I apologize in advance for the nekkid doll pictures, but it was the only way to illustrate my point.
This morning, as Tortoise was getting ready for school, Vixen brought a nekkid Belle doll out of her bedroom and sat on the couch next to big sis Tortoise. I have no idea who undressed Belle, but it's irrelevant to this post anyway... here is the doll as Tortoise saw her this morning:
When Vixen got up and wandered away, she left Belle on the couch next to Tortoise. Tortoise picked her up looked her up and down and said "Belle is fat." then put her down.
I looked at Tortoise with shock... "Why do you say that Tortoise? Belle looks perfectly healthy to me. She's not Fat.". Tortoise picked Belle back up and showed me Belle's side view... and the small curve of her belly...
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| Side view of Belle's nekkid tummy |
I remember being a teenager, 5'9" and 145 pounds size 8... and I didn't think I was thin either.... why??? why why why??? As the mother of soon-to-be-4 girls I am worried about their self-image. If Tortoise has this crazy idea that this doll is fat, then what will my other girls think? How do I prevent this concept from getting such a strong toe-hold on them that they can never be happy with their very healthy bodies? Of course it swings both ways...
take the TV show "Drop Dead Diva"... the actress in that show is content with her body... content isn't the right word. Calling herself a "diva" isn't content. It's no more healthy for my girls to see that TV show than it is for them to be inundated with posters of models that are so underweight you can see every rib, every vertebrae. I want my girls to be healthy...
but girls today have idiotic ideas on what is healthy..
Drew Darrymore is beautiful! When she played in Charlie's Angels she was a healthy wieght and gorgeous.. but paired up with very thin Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz, the newspapers and entertainment industry labeled her as fat. FAT!? NO WAY! Since then she has dropped a good 20 pounds.. pounds that she probably couldn't have afforded to lose and be truly healthy, but that's what she had to do to maintain a good image with the entertainment industry... she's even in Cover Girl commercials now... and -to me anyway- she looks dangerously thin. I found her much more attractive in Charlie's Angels than in those commercials.... *sigh*
How do I stop this crazy cycle?? How do I get my girls to understand that they are beautiful? TELLING them how beautiful will only go so far... I know this. What other options do I have?? any ideas?
2 comments:
The first thing I wanna say is that not all tv shows for the 8-18 age group are bad. I agree Hannah Montana has things like that that she probably shouldn’t watch (especially with her attitude) but shows like iCarly she watches at our house (and we watch when she isn’t there) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it be an issue on the show about weight. They even have a “chubby” friend who is completely confident in himself (and I really do believe that they did that for a reason to show them that people can be confident and be overweight). I don’t think there is anything wrong with iCarly, but you knew that she watched it after the other kids went to bed at our house anyways. I just said that to say I don’t think it’s fair to use all 8-18 geared tv shows as an example when there are a select few that are fine and good to watch.
The second thing I wanna say is I have noticed that about tortoise. The other day when I was up there babysitting when you and Lion went out, she commented to me probably about a dozen times how fat I am and how it’s too bad I’m not “lucky like she is and can be skinny.” I didn’t say anything to her except okay, and I know you and I give each other fat jokes a lot in front of her, but at her age she really does know what’s appropriate to say to an authority figure and what’s not. I did feel like she shouldn’t be saying it to me, but I didn’t say anything to her. She’d laugh about it every time she’d call me fat or when I was doing something for Vixen, she’d laugh and when I’d ask what she was laughing about she would say something along the lines of it’s funny watching a fat person do that. And again, I never said anything to her. I should have but I didn’t. I just thought to myself “Tortoise, if you think being skinny is the only thing that matters in this world, and if you think for someone to be happy they need to be skinny, then I need to pray for you a whole lot more because you have no idea."
well, this worries me... I really do need to know when she says such incredibly rude things.... :/ and that she seems so wrapped up in being skinny... I will address both issues when she gets home today
as for the shows for her age... I wasn't saying that TV was to blame.. at all. i simply stated that she wasn't allowed to watch them on a regular basis, so it's not possible they are the culprit. And i didn't mean to imply that they are all bad either... guess I need to communicate better.
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