If You Want Your Daughter to Love Herself

A love-filled note to all of my mommas & moms-to-be. This is a hard and emotional subject. But it’s important and something that has weighed on my heart for years and even more so recently so I’m going to say it. To all of the sweet mommas - I know you know that your words, your actions, your behaviors, your decisions matter. They make a huge impact on you, your family, and your children. I know you know that. Day after day we see all of the good that comes from your influence. You rock. I’m not a mother but as women (especially moms), I think we hold a huge responsibility for positive influence that we’ve all held too loosely and let be taken from us. I’m not mom shaming or trying to call you out, but I do want to call you to action. I want women to be hyperaware of the things I’m going to mention because I think sometimes we’re hyperaware of the opposite and that’s what leaves a negative generational impact regarding women, our bodies, our health, and what we believe we deserve. Who we believe we are.

As a mother, you want the best for your child, your daughter. You want her to know she deserves the world. You want her to know she can make all of her dreams come true. She has the right to find great love, be treated well, be respected. You want her to be filled with joy and happiness and be successful. You want her to be healthy, prioritize herself, take care of herself, be kind to herself, be confident, love her body, know without a doubt that she is loved and she is beautiful. Right? I mean, I’m just guessing but I have a pretty good feeling about it. Unfortunately, the “do as I say not as I do,” builds barriers between her reality and this magical, empowered life you want for her.

You want your daughter to know she deserves the world- she needs to see you believe you deserve the world.

You want your daughter to chase her dreams - she needs to see you chase your dreams.

You want your daughter to believe she deserves to be loved, respected and treated well- she needs to see you believe you deserve to be loved, respected, and treated well.

You want your daughter to live joyfully and successfully - she needs to see you live joyfully and successfully.

You want your daughter to love herself - she needs to see you love yourself.

You want your daughter to prioritize her health (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) - she needs to see you prioritize your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

You want to see your daughter speak kindly to herself - she needs to hear you speak kindly to yourself.

You want your daughter to be confident - she needs to see you be confident.

You want your daughter to love her body- she needs to see you love your body.

You want your daughter to know without a doubt that she is beautiful- she needs to see you believe deep, deep down in your soul that you are beautiful.

I have worked with woman after woman who acknowledges that her disgust, dissatisfaction, and manipulation of her body stems from what she was taught growing up. And not always “taught” directly. It’s seemingly harmless comments, small things adding up, day-to-day self body shaming. I hear 20-somethings, 30-somethings repeating the same things I hear 80-somethings, 90-somethings repeating. “I need to lose weight.” “I look awful.” “I used to be skinny.” “My hair is a mess.” “I look terrible in this.” “Look at these wrinkles.” “Look how fat I am.” “Do this make me look fat?” “I need to lose 10 pounds.” “I’m unmotivated.” “I’m disgusting.” “I cheated on my diet.” “I can’t wear that.” “I don’t want to show too much.” “That shows my fat.” “I’m so stupid.” “I’m such an idiot.” “You have to say I’m beautiful because you love me.” “I hate my body.”

Geeze and I could think of a million of ways it’s become common place, second nature for women to completely bash themselves. How about you - What do you say when you look in the mirror? When you make a mistake? When you miss a workout? When you are dissatisfied with your body? Would you ever say the same mean things you say to yourself to your friend or child? I’m here to tell you from professional and personal experience - your daughters notice. The way you talk about yourself is internalized - by you and your daughter. If you say it enough you believe it and they believe it. Didn’t you notice when your mom put herself down? Did it make you sad when your mom put herself down? Did you wish that she would just stop speaking poorly of herself, recognize her beauty, and stop letting this world and unrealistic beauty standards steal the joy and fulfillment out of her life? If you have a daughter, she’s thinking the same about you. And her daughter will think the same about her. And on and on. Generational.

Unless we fix it. Unless we stop tearing ourselves down and show our daughters, our friends, our sisters, our families that we are good enough. We are worthy. We are beautiful. We are intelligent, capable, successful. We make mistakes and acknowledge them to grow, but we don’t live in fear. We live in joy. We prioritize ourselves and our health. We attend to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health in a non-obsessive way. We honor ourselves. We expect respect and we provide it in return. We have bad hair days but we don’t insult ourselves over it. We don’t love our bodies every day and that’s ok, but we also don’t body shame. We don’t manipulate our bodies and call them disgusting. We acknowledge and accept our discomfort then go about our days making normal, healthy decisions. We don’t go to extremes letting our food and bodies and diets and rules control our lives and steal our joy. These are the things I want to teach my daughter, my children, my friends and their children. This is the change I want to see so badly and I think if we can do this, we can avoid a lot of problems. It doesn’t fix everything, but it’s a dang good start.

P.S. This isn’t just for moms. This can easily be applied to dads or anyone that has influence over or the responsibility to teaching another person. Also, I love my mom and she’s beautiful.