Hey parents, "loving" your offspring and "supporting" your offspring are two very different things.
This is something I truly will never fully understand, as a parent, a woman, or concerned citizen of our world.
Parents who support their children no matter WHAT. Sorry but this, I just do not get. We must love our children at all times, this is a given, even in their worst moments, love is unconditional. What I’m talking about are the parents with young daughters who are posing on their social media accounts in lingerie, but they’re not models. This I already don’t get. I’m no prude, I have ZERO issue with young girls posing in campaigns topless, or for lingerie brands, or embracing their youth and their beauty. Being sexy is fun, and I think all women should feel sexy, whether you’re a size 2, or 22, find your confidence, believe in your amazing qualities and be all those things. If that brings you the sort of confidence that enables you to take daring photos of yourself, girl go for it! I LOVE IT.
But this is not that. What I’m talking about is a girl who isn’t even twenty yet, taking provocative photos of herself, posting them, and the dad commenting on these same photos with eye heart emoji face, and hearts. Ummm…hmmm…WTAF dad?!?! No I’m sorry. I simply cannot imagine Yannick posting eye heart emoji faces on a photo of our girls even if they were laying at the beach in their bikinis, a normal way to be dressed while at the beach. I mean, this is not an area where we need to be more encouraging as parents, I feel like young kids are on hyper sex drive as it is, do the parents of people not even in their 20’s need to fuel the fire?
My opinion on this is a resounding HELL NO.
Besides aren’t we then just objectifying our own flesh and blood, teaching them that they really are just the sum of their parts??? Let’s think about this for a moment, what are we really teaching our young girls if we back them so hard with these types of life choices that they’re making???
Personally as a parent, I chose to go overboard in the encouragement department with our girls when they do things, like get promoted in their jobs, or land a dream job, or score well on a test they were anxious about. I like my girls with big brains, and beauty, not when their tits and asses front and centre. I mean let’s be honest, any girl can present themselves in this fashion, don’t act like that’s an “accomplishment” to be proud of, I’m just saying.
Speaking of enjoying your youth, and beauty, I’m not saying for one second that young woman shouldn’t be grateful for the state of their abs, or their arms, their thighs, or their asses. Love them in your teens. Take all the nude photos of yourself you want in your 20’s, give them to your man, have them in a file somewhere so when you’re in your 40’s and 50’s you can remember that your body was once taut, youthful skin. I was just saying to Yannick the other day that us women need to stop bitching and moaning about our bodies all the damn time. (Well me specifically, I’m a friggin nightmare with this!) We need to love them, and celebrate them at every stage they’re at. I for one look back and can’t believe that I was ever unhappy with my teen body enough to throw up to try and make it thinner, better. Nor, can I believe that I also thought I wasn’t one of the cutest, fittest girls on our Toronto Argonaut Sundance squad; POST TWO BABIES. Now that I’m almost fifty, I really, really wish I could turn back the clock on this one thing: my piss poor attitude about my body through every decade. Not only has it mostly always been strong, minus a brief time with a ruptured disc, but I have to say, without ego I had been pretty cute. I simply wish I had been kinder to myself, and spent more time loving myself instead of looking at all the ways I wished I was different. Nothing I can do about the past, but I can certainly turn this around for my next thirty, forty years.
Although I will say this about things I could have done something about, that I could have made BETTER…man oh man, did I ever make some ridiculous style, hair colour, choices in my youth. Wow guys. It was brutal. I’m so embarrassed that I ever thought some of the things I rocked were fabulous. I will also say this, after seeing some photos of myself from the 90’s; I will no longer be so hard on my eyebrows for not being full and bushy. Shit. Based on how thin I had them tweezed in the 90’s it is amazing that I have any at all! Thank you so much eyebrows for coming back, even half strength. I’m beyond thankful.
So my friends, let’s make this pact together, let’s promise me that we will love ourselves more today than we did yesterday…and the more the next day, and the day after that, and so on, and so on, and so on.
