You Can’t Just Tell Them to Be Confident

Raising daughters in a world that teaches them not to be

Photo by Rizky Sabriansyah on Unsplash

My 6-year-old daughter was hysterically crying, sobbing that she was ugly. It was breaking my heart.

The reason she thought she was ugly? She didn’t know how to properly get her makeup off, and the mascara that once graced her already long eyelashes was now streaked down her cheeks.

Before you come at me for letting my 6-year-old wear mascara—she’s on a dance team, and it’s required for performances. I know. Kind of ridiculous.

The other thing that felt ridiculous was what I was thinking as I helped her wash her face: I wasn’t expecting to be here yet, with my 6-year-old calling herself ugly.

But I’d already started hearing it from my 10-year-old. If not ugly, then chubby. Sometimes just fat.

Neither of my daughters is any of these things: ugly, chubby, or fat.

But welcome to raising daughters.

My 10-year-old daughter has always been confident, often more so than her peers. It’s one of my favorite things about her.

I have a distinct memory of a year or two ago when I told her she looked beautiful, and she replied, without skipping a beat, “I know.”

I want her to hold onto that confidence forever.

But here we are in the tween years, and that strong facade is starting to crack. She’s comparing her body to others, especially in dance, where the standard practice outfit is tiny shorts and a sports bra—there’s not much to hide.

And she’s starting to care more about what other people think. To wonder if they like her.

All of this is normal behavior for pre-teen girls. I certainly went through it at this age. But I didn’t have access to social media, the only “influencers” were the popular girls in school, and very few of my friends had a cell phone until we all started driving.

The world they’re growing up in is different, of course. Louder. More constant. Harder to ignore.

But girls have been learning to see themselves through other people’s eyes long before any of that existed.

Which makes it feel less like something I can protect them from…

…and more like something I have to teach them how to live with.

But it’s so, so hard.

When my (completely normal-sized, healthy) daughter slaps at her thighs and points out the “jiggle,” it doesn’t matter that I tell her it’s totally normal. She doesn’t believe me.

If someone at school says something mean that sticks with her, I can tell her not to worry about what other people think. But who are we kidding? At 10 years old, those comments sting.

But I can’t just tell my daughters to be confident in a world that teaches them not to be.

The best I can do, the best any of us can do, is show them what that looks like.

To try not to criticize my body in front of them.

To wear the bikini, or the crop top, or the short skirt—whatever my inner critic thinks is inappropriate for my curvy, 40-year-old self.

To cook and eat healthy meals, but also enjoy treats, and not frame them as something I “earned” by “being good.”

To let them watch me work out in our basement, and sometimes even join me—not because I’m trying to get skinny, but because I want to stay strong.

I’m absolutely not perfect at any of that. I mess up all the time. But I think for the most part, my girls see me living my life as a confident, strong woman who isn’t particularly worried about what everyone else thinks.

I was not a particularly confident 10-year-old, or even a 20-year-old. It took me until my 30s and then some until I really became comfortable in my own skin. And some of that just comes from time and from living and from learning hard lessons.

Maybe they’ll get there faster than I did.

Or maybe it will just feel like something they were never without.