My Beauty Legacy

I am lucky, my beauty legacy was a good one in many ways.

I am not what you might call a traditional beauty. I have frizzy hair, squinty eyes and am rather overweight. However ask me if I think I’m beautiful and I would say a resounding ‘Yes I am.’  You see I m big fan of Roald Dahl and he always said …

I truly do believe I am beautiful inside and out and I think it’s okay to say that too.

I have an old friend called Kim who was an American beauty queen and really she was such a pretty teenager. Her beauty was not just physical though and there was always something about Kim that shone through.  Kim didn’t go onto model, nope Kim is a child protction  social worker, a single, strong and fabulous mother to three children she adores. The kindliness and grace of who she is really makes her even more beautiful today than she was as a teenager. You can see and feel that beauty.

My mum was beautiful in every way too, she radiated her loveliness and was pretty oblivious to it but her smile warmed everyone heart and she turned heads with her twinkly eyes.  She never bothered much with her appearance (there was much more to do in life) but she was so full to the brim with warmth and love she outshone even the most glamorous mum, people clamoured to be with her. I think everyone thought of her as beautiful. She filled me with self esteem through example. Fabulous lady.

 

My wish for my daughter is to know she is beautiful too but never care too much about how she looks (because it can become all consuming/fade/be fragile/change.) At the moment whilst many of her friends are loving make up and glitter nails she could not care less. I am glad she doesn’t feel the need to adorn herself age 7 but I also hope age 17 she is confident in her naturalness too.  I want her to know that if she is overweight, in pain, sad,  shattered, mucky, sweaty or what have you, she remains beautiful and that she loves what her body can do and how her smile makes people feel.

Not a big ask!

Not the easiest thing to model either because although I am confident I have my off days and even though I may not say look at the state of mummy! I may well give this out. Particularly, more recently.This year I have been ill and my body no longer works as it used to. It occasionally makes me cross and sad and I have not yet accepted my new limitations that prevent me swimming or playing tennis, riding a bike or even just really going for a walk in the woods. I still see my body as beautiful and useful and  cherish what it can do but its a bit of struggle. It is still early days. I don’t want this to affect my precious daughter.

Research from Dove has  revealed 69% of women say their child has seen them engaging in negative body language habits, with more than a third of mothers (34%) admitting that their child has mimicked their negative beauty behaviors. I am really mindful of the legacy I hand down to Annalise.

Do you want to hear at age 7 what she already thinks about beauty…

Isn’t she fabulous! Long may her confidence continue.

Dove: Legacy,is a great little film that  highlights the importance of women seeing their own beauty so they promote a positive beauty legacy to the girls in their lives, take a look here

I have achieved so much out of sheer self esteem in my life that I know how important this legacy is. I have friends: skilled, gorgeous, creative wonderful people held back by lack of confidence in their looks and their talents. Such a shame. Dove have a mission to improve the self  esteem  of 15 million young people by 2015. Isn’t that a HUGE, FANTASTIC aim!

They have some brilliant tools for parents and young people (7-17)  to help build self esteem and help deal with any beauty anxiety. You can download them at the Dove Self Esteem Project and they really are great!

I think it is important to be mindful of our beauty legacy and try and make it a really good one!