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I have an almost 2 1/2 year old daughter so I’m not on the forefront of this dilemma yet, but I still think about it all the time. I have always been a little on the self conscious side and I’m praying I don’t pass that on to my daughter. I try not to focus to heavily on my looks because I know she is watching me. Yes, I still wear make-up and try to look my best. I just don’t try to point out every “flaw” and make a big deal of it.

I’m not a mom or a grandmother yet, but I have something to say!

When I was in my late teens to early 20’s I had TERRIBLE acne. Cysts all over my face, etc. It was so awful that I didn’t even want to leave the house sometimes. Nevertheless, EVERY SINGLE TIME I saw my grandmother, the first thing she would say was, “Hey honey, you’re so beautiful!” It makes me have a lump in my throat just thinking about it. Because why would the word “beauty” cross her mind when my face was covered in huge red cysts?? But I knew she was doing it to encourage me and, get this, I knew that SHE ACTUALLY MEANT IT. She made me feel like it didn’t matter that my face was so broken out. She made me feel accepted, safe, and even beautiful.

I’m trying to be like her with other people. No matter what a girl or woman looks like - whether she’s hip or not, to realize how beautiful she is and to find ways to tell her that. Words are powerful!

This is seriously the reason I was dead set on wanting boys. I know how my own heart feels and how people have made me feel and how I still struggle with it today … not to mention that probably 75% of the girls I know have struggled with an e.d. at some point in their lives … so anyways, needless to say, I had a girl — luckily she’s only one so I feel like I have some time to figure it out - but I do know that the best thing I can do is pray for her and with her that the Lord will help her to have a beautiful heart and to recognize her identity in Christ (and how that identity is not ever affected in the least by anything anyone says ever … )

sorry for the rambling …

I am a mom of a 9 year old girl and it is SO HARD! She is a very pretty child (don’t all mamas say that) and has been told so by everyone from day one. My husband and I have tried so hard to keep her from focusing on the superficial. We always tried to focus on her inner beauty, intelligence, etc.

Umm, yeah, we should’ve have tried harder. She is obsessed with all things fashion, beauty, etc. She is a very thin child and already spends hours trying on this and that to see what looks best. I am really at my wit’s end. We don’t let her watch any “mature” TV, read magazines (except Highlights), and all of her internet is done under my watchful eye (Webkinz, etc.). I have NO IDEA where she gets some of this stuff, school would be my best bet.

Girls are hard. No doubt. No advice here, just a statement. Good luck all you other moms!

My daughter is 24 now and I can tell you at 6 she realized she was slightly more muscular and I mean slightly than her other 1st grade friends and would cry about being fat. I cannot ever remember one comment or conversation in our home relating to weight or size or anything that would have made this such an issue. After that it was a battle we watched without any success at helping her gain a better perspective on her body. Reminding her and focusing on our identity and value in God’s eyes and the fact that he created each of us, seemed to make little difference when the world YELLS its messages so loudly. One of Satan’s more successful ways to destroy a young girl’s understanding of her God-given identity, I just wish we could understand we are enough in his eyes and lay it down at the cross. I believe prayer and prayer and more prayer and then begging God to take it over from there.

You know what stinks? I’m a mom with three girls and three boys and it’s my boys in their teens I’m finding the pressure to look good for so they won’t be embarrassed in front of their friends! Boy, I sure thought I was over feeling such pressure, but it’s there and it’s big and tangible and much more present than it was with my girls.

I just love Jessica’s grandmother! Bless her! I had a grandfather much like that. He’s been gone for 35 years and I still feel special when I remember his kind words about me being prettier every time he saw me. Such a gift I’d love to develop. Yes, that’s what I think I’ll do. Thank you, lovely ladies.

I’m a mom of 3 teens, 2 of which are girls. Each of them are similar in many ways….but overall have completely different personalities. My oldest daughter is 16 almost 17 and she has a slight issue with insecurity. She’s very beautiful and well liked among her peers but she still struggles with “thinking” she looks like a dork! (Which is not true) My youngest, she’s 15. From the day we brought her home….she was confident and sure of who she is. Her outlook is great and she never waivers on “what if” someone doesn’t like me? She just plows through life determined to have fun along the way. She’s also strong spirited and well liked.

As far as pressure to be beautiful….both have experienced it. The cool thing about their relationship is that they’re only 18 months apart and they are like best friends. I teach at their high school….and both girls and their friends eat with me in my classroom EVERYDAY! Why? Because outside my doors are all the things that the world throws at them….mean girls, poorly behaved students, filthy language, and the list can go on! In my room….they can just be themselves. And I like that!

It’s great to have kids that love the Lord and live outloud for Him!

