My Daughter's Self-Esteem Journey

I worked as a magazine editor for years, including a stint managing a women’s fitness magazine. On one hand, I was proud to run a publication that celebrated health, exercise and the power of the female body. And on the other, I knew I was feeding a darker reality, one featuring endless photos of way-too-thin women.

Even as I struggled to make sense of this duality, my daughter (pictured above), then only in grade school, caught my love of the glossies. An avid reader, she’d set aside The Black Stallion to sniff perfume ads. Amused, I’d watch as she studied the eyebrow-grooming advice as intently as her spelling words.

Eventually, and for many reasons, I decided to move my family to Maine. But the scary parts of the media world followed us. Even as I’ve watched my daughter, who rides horses, grow up doing barn chores with hay in her hair, I’ve been alarmed at the way unrealistic expectations of beauty have affected her. Color-correcting foundation, bronzers and all kinds of electronic devices meant to torture her gorgeous red hair into something it’s not clutter the shelves. I sometimes worry that deep down, she’s bought into the beauty-industry mantra: “You’d look better if only you...”

Because I know firsthand how insidious that message is, it’s easy for me to impress upon my daughter the distortions of beauty in our culture — the insanity of comparing ourselves with heavily airbrushed photographs, the disturbing perception that being hot or sexy is more desirable than being strong or brave. “How you look to other people doesn’t matter,” I preach. “Beauty — like happiness — is an inside job.” And while I sometimes compliment her truly lovely appearance, I make a deliberate effort to mention more important qualities first, praising her smarts, her kindness and her wit.

Does she believe me when I jump up on my soapbox, or even listen? Probably not. At 17, she’s too busy defining herself, balancing experimenting with liquid eyeliner, mucking out horse stalls and applying to colleges.

But I know that self-confidence isn’t something a parent can simply teach a girl, and it’s harder if you’re as conflicted as I am. Psychologists say that self-esteem doesn’t come from receiving compliments or winning stacks of blue ribbons. It comes gradually, as parents encourage children to do admirable things like climbing back on a horse after a fall or reading all of Wuthering Heights.

Navigating the minefield of popular culture is as hard on my daughter as it is on her friends, as they learn physics and calculus while checking out America’s Top Model. But so far, she seems to surf between these worlds with more honesty and grace than I ever had. To her, there’s no incongruity at all between going to school without makeup or contact lenses one day and wearing false eyelashes and high heels the next.

Even at so young an age, she and her friends seem to grasp that personal style, from the clothes we buy to the sports we choose, doesn’t have to please anyone but us. Nothing is permanent, and it’s fine to try lots of things on for size, paging through them like so many magazines. When we find something more lasting, we feel it. It’s as warm as a nuzzle from a friendly horse — or a hug from a girl who knows more about real beauty than her mother ever did.

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