There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter, which is why I am instilling empowering values coupled with an open line of communication from the very beginning.

Just the thought of my 14-month-old daughter, Everly, incites an emotional reaction that’s more powerful than any feeling I’ve ever experienced. Heck, I’d bet money that writing this article will make me cry at some point during the process because I just love her so damn much. She’s cutting a particularly difficult tooth this week, and, aside from a fever, this is probably the most uncomfortable experience of her short life — something I know, after more than three decades of being alive, will someday seem insignificant.

I grew up in in the ’80s and ’90s and became an adult in the early 2000s, all decades I like to consider sweet spots when it comes to having just enough technology to improve quality of life, but before social media was so powerful that a single slip-up could become life tarnishing. Today, our goals for raising girls are similar, yet with the prevalence of privacy-invading apps, extreme Photoshop, and a media obsessed with celebrities and stardom, we have a relatively new set of battles to face.

And while each of us may handle these situations differently, there’s something you and I can both agree on: we want our daughters to be happy, well-adjusted people who are confident in themselves! Because of this common thread uniting all mothers of little girls, I thought it would be beneficial to highlight some of the more important things I plan to teach my daughter about life.

1. Assume Everything is Photoshopped

Today’s standards of beauty are unrealistic. The flawless, poreless skin you see on the cover of Vogue isn’t real. The insane cleavage on that Victoria’s Secret poster has likely gotten that way through the use of something the lingerie brand’s former resident photo retoucher, “Sarah,” likes to call the insertion of “chicken cutlets” into the bras and swimwear.

When preparing images for print, she told Refinery 29 that she was instructed to make the Victoria’s Secret model’s breasts larger and retouch areas where hair and stubble would normally be, reminding readers, “They come to these photo shoots and, like, they have their arms up in the classic beach pose, and they have, like, hairy armpits. They all have stubbly pubes — all the normal stuff [non-models have].” So there. You’re beautiful, girl, pubic hair, stretch marks, scars and all!

2. Your Sexual Orientation Doesn’t Matter

Your sexual orientation doesn’t matter to me and neither does the gender you choose to identify with. I’ve already considered that my daughter may be anything other than straight. She may not even wish to keep her body the way it is, but if you think I’d chastise her for being who she is, then you’d be mistaken.

Expect that your daughter may one day come to you about these issues, too, and when she does, prepare to support her. The American Psychological Association published a study showing that LGB teens who experienced parental rejection grew up to be “8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide, 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, and 3.4 times more likely to have had unprotected sex than LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection.”

3. Know Your Body and Explore Your Sexuality

One day, we’ll have version of “the talk” and I’m not dreading it. In fact, I’m looking forward to being open with you from an early age, teaching you to identify your genitals by their proper names, and hopefully helping you feel comfortable coming to me with anything. When that day happens, this is what I want you to know.

You have a vulva and a vagina and a clitoris and they are glorious. They will serve you well to masturbate, look at your vagina in the mirror, and enjoy who you are as a sexual being. Don’t be like me and not masturbate for the first time until you’re in your early twenties, explore and discover your body sooner, rather than later. Heck, do this before you even consider having a sexual partner — you may find that the urge to have sex is greatly diminished, or even subpar to what you can do for yourself.

Like Joyce McFadden, psychoanalyst, speaker and author of “Your Daughter’s Bedroom: Insights for Raising Confident Women,” said, “If we don’t teach girls to understand and respect the capacities of their bodies, and help them navigate the complexities sexuality can impose on their social lives, it takes a toll on their self worth and makes them lose faith in us.”

4. You Don’t Have to be Famous to be Important

Okay, okay, I’m totally biased, because you will always be important to me, but in the grand scheme of things, and contrary to what the media might have you believe, you don’t have to be rich or famous to be important. Whether you’re a kindergarten teacher, a nuclear physicist, or a stay-at-home-mom, the job you do contributes to society in a positive way and is meaningful as long as it makes you happy.  

I say this because society’s infatuation with celebrities has become so out of control that there is a bonafide psychological condition known as celebrity worship scale (sometimes known as syndrome), or CWS for short. While individuals with these disorders are among the more extreme cases of celebrity obsession we hear about, there is a similar, less intense attitude that spans many media outlets. I mean, our country did just elect a celebrity into office, for crying out loud.

And if you think our teenage girls are exempt, then think again. Psychology Today released details showing a “correlation between the pathological aspects of CWS and poor mental health.” Although it cautions that most of the studies have been conducted on adults, “studies relating to body image have also included adolescents, and have found that among teenage females (aged 14 to 16 years) there is a relationship between intense-personal celebrity worship and body image (i.e., those teenage girls who identify with celebrities have much poorer body image compared to other groups studied).”

5. Take Social Media with a Grain of Salt

It may seem like your life revolves around what your friends are doing on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and all of the other cool apps your mom will be too old to understand, but there’s one thing I know about life, and it’s try not to believe everything you see or read on social media. The majority of people only post what they want you to see. Sort of like a really good magic trick, social media has invented a platform for us to create an illusion of the perfect life.

