daughters

We can keep the diet talk, the self-criticism, the weight loss rhetoric, and the calorie-counting out of the house, but we can’t keep it out of everywhere else. So, raising a daughter scares the shit out of me.

Daughters are experts on their mothers; my sister and I see precisely what is changed — so changed — in my mother’s face.

Metoo parenting is teaching my daughters that they have control of their body. They have a voice. There are now real consequences for those who abuse power.

I never want my child to doubt herself the way I do myself. I never want her to feel the anxieties that weigh me down, though I know she already senses it.

When it comes to how to talk to your daughter about her body and body image - reinforce the quality of her body, rather than the quantity.

I am a compulsive memorizer. I am terrified of making a mistake, ever. But I'm learning to let go of my perfectionism.

I know a lot of parents struggle with how to have these uncomfortable conversations. My friends and I have talked — and laughed — about our boys’ questions and the approaches to them. Some of them laid it all out there for their sons early on. Others insist their sons still don’t know the difference between boys and girls. (Love you, ladies, but give me a break.) So when I was asked to write an article about how to talk to your kids about sex, I jumped at the chance. Here are some of the main points all the experts told me.

If I was lucky, I would find an outfit that properly hid my figure such that I looked pretty OK. It was always my body that failed the test, never the clothing. That day, I realized that pregnancy had changed something fundamental for me: I loved how I looked. I loved my bump, I loved what it signified, and I loved how people treated me.