A Promise to My Girls

I am keenly aware, every day, that I am raising daughters. I am also keenly aware that being a girl/woman is incredibly tough sometimes when it comes to our bodies. I also know that while I'd love to shelter my kids entirely from that horrible self-criticism that comes with being a woman, it is neither possible nor healthy.

Instead, I offer up this promise to them - in public - so I have accountability:

• I promise that I won't do anything with/to my body that I will ask you not to do. I won't starve myself to lose 10 pounds for a big event. I won't be reckless with my health in pursuit of a body looks as if it has been artificially re-touched, airbrushed, surgically altered, and then roasted.
• I promise I won't criticize my body in front of you. I will strive to not do it at all. I will strive to be healthy, to be active and to develop and maintain healthy habits.
• I promise I won't criticize your bodies.
  
• I promise to do my best to teach you good nutrition, health and lifestyle habits that will hopefully make it easier to feel confident.
• I promise to love you, and to do everything in my power to help you love yourself.
• I promise to love me - to strive to understand and emulate, my place as a daughter of God, created in His image.
• I promise to age gracefully and to act my age. I promise to not spend my time and life obsessing over stopping time and dressing or acting like I'm 20. Even now - I'm too old for that already.
• I promise not to sit on the side of the swimming pool in street clothes because I don't look like Tyra Banks in a bathing suit. I promise to get in and enjoy the water with you.
  
• I promise to spend more time living and planning than I do ruminating over something that is no more than an illusory physical ideal.
  
• I promise to enjoy life.

Additionally, I promise to live and teach you to live the following:

• Life is an exercise in discipline, knowledge and love.
• We are daughters of God - part of a greater plan and have infinite worth. We have a purpose, a mission and have the power, intellect and capability to make good choices and make a difference in the world in which we live.
  
• Quality is always better than quantity when it comes to food (and most other things).
  
• Healthy does not equal boring. Healthy means balance, discipline and satisfaction.
• Being active is a part of having a vibrant life. It is not a punishment - self-imposed or otherwise.
• There are many times that there will be someone prettier, taller, thinner, more fit, more bronzed, less wrinkly, better dressed than you and me. Realizing that and accepting it is half the battle. There will people that look at you and think the same thing. It is all relative.
  
• How you dress matters. It conveys a lot about you on the inside. It is a powerful declaration of respect for one's self and one's environment. Confidence and self-respect and situationally appropriate clothing go a long way in getting others to respect you for you who are.
  
• Dress, speak and act with purpose - as you wish to be perceived.
• Bad days are to be expected. Bloating, bad skin, exhaustion, life changes, wrinkles, sags, lines, marks and the like are to be expected as well. Strive to live happy, live healthy and live active - and embrace the person that emerges.
  
• Be aware of those around you who may not see themselves as you see them - and be gentle. Being a girl/woman is tough.
  
• Live with purpose.

It's a tall order - I'd do well to review it more often. I've been overweight (I weighed more in college than I did 9 months pregnant with either kid). I have chronically awful skin. I had enormous feet until I grew into them. I was the tallest kid in my class for years (only to end up just slightly taller than average). My stomach, post children, is no longer flat. My skin bears the tattoos of motherhood - wrinkles and dark circles and stretch marks and a few dings and bruises from stumbling over a toy on my way to save a child from a nightmare at 3 a.m. My hair isn't straight or curly and will never be wash and go. My hands have horrible eczema and my knuckles are swollen. I bloat. I cannot pull of trendy even when I want to. I've complained and wailed and gnashed my teeth - and I've realized that I have two choices: I can live with discipline and purpose and joy, or I can spend my life (and money) pursuing the fountain of youth and cover girls at the end of the rainbow. I can strive to be healthy and dress appropriately and live or I can hide in a closet and wait until there really is a fountain of youth - letting life pass me by.

Kids are smart - and perceptive - they model their lives after those with whom they are in close proximity. Every day, through my actions, I teach my girls how they should behave, live, view themselves - either consciously or sub-consciously. Having them has made me more cognizant of who I am - as a woman, a daughter of God, a wife and a mother.  It has made me readjust my priorities and realize what is important and what isn't.

It has also made me deeply grateful for my mother - who taught me about exercise and food and cooking and health. And showed me, more often than not, that life is about more than the size of your jeans.

I never want my girls to see someone they don't love staring back at them in the mirror. I can't prevent that from happening, but I can help them navigate that rocky path with grace and confidence and an understanding of who they are.

I promise.