I never thought I’d need to have the body image talk with my daughter so soon
The folded laundry in my hands fell to the dog-hair covered carpet. My five-year-old had just pinched her minuscule triceps and told me, ?I hate my arms. I hate how my skin wobbles.?
The room she shares with her toddler sister was spinning?a swirl of bedtime stories, crayons and cubbies full of tutus.
Moms and dads try to prepare for the tough conversations they know are surely coming: about death, sex, bullies and lockdown drills at school. But for this particular talk, I thought I’d have more time. I had imagined sitting across a tiny café table with my daughter, maybe when she turned 13, or maybe as young as age 10. We?d have hot chocolate and a heart-to-heart about what it?s like to be a girl and a woman. I?d warn her of the perils of dieting and how some people don?t like their bodies. She?d tell me how she felt about her changing shape, and I?d tell her about the miraculous ways we work and all the gifts she?d experience in the years to come. Instead, she was only five. Just a little girl. And I felt like I was sinking in quicksand during the most important teaching moment of my parenting life.
As a mom in recovery for an eating disorder, my mission?since the day my first daughter was born?has been to raise girls who never have to suffer from the same mental, emotional, physical and spiritual trauma I have experienced living in my body, tortured by my mind.
At first, I reacted the way most people would, and dismissed her comment as silly.
?Your arms are perfec...
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