In the last few weeks, I’ve been moving through my to read shelf and I have one book that I want to share with you from a body image perspective.
Dara Chadwick’s You’d Be So Pretty If: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies- Even When We Don’t Love Our Own starts “I grew up listening to my mom bemoan everything from the size of her thighs to the shape of her eyes. So you can imagine my dismay the first time someone exclaimed, “You look just like your mother!”
And if you think that is the only time where Chadwick’s words will flash recognition in your own mind, you’d be surprised. With a mission to help mothers change the body image legacies their daughters inherit from them, Chadwick helps readers understand their own body image history while educating them on how they help the girls in their lives avoid a body image crisis. It’s thoughtful, honest, and helpful and a great tool for moms who do not want to do to their daughters what was done to them.
Thank you so much for posting this, Rosie. I don’t have children, but I’d like to start a family soon, and this book gives me such hope. My mother’s criticisms of her own body are absolutely mirrored in my sister and my struggles with our own body image. I realize that I won’t be a perfect parent, but I’d like to make some inroads in ending this cycle of damaging self-consciousness.