I have a 3 year old daughter, so, like Tracy, I’m not in the forefront of this battle quite yet. However, I have been trying to get in the habit of telling my daughter that she is beautiful ALL the time, and my husband is doing the same. Of course she wants to be like Mom. So when she sees me putting on makeup, she wants to put some on too, and I let her. And then I tell her how beautiful she looks. But I also tell her how beautiful she is when she rolls out bed in the morning or when she’s covered in peanut butter or random, unidentifiable toddler crust. I want her to know that SHE is beautiful. Makeup and all that are nice to look at, but they don’t make her beautiful. She does that all by herself because she was made by the Most High God and He created her to bring beauty to the world.

I think one of the biggest obstacles to my daughter is my perception of myself. I remember growing up and my Mom being upset about her weight and down on herself about it. It had an impact on me. Even though I am not perfectly happy with myself, and of course who ever is, I try to model good behavior to her. I try not to make negative comments about myself, especially my body and weight, because I don’t want her thinking that way about herself. I want to break that cycle and I want her to know she’s beautiful. I don’t think beauty is everything either of course, but I am trying to strike a balance between making sure she knows she is beautiful inside and out as well as encouraging her other qualities too (work-ethic, creativity, etc). As she gets old and starts noticing the rest of the culture more I plan to try to make sure she knows how ‘fake’ the pictures/bodies of the so-called ‘stars’ really are. That they are (at least most of them) not real. No clue if I am going about it the ‘right’ way but I am doing the best that I can.

I’m a 50 year old mother and educator and I agree that this is a very serious issue…and not a new one. I realize now that I grew up thinking that I was beautiful because I was treated “as if” and told that I was all my life. My parents are gone, but I wish so much I could thank them, because pictures reveal that might have been a difficult thing to say with a straight face!! This gave me the confidence to go forward and become the person that I never REALLY had the potential to be.

Next, I told my own daughter, now 25, how beautiful she was everyday. I soon realized that was not enough. We refocused and I changed my verbage to “What’s beautiful about you and everyone is on the inside.”

She watched my every move as far as diet and exercise…how I responded to weight gain, etc. She felt and still acutely feels connected to my own successes and failures in the looks departent and responds to that with a complicated mixture of pride and pressure. Perhaps she sees her personal DNA is so wrapped up in mine that her future is reflected in my present?

Obviously, this is a super-complicated issue. Media and peer-pressure makes it even more so.

I’ve gone on for too long, but maybe this lends some insight.

I am tall for a woman (5’9”) and my daughter is as well. We aren’t the “tall and model-thin” tall either, we’re the tall and meat-on-your-bones type.

I remember feeling so very gigantic next to my friends who ranged from 5’3” to 5’6” and were dainty little things, I wished I could be as small as they were. My daughter is now going through the same thing and I don’t know that I have a lot of wisdom to offer her. What I do tell her is that she cannot change her physical stature, but she can embrace it. There’s a lot more places to hide an extra 10 lbs on a taller frame, LOL.

tell her she is beautiful, and that beauty for women doesn’t just mean “small, skinny and dainty” but that it comes in all sizes. I tell her that at some point in her life she’ll make peace with how she looks if she remembers that God made her just the way He meant her to be, and that embracing that and carrying yourself with confidence is a very beautiful thing.

I don’t buy magazines because I think those pictures are air-brushed nearly beyond recognition and that most of those women don’t know what “proper diet and exercise” mean. Putting those in front of teen girls who are already hyper-sensitive to every little “flaw” already is just cruel. Something to think about.

My baby girl is just shy of 2, so we aren’t quite there yet with the beauty related pressures.
However, growing up my Mom was often telling me how beautiful I was. I remember she would comment on little things like “how I had the most perfect toes of anyone in the world, they were all just the right size with the perfect amount of toe nail.” She spoke things like this into my heart continually. As I got older, and especially in my 20’s these things came to mind often. The result was a good sense of body image and confidence in the way God made me. I hope I can do the same for my daughter.

My daughter is 14 — in the midst of the crazy time for all of this. God has done an amazing work in her, keeping her grounded. MUCH of what a child becomes — girly, athletic, strong-willed, etc. — is simply inborn, and must be prayed over and shaped and molded. I was the most insecure and concerned about my body child EVER. My daughter is the opposite. She is sure of herself and strong. And she, like Cara, is tall and athletically built while I am petite. I do frequently tell her how beautiful that is, and what a blessing it is to be so strong for her team (she is an athlete), and how healthy she is. I am concerned that her clothes FIT, not that they are a certain number (and, bless her, she has to wear a BIG number and it makes me SO mad at clothes manufacturers!) I focus on her being healthy. And, yes, I have had to get over my own body issues so that I don’t pass them along. If I were ever concerned that her tummy was getting too big, I started looking at what she was eating — too much sugar? Yes. Too many sodas? Yes. I would talk to her about that, not her body. And, yes, now that I think about it, I have changed which magazines I buy — I thought it was for me, but mostly b/c I don’t want her seeing those images as “perfect” and to aspire to. We talk a LOT about what we see ‘on the red carpet’ or wherever and how much work it takes to look that way or how unhealthy someone may be or how unrealistic it is to expect women to look like that.

