Promoting Self-Esteem in our Daughters
“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” That most famous of lines from children’s fairy tales has been brought back to the silver screen this year in two major films, one a comedy starring Julia Roberts, the other a dark fantasy with Charlize Theron. But I’m not writing about either of these films; rather, I’m interested in the subject that animates both movies, the fairy tale that inspired them, and increasingly our whole culture: beauty.
It is for the sake of beauty that the Queen is willing not just to abandon Snow White to her fate but actually seek to murder her. And it’s a quest for beauty that is increasingly driving so many of our daughters and sisters to extreme measures as well. Nearly twenty years ago psychologist Mary Pipher sounded a call to arms to protect our daughters from the incredibly sexist bent of the media in her book Reviving Ophelia. Whatever steps women may have gained through the feminist movement in the workplace and world of politics, Pipher suggested, those advances are regularly being undermined by a culture and media that bombards girls with the message that unless they conform to a particular standard of beauty they will never be valued. From the unrealistic proportions of Barbie to dangerously thin “super” models, are girls are regularly and relentless assailed by images as artificial as they are catastrophic.
This relentless pressure to “be beautiful” – that is, to present themselves as objects for the attention and approval of men – has been for the last several decades driving up rates of depression, eating disorders, school failure, and suicides. The bitter irony is that the image of beauty we invite girls to emulate is absolutely unachievable. Hours of make-up, special lighting, and digital enhancements create a picture of beauty which is ultimately artificial, yet it an image that too many of our daughters and sisters and even mothers nevertheless judge themselves against. This short film by Tim Piper gives a glimpse into the “reality” of the beauty our girls hopelessly strive for:
So what can we do? Here are half a dozen suggestions, some we’ve been doing in our household for years, others we’re just beginning to try out. A quick but important disclaimer: We’re not perfect parents, and we definitely don’t have all the answers. We’ll each have to find our own way forward, and you may not find all of these helpful or workable. But at the same time I think we can help each other figure things out and support each other as we do. Moreover, I know these are small, small gestures, but they’re a place we found to start. Share what you’ve experienced and what has been helpful in your own home and lives to help our daughters and sisters develop a strong and confident sense of themselves.
1) Get rid of some of the mirrors.
Except for one decorative mirror in our foyer, we have mirrors only in the bathroom. An article we read when our daughter was very young – I can’t remember its title or where it came from – asked two questions we found intriguing: 1) Why do we have so many mirrors in our home in the first place? What purpose do they serve? 2) How can the presence of so many mirrors (and the images of ourselves the relentlessly present to us) fail to make us increasingly self-conscious and focused on our looks? Who knows, maybe with fewer mirrors on the wall they’ll be fewer insecure queens asking who’s the fairest in the land.
2) Avoid television.
Actually, we ended up not watching television (except for the occasional movie) when our kids were young. This proved way, way easier than trying to limit TV (which seems only to make it a scarce and therefore valuable commodity). We did this not because of the shows themselves but because of the commercials, 95% of them which are aimed at making our kids feel inadequate, creating a sense of lack that can only be filled by purchasing the product being advertised, and perpetuating the false idea of beauty. We’ve relaxed that as our kids have gotten older, watching a few programs with them, but we still often turn the volume down during the ads.
3) Tell your daughter she is beautiful…because she is.
I heard a psychologist once say that the more often your daughter hears you tell her she is beautiful the less she’ll seek out these words from strangers. This is important for moms to do, but the psychologist suggested it was just as and maybe more important for dad’s to say as well.
4) Tell her that she’s smart and strong and kind and determined and funny and creative and persistent and hardworking and fun and lots of other things as well.
As important as it is for her to hear that she is beautiful just the way she is, if that’s all she hears it reinforces the distorted sense of our culture about worth and value. There are lots of traits that make someone whole and, indeed, a beautiful person that go well beyond physical appearance. And while you’re thinking of those wonderful aspects about your daughter to name, try to move beyond gender stereotypes. Women are strong as well as patient, intelligent as well as creative, but we don’t always tell the women in our lives that.
5) Arrange for social media “Sabbath time.”