I also know this may be asking the impossible, but try not to worry about how many “likes” you get or followers you have. You’re worth so much more than a click or double tap. 

And please, for the love of God, don’t post that partially-clothed selfie. You will be grounded, young lady. For life.

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The post V is for Vagina: 5 Things I Want My Daughter to Know About Life appeared first on EcoSalon.

Mothers, daughters, fathers, sons; we are all taught about our body image from the people who raise us, whether consciously or, sometimes more powerfully, from the actions of our parents or caregivers. Being a woman means internalizing most of this information, both good and bad. 

This young poet explains that big idea in a heartbreaking and spot-on description of her own experience as a young woman (watch below). 

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The post This Teenager Will Break Your Heart With Her Truth About Being a Woman (Video) appeared first on EcoSalon.

A look at what it means to be a father’s daughter. 

I recently spent a few days on a road trip with my father. Dad and daughter road trips aren’t really common when you’re in your late twenties. In fact, to my knowledge, they’re not really that common at all. But they should be.

When I was in middle school my father proposed our first “D&D” (the nickname for what he deemed Dad and Daughter adventures), a road trip to Yosemite during spring break. We proceeded to have a D&D on every single spring break until I graduated from high school. We have had two “reunion” versions since I graduated from college. That’s what you call commitment.

Before I learned how to walk, I was dragged up mountain passes in a child carrier. When I was 8, I was on the back of our tandem bicycle, pedaling 200 miles from Seattle to Portland, and at 15 my father was placing a copy of Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey into my hands. To say that my father was attempting to instill a sense of adventure in his daughter would be an understatement.

But what he also did was made a lifestyle of pursuing the things that I wanted and enjoyed doing completely achievable, not because I was a girl or a boy, but simply because I was a person, and people have passions. He didn’t put me on a soccer field and a volleyball court because those were girl sports, he just knew I needed to burn some energy off and if he showed me a variety of options I would eventually choose one that I felt good about. In turn, I felt supported, and as cliche as it sounds, really did think that I could do anything that I wanted. The whole “girl” thing wasn’t even part of the equation.

In a world of commercialized gender roles, girls grow up inundated with gender specific messaging, from pink princesses to Snooki. How do we raise empowered daughters that embrace the beauty of being a woman but also believe that they can do anything they want to do, even in a world that’s often inhibited by gender roles? There’s no simple answer to that question, but it certainly starts with being there.

Take Alice Ozma and Jim Brozina for example.

When Ozma was in the fourth grade, and her parents had just gone through a divorce, her father made one simple commitment: to read to her every single night for 100 days. If you have listened to the NPR story on the father daughter duo, you probably teared up. The story is touching and moving, and a tribute to the best of father daughter relationships, and the power of simple actions. After 100 days, the two were so addicted, they stuck to it, keeping up a tradition that lasted for 3,218 days, taking them all the way up to her first day of college.

As Ozma told NPR, “I don’t think fathers and daughters are spending time together every night.” It’s not just every night though; parents and children, and especially daughters, aren’t spending a lot of time together at all.

This hadn’t occurred to me until I started talking about father-daughter relationships with friends of mine. Many of them are strained, most are non-communicative, and few would be defined as close. With my own father-daughter relationship put into perspective, I have in turn grown more and become more appreciative, acknowledging how much that relationship has come to shape me.

I look at that relationship and wonder how much of my father’s and my relationship is “good” or “close” because we have both been intentional about making a concerted effort to build a bond. Whereas I will pour my heart out to my mother, I am more reserved with my father, but I am good about going to him for advice that I know he is happy to give.

He’s the one who can analyze my recent half marathon time and what intervals I should be trying to get to, when I need a map, he’s the first person to call and if a friend has a car problem, it’s like having a personal mechanic on a direct line. In other words, he is always there. Present. Providing direction, but letting me take the lead.

He does the same, knowing what works with his daughter and what doesn’t, never having pushed me to do anything I didn’t want to do (volleyball won out over soccer), never once bringing up the fact that I was a “woman in a man’s world” and never pushing for too many personal details. We have a bond because we have a mutual respect, and that isn’t because he’s my father and I am his daughter, it’s because he has raised me to value community and connection, and that personal relationships take work.

It takes a lot to raise a daughter. I know that not because I have one, but because I am one. And we live in a strange world; on one hand sexualizing gender at an ever earlier age and then on the other, doing everything we can to take away a woman’s rights, stripping her of her ability to stand up for herself and take control of her own life. We are so protective and full of Victorian values that we don’t end up teaching what healthy, committed relationships actually look like.

Navigating these modern day waters is anything but easy, but it’s also essential.

Want to support your daughter? Be there. Every time. Even when she fails. Honor who she is and what she is passionate about. Teach her the importance – better yet, the necessity – of love and self-respect. Instill the kind of values so that you know she’ll make good decisions without your oversight, because too much oversight and she’ll start doing the opposite. Remind her that she is smart, beautiful and powerful, not because she is a woman, but because she is an amazing human being.

And take her on road trips.

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