My Daughter is Beautiful

There is so much out there about the overemphasis/ pressure on girls and their appearance. Parenting articles and research warn of the dangers of telling a girl she is beautiful.  Even the secular world can observe our celebrity obsessed, over botoxed and liposucked, eating disordered culture and know something is not right.  I have read several articles on this topic and they all seem to offer a similar answer:  reject completely the notion of femine beauty.  Don't tell girls they are beautiful.  Or, as I have read, take it a step further and reject the gender differences altogether.  In fact, according to one article I read in a parenting magazine, don't even use the words girl or boy because it tells children too much already of how they should act.  I've even heard of a family who is not telling the world (people out of the home) if the child is a boy or a girl because of how they'll be treated.  It's much better for that child to discover who they are without the pressures of gender labeling. Umm . . . yea . . . much better to be treated as an IT.  That kid won't need therapy.


Thank heavens, much of what I have read offers other options.  When you compliment girls, make sure to compliment their mind and physical strengths or, even better, their virtues.  "An excellent wife (other translations say a virtuous woman), who can find? For her worth is far above jewels." ~ Proverbs 31:10.  I won't pretend I have the answer to this challenge parents face.  This is a problem that originated when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and realized they were naked and felt shame.  I would challenge any woman living in the US today to say that they have not felt the pressure to be like the models they observe on TV, movies, magazines, etc.  I know that so many parents out there want to spare their daughters (and sons, but that's a topic for a different post) about the pressures of the perfect physical appearance.  Even if you intend (as we do) to limit TV, movies and other influences, unless you live under a rock (you all just thought of that Geico commercial didn't you) it will be impossible to spare your children of all the visual imagery there is to be had.

One way I can help my daughter in the trouble over physical appearance is to never speak negatively about my or another's body.  This is so much easier said than done.  But it is something that will help both of us to recognize our value aside from appearance.  We can speak about needing to be healthy, but I'm going to try my darnedest to not tear myself down.  Stretch marks, scars or signs of age just mean that you've lived, right?


The Church also offers a different answer than the world: redeem the notion of feminine beauty.  Women are beautiful!  Don't you think there is a reason, beyond our culture, that when we see a baby or young girl our first response is, "Oh, how beautiful!"  It is that deepest part of us recognizing the beauty of God's creation.  Babies are beautiful because they are created by God through a beautiful act of love.  According to some wonderful wisdom from Blessed Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, the woman's body is an image of the soul's receptivity to God's love.  God gives the gift of faith, yet we must be open to receive it.  This is why the Church is called the bride of Christ and is referred to with feminine pronouns.  A woman's receptivity to her husband leads to new life, just as our receptivity to God leads to life in the spirit.  St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians "'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church." (Ephesians 5:31-32)  Wow!  I guess that highly annoying song by Beyonce is true, "Girls, who run the world, girls!"

To redeem the twisted, fallen view of womanly beauty we can read what St. Peter wrote to women in his first letter, "Your adornment should not be an external one: braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or dressing in fine clothes, but rather the hidden character of the heart, expressed in the imperishable beauty of a gentle and calm disposition, which is precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:3-4)  In saying this, he is not arguing that external beauty is bad, but that it is second to the beauty of a pure soul, the beauty that lasts.  I plan to tell my daughter she is beautiful because she was created to be outwardly and inwardly beautiful!