Body shame!

Body shaming is something that I never really put any thought into. I was taught to be kind and not to just look at the outside value of something. I can’t say that I have always followed this policy but I’ve tried to most of the time.

The reason I gave it more then a brief thought recently was that my little girl and I went dress shopping for a family wedding. We traveled through several stores and my heart broke a little more with each dress. My daughter’s excitement turned to tears, she began to ask me why she was bigger then her friends? Why did she have to be so different? I ask her what she means, she says she is bigger then most of the girls in her class. That she couldn’t wear the same styles and outfits as her friends. She said how her friends made comments to her about some of her outfits. I explained to her that she wasn’t big, that she was just built differently then her friends. I explained that she was growing faster then some of her friends and by high school they will probably catch up to her. I don’t know if what I said helped her or not, all I could do was hug her and keep looking for that perfect dress. We ended up giving up that day and going back out the next day and finding the perfect one for her.

With another daughter on the way my thoughts go to, ” How can I keep her from feeling the same way? How can I protect my girls from feeling less then what they deserve?” I am sure every father goes through those same thoughts. Luckily my daughter seems to have bounced back after the dress shopping tears as soon as the dress was found. I am not sure I will be able to as quickly, I have always felt a dad’s main job in life is to protect their kids. In reality we aren’t really able to protect them from what hurts them the most; the things people say, people think, write. It is not physical that hurts as much as it is what the our childrean feel themselves comparing and listening to the kids around them. All we can do as parents is reinforce the positve things, be there for when the bad days come, and hope its enough.

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