I grew up with the idea that woman are meek, fragile, damsels in distress, the princess in a tower who’s prince kisses her in her sleep and everything is sunshine and roses.
I grew up with Photoshop enhanced models telling me to wear this or be uncool, magazine covers touted “10 Best Weight Loss Tips” and “Lose those love handles!”
Now that I am looking back, I see my mother in the middle of it all, going back to college for yet another degree, typing late into the night, the glow of our bulky computer, the dial up internet helping her on her way.
I see her working overtime.
I see her missing whole chunks of the day with us at work again, then class, then home making handmade dinner for the 5 of us.
I didn’t see it then, the echoes of my peers and media bouncing around my head. Self conscious images reverberating back to me.
Too short. Too fat. Bad skin. Old clothes. Gross. I saw myself as gross and I know I’m not alone in having this experience of soul crushing, vastly distorted self awareness. We suffered silently together. Each picking away at ourselves in the mirror each day in our own ways. Pinching cellulite and attempting to tame poofy hair with endless hair spray and bobby pins. Dressing too grown up or covering ourselves in oversized clothes.
Is it right for children to feel this way? Does every generation have this awful phenomenon of self loathing and deprivation of love and worth? How could we not see the good at work around and within our lives? Maybe it was because we were so hyper focused on every detail of ourselves?
I can’t travel back in time to deliver some self esteem to my younger self, or redirect my attention to the strong, successful, intelligent woman in my life, but I can give that to my daughter.
Baby girl,
I hope you are confident. I hope your ego is inflated so high that you rise above the lies society will fill your world with. But not so high that you lose yourself within the clouds.
I hope that you walk into a room with your head high, shoulders back and know that you are going to make it through anything your day throws at you.
I hope wear black. I hope you wear bright colored lipstick and experiment with crazy colored everything. I hope you go through each phase having a blast discovering what you like to wear and who you might enjoy growing into as a person.
I hope you stay curious and research everything and anything that pops into your head even as some around you may laugh at school or reading, I hope you stay deep within a pile of books and relish every new nibble of information.
I hope that when you are brave enough to approach your crush, no matter how it goes, the possibility of rejection does not crush you.
I will build you up so high that no one will be able to knock you down.
I will build you and your brother up to be kind and aware that his actions and words matter.
You can get through this baby girl, I’ll be right there with you.
A Mom in Maine 