Straight Talk : Beauty, Brains, or Both?

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I am the mother of three adorable daughters. Beautiful, really; every last one of them. As their mother, I am responsible for purchasing their clothing, helping them with their hair, and otherwise making them look fabulous. It’s a good thing they are naturally beautiful, because I only do a moderate to fair job of glamming them up. Why? I don’t want their physical appearance to become disproportionately important to their self-worth.

From excessive accessories to underage make up, young girls seem increasingly more obsessed with their looks in this creepily competitive arena. According to Lisa Bloom’s new book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, “15 to 18 percent of girls under 12 now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up and self-esteem is down; and 25 percent of young American women would rather win America’s Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful college women say they’d rather be hot than smart.” Yikes!

Where does this come from? Modern media is certainly a big player, but we can determine how much of a role the media plays in our daughters’ lives while also modeling healthy self-esteem. I, for one, make a choice every day to “one up” the media by being a stronger force in my daughters’ lives than popular culture. (I’ll do the indoctrinating here, thank you very much.) We don’t do reality TV, celebrity tabloids, or fashion magazines, and since they were young enough to understand, I’ve made a conscious effort to emphasize how much I love and admire them for being intelligent, strong, kind, and creative. Cute and pretty are just icing on the cake.

Do not misunderstand me. I color my grays on a regular basis, eat sensibly and exercise to keep my weight down, and never leave home without my lipstick. (Someday I may even enjoy clothes shopping somewhere other than Super Target with a child on my hip.) My girls know that looking my best is important to me. And I do like to look nice–pretty even–but that’s not what I want to be known for. It’s not the substance of who I am, and it’s not the substance of who our daughters are either.

So how do we fight this growing tide of shallow superficiality and teach our daughters that their value doesn’t lie in their updo or their cup size? I have three suggestions I hope you’ll thoughtfully consider.

1) Watch your mouth. Why is it that the first thing to come out of our mouths when greeting another woman is a compliment for her hair/body/outfit/accessories? We do this with our young girls as well. “She is so adorable!” “Look at that cute little outfit!” “I just love her hair!” (I have a tendency toward this too, ladies, so don’t think I didn’t notice the three fingers pointing right back at me.) This is the substance of Lisa Bloom’s article in the Huffington Post, and it reminds me of my long standing wish that more mothers would complement each other on the things that really matter. “You’re so patient with your teenager!” “I can’t believe how well you just handled that tantrum!” “You really know how to make your children feel loved.” Doesn’t that sound nice? The same should go for our daughters.

2) Tune it out. I mentioned this already, but we have significant control over how much the media influences our daughters. Be the mom! Turn off that raunchy TV show that over sexualizes teenage girls, refuse to purchase that trash disguised as a magazine in the grocery store checkout aisle, and for Pete’s sake, don’t drop your daughter off at the theater to see some sorry excuse of a movie that goes against everything you say you stand for. Search out modern day heroines in books and media that are worth emulating. (My teenage daughter and I are big fans of Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger.)

3) Tone it down. Everyone draws the line in a different place, but I hope we can we all agree that plastic surgery on otherwise young and healthy bodies, over the top accessories and designer clothing being purchased on credit cards, and unhealthy dieting to the point of unnatural skinniness crosses everyone’s line. Please, someone, stop the insanity! Teenagers don’t need implants, 60-year-old women shouldn’t be bone skinny, and no one needs to go to the grocery store dressed like Victoria Beckham. (Really. They just don’t.)

4) Ramp it up. Your expectations for your daughters, that is. I may or may not have been both a cheerleader and Homecoming princess in high school. While I realize this would be worthy of bragging rights for some people, it’s slightly embarrassing to me. Why? Because it didn’t really get me anywhere, and even at the time I didn’t feel like it was “me”. But as a teenager in the 80‘s in my blue collar Midwestern town, I knew that a relatively cute face and personality made it practically impossible for me to be anything other than that: a cute face and personality. Luckily, my parents (and I) did expect more from me, but I shudder to think of all the girls out there who really do feel like their worth lies in being hot and popular. (Disclaimer: I don’t think this is true of all cheerleaders, homecoming queens, or even beauty queens, but there are reasons the generalization has stuck over the years.)

So later today when I’m helping my teenage daughter straighten her hair and choose an outfit, you better believe we’ll be talking about the latest book she’s reading, presidential politics, and why some girls think beauty is more important than brains. At least I know where she stands.

QUESTION: What do you think is more important to mothers today: being smart, kind, and creative, or being hot? Where do you draw the line for physical beauty?

CHALLENGE: Try complimenting your daughters and other mothers on anything other than their physical appearance.