Michele.

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    • Now that I have my girls I can’t imagine life without them and would never want to! But I also want to remember all these things are affecting them even if it’s not apparent on a day to day basis. Just looking at the poses in the photos was interesting for me. I’m sure if you have a girl you will be an amazing mom to her!

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  2. This has been making headlines and is a pretty neat video. It has to do with the saying “….like a girl.” What a message to provide to girls.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/AlwaysBrand?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

    As a person of faith, I’ve always been brought up to not worry about trying to please people and that God made you to be you. Kinda like that saying I think you posted the other day, stop trying to be like others, they are already taken. Be the best you! Plus a girl with confidence is attractive. ;=)

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  3. These are great messages that are important for everyone to remember. I feel like I was pretty lucky to have grown up receiving positive messages that led to fairly good self-esteem throughout most of my life. I think the hardest time was going away to college and for the first time being exposed to people who were focused on looking a certain way in order to feel confident about themselves. Unfortunately it seems like now girls younger and younger are faced with body image issues.
    I loved all the pictures of your girls!

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    • I think if you have a good base it’s a lot easier to confront situations like college and then beyond. Confidence and self esteem are crucial! I have a feeling the younger ones, especially with social media, are exposed to all of it more than we were as kids and at a younger age.

      And glad you liked the pictures!

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  4. Once again you have tapped into my brain and wrote about the things I think about daily – spooky!!
    I have two daughters, 4.5 & 2, and on a daily basis I am conscious of the body image messages that they are learning from me and others, both by my words and actions.
    I watched my mom yo-yo diet growing up, and although I focus on health now (and thankfully do does my mom), I still struggle with food as a reward and the whole “diet” & “cheat” mentality. I think that I’m aware of it enough that I keep my internal struggle mostly out of their view – I hope anyways.
    My husband comes from a family that is very weight and beauty focused, and it’s very interesting to watch him raising girls and becoming more aware of this focus and watching shift to a focus on health and internal beauty when it comes to the messages he wants our girls to hear.
    In our house we just try to focus our conversations on healthy eating and staying active, and most importantly modeling that for them. Also, we are very conscious of giving them non-beauty praises – pointing out when they are being silly, smart, inquisitive, gentle. The whole world is going to focus on the outer, so we try to focus on the inner 😉

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    • We try to do the same – focusing on being strong and active, eating unprocessed food and never talking about weight or calories. And non beauty praise is essential now and as they grow! It is challenging when other family members are very looks focused but we don’t see them that much! I’m more worried about what I already see at school. I think where I live being close to NYC it’s magnified. Sounds like you and your husband are doing such a great job with your girls!

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  5. I totally agree, Michele. As the parent of a boy (with another boy on the way), I have similar concerns about our sons growing up around these body-focused messages. Just as the media tells young women how they should see themselves, it also brainwashes boys into thinking they should have totally unrealistic and superficial expectations of women.

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    • Agree Jenny! Since my son has 2 older sisters he’s surrounded by dolls and I can tell he already is getting the message about how girls *should look and he regularly brings naked barbie dolls with him wherever we go. I try to pick my battles but my mind can’t help but go there.

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  6. I have tears reading this. So much of what you said are the same fears that have been in my head since finding out that I was having a girl. And back then I was such a basket case myself after years of dealing with eating disorders that I felt completely NOT equipped to be any kind of healthy example for her. I was petrified of her having the same thoughts about herself that had been plaguing me for years. She basically became my reason to create a healthier, more balanced version of myself so that she could see her mom as a strong role model! (And I’m so thankful that she’s here for a million reasons, but that is certainly one of them!)

    I figure the best thing I can do as her mom is try to steer her in the right direction. The points you made here are perfect and exactly the kinds of things I hope to pass along to her.

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    • I can’t help but think other women have these fears too but aren’t sure what to make of them! I can relate, knowing my girls are watching me really keeps my own BS in check! The last thing I want is to look back and know I could have set a better example for them. I mean, I might think that anyway later on for other reasons, but right now I truly feel I’m doing my best to send them positive messages that they can take with them for life. So happy to have found your blog btw!

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  7. I have a similar fear. Children pick up on a lot of little cues so I don’t ever want my future daughters to me make a remark about my body and have them thinking it’s normal for us to criticize our bodies. I am terrified of setting a bad example and honestly, having to deal with ED makes it so my poor future daughter may be genetically more likely to deal with it too and I honestly have no idea how I would handle it.

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    • I feel like it’s something to play by ear but always be aware of. You don’t want to put ideas in their heads but want to keep on top of what they may already be feeling. Parenting is so tough, we can just do our best with what we know! I am hoping they will be able to come to me with anything so I can at least try to help.

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  8. And that is exactly why I happy to have two little boys! Part of me will always want a daughter, but you are absolutely correct in that young girls are conditioned by society to judge themselves against unrealistic and often fabricated standards of flawless beauty.

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    • It seriously makes me so sad when I see elementary school ages girls dressing up like teenagers and already looking self conscious. I get that a lot of people want to change the messages they get but I’m not sure when and how that can happen! As parents we’re up against so much outside influence.

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  9. What a great post! I think these messages are so important, especially nowadays when kids see and hear so many things about body image through the media. I think the messages that are being sent out can be so harmful and dangerous to girls.

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    • Thanks! Yes, so sad, and I think probably getting worse with social media. There are a lot more voices speaking the right messages too, just not loud enough yet to counteract all the bad!

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    • Aw thank you! That means a lot to me considering how crazy I can make myself over these things. We can all just do our best with what we have 🙂

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  11. I don’t have kids yet but would love to someday. I do have similar fear of having a daughter but I guess as well as all those fears, it brings with it some incredibly special moments. I have an 11 year old niece who is starting to become very body conscious & it’s sad to see her start to doubt herself but I will certainly try to use your advice going forward. Thanks 🙂

    Reply

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