Last week when Lydia and I had our monthly lunch date, we went shopping to take advantage of the pre-back-to-school clearance sales. She’s got plenty of shirts that still fit her but she’s grown right out of all of her pants, so we stocked up on jeans, coming home with five new pairs. Yesterday afternoon she modeled them all for us, and as I watched her turning this way and that in front of the full-length mirror, I couldn’t help feeling sad.<\/p>\n
She didn’t seem excited at all about the new clothes. Instead of preening the way she used to, this time she eyed herself critically, looking over her shoulder to assess the look of her butt in all the pairs of jeans and tugging self-consciously at the hem of her shirt as each little movement pulled it almost imperceptibly out of place. Throughout the ordeal–for it can’t be described otherwise–her mouth was pursed in a little moue<\/i> of disapproval.<\/p>\n
Though I have seldom, if ever, written about it here, I myself have a whole slew of body-image issues, and it pains me to see my daughter developing them this young. There are plenty of things I would like to change about my appearance, but I must have been at least two or three years older than she is now before I started feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. I have tried not to pass my insecurites on to her; I don’t complain about my weight in front of her or let her hear me obsess over the many and varied flaws I see in the mirror. There’s no getting away from the fact, however, that we live in a very looks-conscious society, and no matter how much we try to counter it, little girls are feeling the pressure to look good earlier and earlier. Lydia is all but alone among her peers in not being allowed to wear makeup (since when do mascara and lipstick belong on nine- and ten-year-olds?!). A good number of her friends dye their hair and go to the beach in skimpy bikinis, and at least one girl has been given permission by her mother to pierce her nose when she starts fourth grade. FOURTH grade! It’s madness.<\/p>\n
As Lydia stands on the cusp of adolescence, I have an overwhelming sense of apprehension about my ability to help her navigate it without too many bumps and bruises. My opinions and beliefs already weigh so little in comparison to the fancies and whims of the pack of ten-year-old girls she spends her days with. I can tell her until I’m blue in the face that she’s smart, beautiful, strong, capable, and so on, but one classmate’s sidelong glance at the too-wide or too-narrow flare of her jeans, and my assurances scatter like ashes in the wind. Sometimes I feel on the verge of despair.<\/p>\n
How do mothers do this? How do we get our girls to the other side, preserving their sense of self and our own sanity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week when Lydia and I had our monthly lunch date, we went shopping to take advantage of the pre-back-to-school clearance sales. She’s got plenty of shirts that still fit her but she’s grown right out of all of her pants, so we stocked up on jeans, coming home with five new pairs. Yesterday afternoon… Read More Sigh<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}