Happiness at Fault
If you listen to people like Mo’nique, big is beautiful and skinny, anorexic women are the walking dead.
It’s a trend that has gathered momentum; the ideal of the big, beautiful woman.
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Only the big woman is a real woman.
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Everyone else is just starving themselves.
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A real woman has curves.
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A real woman is a healthy woman.
Well, fat is not phat.
Hypocrisy. How can you tell a skinny woman that she is not beautiful because she is ‘anorexic’ and ‘unhealthy’, talk about how beauty is more than appearance, then shove the ‘big is beautiful’ mantra in everyone’s face?
It’s more than an issue of body hypocrisy, it’s an issue of runaway self-esteem.
People should nurture self-confidence, however, it should not be a false confidence either. Mo’nique is not any healthier than a size 0 model.
Happy kids. Unfortunately, ’super’ self-esteem infiltrated parenting as well. Authorities, teachers, and parents became obsessed with raising the self-esteem of children.
It’s conjectured that perhaps the reason the youth of today feel so entitled is runaway self-esteem. If your teachers and parents have been telling you for years that you are ’special’ just for existing, then is it any wonder teenagers feel so entitled to whatever they want?
Bullies. It’s always been assumed that bullies have low self-esteem and that, as such, they act out violently. In contrast to old beliefs, recent research indicates that bullies act the way that they do because they suffer from unearned high self-esteem.
Playground bullies regard themselves as superior to other children; low self-esteem is found among the victims of bullies, but not among bullies themselves. -Baumeister, 2001
But you want your kids to be happy, right? Aaron Cooper of mykidshappiness.com suggests, that when parents pledge allegiance to the happiness of their offspring, too many kids…
- Believe that having fun or getting their way are the most important things in life.
- Operate as if they’re the center of the universe.
Unfortunately, that’s the heart of the Super Self-Esteem Movement, the yearning for happiness.
3 comments
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February 27, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Aura Mae
Being at peace with who you are is not dependent on making others “wrong.” I can be OK with my size without trashing someone smaller.
With children, a healthy self-esteem usually comes from a balanced world in which the child is neither the center nor on the outside. The best lesson my mother taught me is that life is not fair.
February 28, 2008 at 3:26 pm
trish
What a great post! I think that parents these days love their kids just for being, which gives a child a false sense that it doesn’t matter what they do, they are entitled to whatever just for breathing.
I listen to talk radio and on this one program people call in with their problems and parents often say, “I have two beautiful children (daughters, sons, whatever).” And the talk show host often responds with, “Would you love them less if they were ugly?” If think the point is often lost on people that it doesn’t matter what your child looks like, it matters ultimately who your child becomes.
February 28, 2008 at 4:49 pm
thedailydish
Amen, Aura Mae. Either extreme, whether you’re starving yourself or stuffing yourself, you’re gonna wind up in the hospital. If you are naturally skinny, great. If you are naturally big-boned, fabulous. JUST BE HAPPY WITH WHO YOU REALLY ARE and stop playing with fate - or in this case, fat.