An Open Letter To My Son About Beauty

I am so aware of the role I will play in shaping my children’s world view. How they see the world and see themselves will largely come down to what I show and teach them. It scares the crap out of me.

One thing that I am quite aware of and know that I want to be intentional about teaching my children, is how they see beauty. The world will try and shape their view of what beauty looks like. Which changes all the time by the way and varies in every culture. There was a time when it was considered beautiful to be extremely pale with visible veins. Which is the complete opposite to now!

The world’s view on beauty

But I believe the world’s idea of beauty is toxic. It teaches people that they are not good enough, it instills a belief that there is something wrong with them. Also it teaches that beauty is something you should chase all your life. Quite frankly there is more to life. And every single person deserves love, acceptance and is beautiful, regardless of what they look like compared to photoshopped models covered in makeup. (Can you tell I feel strongly about this?! ha!)

You only have to look back 10 years (the recent #10yearchallange highlighted this) to see how much beauty standards have changed. Thin, overplucked eyebrows, swooping fringes, blue eyeshadow. These were all the rage back then but already are laughed at. The fashion and advertising industry change the benchmark constantly.

This is an issue that affects us from such a young age too. For many of us, issues with how we look have always been a part of life. We go into our teenage years already very aware of how we look and believing that there is something wrong that we need to change.

I’m scared for my son and my future children. I don’t want them growing up believing any of that. I don’t want them to have an ingrained fear or belief that there is something wrong with the way they look. And I don’t want them to treat other people badly because of how they look either. To be nasty to a person solely on appearance is just downright ugly.

And so, I am writing my thoughts down now in an open letter to my son and future children. I hope that I will help to mould a better perception of beauty. Hopefully they will read this letter when they’re a bit older and will understand.

My hope is that they will love themselves just as they are. The way that I love them just as they are.

An open letter to my son about beauty

You are only 21 months old as I write this. You’re so young, so innocent and so unaffected by life but already you’re being exposed to a toxic idea of beauty. Everywhere we go there are adverts with heavily photoshopped faces, half-naked people and a message of ‘you are not good enough’. I wish that I could save you from these images. I wish I could shield you from an advertising culture that wants you to be dissatisfied with the way you look. Just so that you spend money.

I wish I wish I wish. But that is not the reality of the world we live in. You will see these images. Everywhere. The world will try and teach you that you are not enough, that you are not beautiful the way you are. That there is something wrong with the way you look.

But that is NOT TRUTH.

It will be everywhere and will come from all sides, you will feel the pressure when you watch movies, you will find yourself comparing to photoshopped images and your appearance will be commented on by friends and family. I’m so sorry my boy. I am sorry that this is the world we live in.

I NEED you to know this: you are beautiful the way you are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing that you need to add or take away. There is nothing that you need to change, that you need to work on. God made you perfectly as you are. I need you to know it to the core of your being.

I want you to do something for me – I want you to look at these images of men and women that are used in advertisements. Take a good look. Then I want you to take a good look at the people that you see every day. The people walking down the street, your friends, your family, and your colleagues. What do you see?

I want you to see what is real and what is fake. What real people actually look like. Real people have wrinkles. Real people have moles. Real people have stretch marks and cellulite and scars. Real people come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They all have different shaped noses, different colour skin, and different length toes!

Perfection is not real and is not attainable. Especially when the idea of beauty changes all the time. There is beauty in variety. We are all just different arrangements and assortments of features. Not one certain arrangement is more beautiful than the other.

I want you to take every person you see as they are, to see them as beautiful rather than holding them up to society’s standard of beauty. It’s my hope that you treat all people like they are beautiful. Please never make negative comments on another person’s appearance. Those words can last a lifetime. Please never give in to social pressure to mock another person’s appearance for the ‘banter’ or whatever it will be called when you grow up.

But most importantly I want you to see yourself as beautiful. Or handsome or good looking or whichever phrase you want to use. I want you to believe that there is nothing wrong with the way you look. There are no mistakes, nothing that needs to be changed. God created you as you are, and He doesn’t make mistakes.

From the one who will always see the beauty in you, just as you are.

Mum x