I woke up to an email from my friend Laura Berg (founder of My Smart Hands) with the subject line, I Am Beautiful Project.
Attached was a video Laura just finished editing. I knew about this project because last week Laura had sent out an invitation to social media moms to shoot a short video to be included. As per usual, her request got lost in my daily barrage of email and I didn't get around to submitting something.
Before breakfast, I called my daughter over to watch the I Am Beautiful video.
There's Laura on camera, talking to moms (like me), throwing our insecurities gently in our face. She hits the nail on the head when she calls us out on the ongoing self-deprecating marks we make in front of our daughters — you know the ones I'm talking about. "I'm ugly, I'm fat, my nose is too big, etc, etc." We make these negative comments without thinking, often muttered under our breath or when we think no one is paying attention.
But the beautiful little girls next to us are little sponges, soaking in everything we do and say, emulating us so they can grow up to become us.
Which is where my guilt comes in. As the video played, my wonderfully wise ten-year-old mini-me looks over at me with a sad smile. Apparently she is only too familiar with what Laura is talking about. It appears that even I, "the yummiest of mummies," have been saying less-than-flattering things about myself within my daughter's earshot. With my daughter's eyes on me, we continued to watch a lot of my social media mom friends announce "I Am Beautiful" in Laura's soon-to-be viral video. I felt that familiar lump in my throat, tears of age-old insecurity being pushed down.
And then, from the kitchen, my husband yells out, "You're both beautiful and you know it."
I hugged my daughter. And wrote this post to share with you. Because you're beautiful too. Thanks Laura for making this video. *wipes tears*
If you liked this post, you may want to read Why I'm Going To Stop Telling My Daughter She Is Beautiful, a follow-up post written by Melissa Gaston, one of our awesome bloggers.
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