One of the great challenges that Facebook and Twitter and all the rest of the social media that are available to our kids presents is that our children have less and less “down time” – fewer and fewer periods, that is, where they don’t feel exposed or need to be “on” or be constructing and maintaining their “public self.” To one degree or another, we’re always working on our identity and projecting that identity to those around us, but that happens in earnest in adolescence. (This is why peer groups are so important at this age, as they are the main group with whom we test out our public selves.) When I was growing up, home was a refuge from all that, a place where you didn’t have to “be” anyone. With Facebook and Co. on the scene, however, our kids rarely get a break. There’s always their “wall” or some other social media presence that always makes them available to their peers and, indeed, the world. So create – and I’d say enforce – at least a day a week where no one in the family interacts with social media, a day to regain some balance and find a refuge from the constant need to tend your image. It will be hard…but totally worth it.
6) Point her to strong women in the Bible.
I know as you do that the Bible at points can be pretty awful to and about women. But there are also some incredibly strong characters – from Deborah to Esther and from the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7; no name but she sure proves a match to Jesus) to Mary Magdalene – who are worth getting to know. Read these and other stories of women in the Bible, discuss them, and see where it leads you.
One more thing: almost everything I’ve suggested can apply to our sons as well. Though women have had the harder time in our culture with regard to body image and issues of self-worth, from all indications our sons are under increasingly assault as well. And it will only be when our daughters and sons together decide that a persons worth comes not from appearance but character that we’ll all move forward.
Okay, last comment (I promise): Do I sound rather negative about our culture? Look, there are elements of our culture that I love as much as the next person, but let’s not kid ourselves: much of our culture is set up around consumption, and in this world our children are viewed primarily as potential consumers and customers. If we don’t protect them from being objects of exploitation, no one will.
Increasingly I have felt the importance of showing affection to our children and teens. It seems to me that especially as teens they need and crave this. They can get it from us or they can get it from peers. Which would we prefer? Nothing says I love you and value you and have time for you like a hug!
Thanks for your thoughts David, they are always menaingful and helpful. Good luck with that Sabbath!
Thanks, Dawn. And I think you’re so right. Kids – truth be told, all of us! – need to hear again and again that we have value and are loved. It used to embarrass me no end when my dad would say he loves us, especially if we were in public, but now I know how important that was and do it with our kids all the time.
I’ve seen this video several times. Very important to know that the beauty in media is not real.
My sister in law has always made summer the no TV time – for her kids and for herself. Reading, playing outside, learning something new… like a musical instrument. I know there were exceptions or special shows they would allow, but in general, the cable was “out of commission” for the summer months. We did not do that, but we always stuck by the one TV in the house rule – negotiation between siblings is an important skill to develop. — not coercion, but negotiation. And hitting mute during commercials and making a game out of seeing who could name the product before the logo showed up. It was a way to critique the advertising too.
Social media sabbath. I’d like to try that myself… Good luck with your writing sabbath. Just don’t write 5 posts on Saturday to make up for it 🙂
Thanks, Sharon. I love the summer-no-tv rule. There’s too much other stuff to do, and as we always told/tell our kids, if you’re bored, you’re not being creative enough. (Plus, truth be told, I think a little boredom – and learning to live with a little boredom – is okay, too).
I think there’s a basic fallacy underlying this, which is that the desire in women to be beautiful and to be seen as beautiful and to be able to see themselves as beautiful is a function of social pressure alone. I don’t think it is. I betcha most of the girls who watch this video also watch shows like “What not to wear” and the plethora of various make-over shows all over cable TV. And they watch them not because men pressure them to, but because those are girly shows. Girls like that kind of stuff. We men watch “Swamp People” and “Ice Road Truckers” and “Redneck Rocket Scientists” – shows that fulfill a related, though different, desire inherent in men to be strong and be seen as strong and see ourselves as strong (my wife, however, rolls her eyes and thinks those shows are ridiculous). Probably most of the women who watch the video above think to themselves – let’s be honest – “Oh, I wish someone would do that to me!” – at least until the Photoshop bit at the end. Honestly, there’s nothing here up until that Photoshop moment that women haven’t been doing for each other in beauty salons for centuries upon centuries, back at least as far as Ancient Egypt. You can’t create – and should try to create – women and girls who are completely unconcerned with feeling beautiful in some way, shape, or form – because I don’t think God created them without that desire. Same deal with men, but with different desires. Yes, American consumer culture amplifies these desires – our capitalist system rewards effective advertising, which is usually that which most effectively motivates us by stoking and teasing those inherent desires. Just look at beer commercials and men. Marketers are not shy to hook us by our ‘flesh’ as St. Paul calls it, and even those parts of our soul that, while not inherently sinful, are also incomplete without God. I think that’s where the desire to be beautiful fits: it’s not inherently sinful and should not necessarily be discouraged in girls; but it is inherently incomplete if it does not find its consummation in God’s love for us. I think about this a lot with my own daughter nearing 1 year old, and wondering how I as a father will teach her to find and appreciate her own beauty.
