My seven year old had an audition earlier this week and she was very excited about it. She has modeled in the past, although it was mostly privately without an actual agency. I digress, this was her first audition with an actual agency. I won’t lie I know that my daughter is beautiful and as much as I tell her that she’s beautiful I always take the time to remind her that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty is.

So when she came home from the audition it seemed as though her excitement had faded somewhat. I asked her how the audition went and this was her response,

“It went ok mommy. I just have to wait for all my wiggly teeth to fall out and grow back. I also have to grow two inches.”

I guess the look on my face must have gave away my feelings because she quickly added, “it’s ok though cause once all of that is done I can maybe do commercials.”

Now maybe I’m not used to the whole child modelling world but to me that was nothing normal to tell a child. My daughter was excited about losing her teeth because of course that meant the tooth fairy would pay her a visit. She’s already tall for her age, so why would she need to grow two inches. But what angered me most of all was the fact that she thought that once she had changed all of these things she’d be able to be on television.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but after seeing the downward spiral that most child stars go down and one that I’ve gone down myself it would seem that telling this to a child is wrong. That growing two inches could easily turn into losing 10 lbs and ten more after that until you’ve got a young girl who is anorexic.

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the statistics surrounding young girls and self esteem that it alarms me. Maybe it’s a sign that the campaign that I’m launching is truly needed because if a grown woman ( who I’m sure has imperfections) can tell a child she needs to change to be accepted then we obviously need to change what society deems as acceptable.

So will my daughter continue to model- maybe. I haven’t quite decided that yet, I’m not sure if I want her subjected to a world so shallow. I will say though that I did sit down with her and have a long talk about what healthy self esteem is. We spoke about what it means to be beautiful, and what it means to be the best you that you can be. I also took the time to explain to her that this isn’t something she has to do unless she truly wants to. I explained to her that loosing teeth is a natural and wonderful part of growing up, so is getting taller.

But most important of all I explained to her that God made her and loves her just as she is. I’m not perfect and I certainly don’t expect her to be.

I never imagined I’d have to talk to my seven year old about this, but in the modern day and age we live in it seems as though our children are exposed to the real world a heck of a lot younger than we were. That is a scary thought, especially to me as a mother of two girls.

My only hope is that she will continue to listen to me as we communicate, and that she will grow up to be a self assured young lady. My hope for you reading this is that you have a talk with your children both male and female about what healthy self esteem is and what it means.

xoxo

Elle

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