Fathers And Body Image: How To Talk To Your Daughter About Beauty

The Good Men Project Magazine:

By Emily Heist Moss
The Good Men Project Magazine

Your children are sponges. We soak up everything we hear you say, everything we see you do, and many of the things you thought we didn't notice.

I still remember the names of two girls my father identified as "pretty" in a fifth-grade class picture.

Read the whole story: The Good Men Project Magazine

Comments

[babybelle]

04:19 PM on 02/27/2011

I wish my Dad had not spoken to me at all.
Most of what I heard from him was negative and it did affect me.
Even after he died I had a dream about him where he is yelling at me.
Very sad .

[NoSillyName]

11:46 PM on 02/24/2011

Seriously? Neither of my parents ever talked to me about anything.

[maori]

08:32 PM on 02/24/2011

I think it's interesting how women's body image issues are usually blamed on men.
Women do it to each other, women can make other women feel worse about their bodies and looks than men. Right now, there's a women's magazine cover praising Katy Perry for 'that body'. Every other story is about KIm Kardashian, or some other woman who's basically just a body.

It's one thing to complain about the way men treat women like sex objects, but when we participate, or do it to each other (and we do it a lot), those complaints lose effectiveness.

[signgrrl]

09:37 PM on 02/24/2011

women/girls are much more vicious to each other, than men are to women. as a rule. at least as far as looks go. women dive right in there and rip you to shreds, men are more off-hand. this is my experience, every one here will have their own.

[jf12]

04:32 PM on 02/24/2011

Nah. Children are for the most part antisponges: things you tell them repeatedly still don't stick. Were her thesis true she would value expressing diverse opinions, but instead advocates refraining from commenting.

[Jazmo]

02:34 PM on 02/24/2011

Sometimes it's even the small things. In 4th grade my daughter's hair got cut short in a bob because it had been damaged in a swimming camp over the summer. Her father told her off-handedly that she looked better with long hair. It stuck with her.

[BlueZoo]

07:04 PM on 02/24/2011

I was told I had "table legs" and I only weighed 83 pounds and was 5' tall! That comment has stayed with me my entire life and I only wear pants or very long dresses because of it. You just don't forget these things and they are indelibly printed on our psyches.

[blacksmithn]

01:17 PM on 02/24/2011

As the father of a daughter, I had hoped for something a bit more substantive in the way of suggestions for talking with her about the subject. Refraining from remarking about a woman's appearance as if that has some bearing on her accomplishments seems self evident and is something I already practice.

[signgrrl]

09:32 PM on 02/24/2011

you would think it would be self-evident but you would be wrong. lots of men $uck at talking to their daughters at all, let alone about their self-image. my father, for instance . . . . .