#BuildConfidence: For Mothers and Daughters
Kim Kardashian West with daughter North. (Photo: Getty)
In The Importance of Being Earnest, humorist Oscar Wilde once wrote, “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.” Just in time for Mother’s Day, The Representation Project (the nonprofit that launched the phenomenally successful #AskHerMore campaign) is launching the #BuildConfidence campaign to celebrate and empower mothers, caregivers, and mentors who model positive self-esteem and body image.
Beyoncé and daughter, Blue Ivy. (Photo: Instagram)
The organization partnered up with research agency TWTW Companies to survey 500 mothers with daughters up to age 10 across the country. The report demonstrated that 84% of mothers say too much emphasis is placed on physical beauty for women and girls and 65% think it is likely their daughter will struggle with her body image at some point. Furthermore, 90% of these mothers have struggled with body image themselves with 51% having negative thoughts about their body at least once a day, and 41% of the mothers surveyed felt pressure to have the perfect body. These days, we celebrate the “Dadbod” for its indulgent flab, indicative of a fulfilling life and stomach, but the “Mombod” is held up to much stricter and impossible ideals. Tabloid magazines talk about celebrity moms who “lost” their bodies and “got their bodies back” before and after pregnancy, as if the female body only exists and is worthy of existence in a prescribed shape and form.
Kim Kardashian West and daughter, North West. (Photo: Instagram)
In an effort to combat these statistics, The Representation Project is publishing the #BuildConfidence Toolkit, helping mothers and caregivers proactively build positive self-esteem and body image with their children, free of charge to mothers on Mother’s Day. They also launched a video featuring a spectrum of luminous figures like US Senator Cory Booker, model Molly Sims, Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi, actress Rosario Dawson, and Yahoo’s own Katie Couric on how their mothers helped them build confidence.
But you don’t have to read through all the statistics in the report to see these facts and to understand the impact they have on daughters who will become mothers themselves. In the spring of 2013, Wesleyan University student Lily Myers went viral for her spoken word poem, “Shrinking Woman,” performed at the College National Poetry Slam in New York, in which she spoke to resounding applause about emulating generations of women in her family:
The Representation Project will be hosting a Twitter chat on Friday, May 8th at 10 a.m. PST with the hashtag #BuildConfidence, in order to start conversation about how our mothers have shaped our confidence. The best Mother’s Day gift might not be a spa package or even breakfast in bed—your gratitude may be what your mom wants and needs, most of all.
Related:
What We Learned From Our Mothers
Celebrities Reveal What Their Mothers Taught Them About Beauty