I don’t think the issue is that there is something wrong with anyone wanting to be beautiful, but rather that the ideal of beauty our culture holds up is artificial, unattainable, and therefore self-defeating and all too often self-destructive. That is something we can do about, I think.
I concur that wanting to look your best is not a problem in and of itself, but as Pr. Lose said in his reply, the standard set by our culture is unattainable and unrealistic. Further, there is a lot underlying the media we consume (or perhaps runs the risk of consuming us?) that suggests that beauty is the only quality that makes you valuable or worth something as a woman or girl. It is wonderful to hear from family and friends about all the other things that make you special and unique and loveable, but without limiting the amount of media we take in, the reality is that the sheer volume of commercials and TV shows and songs, etc. that push the message that physical beauty is what really counts is just overwhelming and very hard to counteract. “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” is a great book which speaks to a lot of these kinds of issues, and I commend it to anyone who has a young girl (whether it be daughter, niece, neighbor, friend) in their life who they care about.
Thanks, Pr. Lose, for raising this important topic!
Father Thorpus –
I submit that your response is based on a flawed assumption as well: that “girly shows” have anything to do with the way God made women or men. I despise most make-over shows, because the emphasis is not about what externals allow a woman to function fully in the world as she was created, but rather what fashions tell society a certain story about her that is considered acceptable by that society for the role that that woman may or may not have chosen to play.
Beauty inherent in a woman’s baptismal identity is rarely what these shows are about. It is definitely not what the centuries old quest for physical beauty is about. We may willingly, even happily, undertake the pain of the transformation. However, that doesn’t mean the high that a woman might get off a makeover comes from God.
At the same time, a woman might enjoy the attention that a makeover attracts. Or perhaps the makeover is permission to take time to take care of herself in a way she doesn’t feel she deserves or can afford. There are so many undercurrents that have nothing to directly do with appearance.
Additionally, I’ve sat in the chair to get ready for a show. I’ve had my hair dyed, my skin tinted, and all sorts of bindings attached to me in order to play a role. I have come to the point in my life where I understand that street makeup is the same thing. I put it on to play a particular role in the world. What I do with my face and clothes tells the world a story about who I am and how I fit in.
If you want to teach your daughter to appreciate who God made her to be, don’t put any expectations about who she is or what she will watch or what desires God puts on her heart on her. She is a new creation. She will be who she is. She may like blowing things up while she wears fingernail polish. She may see makeup as something a man created within the construct of a patriarchal society in which women are merely things to be seen and sexually exploited. If you assume, you will miss out on the amazing creature she has been individually created to be.
Her beauty has everything to do with God and nothing to do with clothes. History has always made an idol of the physical. Just because someone likes something doesn’t mean God made it good. It just means someone likes it.
I think you left off one important way to help our daughters gain self-esteem: Teach them to help others. It might have been in Mary Pipher’s book where I read that, or an article in some long forgotten journal. I think we spend way too much time trying to “give” our children self-esteem, when they really need to be loved and to be taught to love others. When my daughters were in grade school there was a self-esteem program they were using in class with the mantra, “I am me and I am enough.” All that did was produce a group of bullies. A few years after that they began to emphasize the golden rule, and it made a huge difference in the attitude of the children, girls and boys.
That’s a great point, Julianne. And as Sarah Kay points out in her TED Talk (Wednesday’s post), while it’s incredibly helpful to have people tell you that you can do it, eventually you need to believe and say that yourself. Maybe that’s why it’s called “self” esteem. 🙂
We are called to love our children and teach them to love, to help them and teach them to help themselves and others, and to support them as they learn to support themselves and others. But the mark of the good parent, like the mark of a good teacher, is that eventually your children/students can do these things for themselves.
Thanks for this outwardly focused comment, Julianne. As we see and honor the beauty in others, we can begin to see a different kind of beauty in ourselves…and we begin understanding that our worth and identity are intimately tied to our relationships with others (at times) and not just to our own mirror/self-image. That is freeing, I think. And beautiful!
We have implemented most of these strategies and I believe they have helped us along the way. We only have mirrors in the bathroom, too. And I was amazed at the impact of four days spent in a relatives home…filled with full-length mirrors. By the end, it was affecting MY self-esteem. Good grief. Thanks for the good words.