However, when her environment/ peers cause problems about an issue (my daughter got teased b/c of her complexion) do all within your power to help ease the teasing — not to bend to those people, but to protect her heart. If she were teased for NOT sleeping with someone if would be a different story, but if I can ease her pain by helping her with a problem like that, I will.

I don’t talk to my daughter about her outward appearance much — she’s a tomboy and still doesn’t care AT ALL what she wears. I help her straighten her hair when she’s in the mood — which is rare. It’s ponytails and blue jeans and t-shirts to school EVERY day while her friends are at the pinnacle of fashion. I’m enjoying saving the $$$! :-) She knows that, above all, I want her to have a heart for the Lord and shine His love to the least of these — and that will allow her to be more beautiful than anything else.

Thanks, Sophie, for addressing this issue. Yes, being the Mom of a girl these days is quite a challenge. I am currently reading 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter by Vicki Courtney. I highly recommend it for any Mom of a girl. She specifically addresses the issue of developing a positive body image. Fortunately, my twelve-year-old daughter is very secure and strong-willed. (Of course, there was a point in her early toddler years these qualities nearly drove me over the edge!) As she has grown into a preteen, I realize these qualities are to her advantage and am so grateful for her sense of independence and confidence. She is very honest about her feelings regarding her outward appearance, and in return, I am honest about how I feel about myself. I try to encourage physical fitness and a reasonably healthy diet without placing emphasis on weight. I’ve also told her over and over, whether watching t.v. ads or looking through magazines, that those models have been airbrushed and touched up in every possible way to look like that! It’s not real. I encourage her to be more concerned with her actions instead of her appearance. As my Mama always said, “Pretty is as pretty does.” I think another thing we Moms can offer our girls is inaccessibility to some of the not-so-modest clothing. Fortunately, my girl loves some jeans and t-shirts! But there have been a few times where we’ve not exactly agreed on clothing choices, and since I foot the bill at the checkout, the “mature” clothes stay in the store. If it’s not purchased, it can’t be worn. Keeps things simple. And usually we find an alternative that is cute without being revealing. No doubt about it…my little boys make life easy when it comes to clothing, hair, and grooming. But my girl is a treasure….just takes an extra dose of patience right now as we trudge into the teen years. (She’ll officially be a teenager in about nine weeks!!!)

I can’t agree with Heather enough. I am currently leading a group of ladies through the 5 Conversations Bible Study (that Melanie was involved in) and it is such a good resource. For instance, there are five verses that we touched on in reference to this topic which she calls “Beauty by the Book”. 1 Samuel 16:7 1 Timothy 4:8 Psalm 139:14 Proverbs 31:30 1 Peter 3:3-4

I have put these in a notecard spiral (a la Beth Moore) for my daughter so she and I can begin memorizing them.

Also, when my daughter (now almost 9) was a toddler like several who have posted comments here, we went on a lot of walks and found many bugs and creatures. I would always point out that the bug/spider/creature was beautiful if for no other reason than that God made it and God doesn’t make anything ugly. I guess I hope that if we can point out early on that ALL creation is beautiful in God’s eyes, then maybe it is an easier transition later to apply that to themselves.

And I have to brag on my daughter and Jesus just a bit… by some amazing work of the Holy Spirit, my daughter has really grasped and knows that beauty in God’s eyes is in the heart and not on the outside. We have had several conversations recently where she has been able to show me that and hearing her say it just blesses me so much.

So, enough of my dissertation.

:) Donna

I just want to thank Sophie for bringing up this topic and all the previous commenters for your insight. I have a 6.5 yr. old daughter and appreciate all of your helpful thoughts. Some things that many of you have mentioned I do already. I had thick glasses as a child and was so self-conscious. I felt so ugly especially since my two closest girlfriends were cute and got all the attention. I have made an effort from day one to tell Savannah how beautiful she is. I know my parents loved me, but I don’t remember them actually telling me that I was beatiful in their eyes and I think that negatively affected me as a teenager. I also make sure that I tell Savannah that as beautiful as she is on the outside it means nothing if she is not also beautiful on the inside. Thanks for reminding me to be better about bringing this up more often and to be careful about being negative about my own self-image (especially weight). The last thing I want to do is encourage a future eating disorder or something of that sort.