You’d Be So Pretty If. . . (Guest post by Irene Roth)

You’d Be So Pretty If …
by Dara Chadwick
Reviewed by Irene S. Roth
Rating: 5 Roses

Chadwick’s book is about a very important topic: how we can help our daughters accept their bodies, even if we don’t have a perfect body ourselves. What a wonderful and empowering message to give adolescent girls and their mothers.

When I started reading the book, I couldn’t put it down until I read it from cover to cover. I found Chadwick’s approach of the subject very honest and forthright. I wish every adolescent girl and mother could read this book. It would really help to strengthen their relations with each other.

The dominant themes and ideas in the media reinforce the notions of beauty and health as super thinness. In fact, if you’re not thin, you’re not healthy. But this attitude is far from right. In fact, it has created a neurosis among women in our society that has been passed on from generation to generation. Somehow, women always feel that they aren’t thin enough or beautiful enough. They look for any kind of outside approval to validate themselves. And this is precisely where we all go wrong.

Beauty is based on our internal barometers of ourselves much more than an external assessment by others. Beauty is based on self-love and self-acceptance, and it should have very little to do with what society says about us or how we should ‘ideally’ look.

We are deeply influenced by our mothers. It would be great if mothers would simply show their daughters unconditional love and acceptance, regardless of how thin they are. It would also be wonderful if mothers would show girls how shallow and fickle the media is and that they should not allow their self-esteem and self-love to be victimized by the media.

We all need to help our daughters love themselves more. Perhaps by taking a few small steps towards showing them the importance of self-love and self-acceptance, mothers can take that first small step towards stopping the cycle of self-hated that has been ravaging our adolescent girls for a long time.

Irene S. Roth is a freelance writer for kids and teens. She has more than 300 published articles and book reviews for kids and adolescents. She is a reviewer for Stories for Children Magazine, Booksneeze, Tyndale Publishers, and Voice in the Dark. For more information about adolescent self-esteem and self-confidence, please visit
http://adolescentgirlsblog.wordpress.com/