I bought the biggest pumpkin I could carry. I set it on our porch, adding a soft orange to the quiet that is now my home’s welcome mat.
Our two sons are away at college, but our 15-year-old daughter is still at home. I’m warmed by the solitude and the lasting whiff of her cucumber lotion and my husband’s shaving cream, memories of their presence and reminders of their absence.
We no longer get around to carving our pumpkins. Instead, slippery seeds buried in orange goop is forever carved in my memory.
“Mom, Halloween used to be more exciting when I was a kid,” she shared as we picked up her friends for costume shopping. “We’re all going to be animals, me a zebra.” I silently wondered if she was wishing for the childhood magic of when things were black and white and so much easier. “Sydney is going to be a Playboy bunny,” she added as her friends piled in the back seat.
Bosoms and beauty often seem to be the priority these days. We all had a dose of this international phenomenon where other cultures teach values we mothers wish our young daughters would not be influenced by. The Chinese Olympic Committee decided a 7-year-old singer was not cute enough on stage, and replaced her with a prettier child to lip sync the words. Unfortunately, they were unaware of how unattractive their cruel gesture was and how ugly such superficiality can appear.
So as a society, how can we raise our daughters to celebrate their bodies without being consumed by them? How can they accept the beauty of their cleavage without it being the main focus for them and those around them? And how can we stress the importance of the function of our bodies versus the form?
On a recent shopping expedition, we found ourselves in the women’s lingerie department. The saleswoman was pointing out the versatility of “cleavage adjusters.” More specifically, bras now have the ability to be adjusted according to the occasion. For example, one can reduce cleavage at school and then enhance cleavage at a party, by just one click of a clasp.
Suddenly, I feel thrown in to a whole new world, given my daughter is blessed with bosoms while her mother has been graced with a quieter body.
The challenge we face in parenting extends to how we also raise our sons. It is just as important to stress to our adolescent sons the importance of not objectifying women, with the hope they begin to understand there is more to life than sex and sports. Lecturing our children is one way, but modeling is the most powerful teacher. So as mothers and fathers, it is up to us to embrace our bodies and sexuality with respect.
I am relieved that my daughter is developing breasts when her mother was developing an eating disorder. But the truth is even if our history doesn’t include the pain of an eating disorder, most of us have a complicated relationship with both our bodies and our sexuality.
Even if it is in jest, we don’t want our children dressing to spin “tricks” on Halloween night. Instead, the best “treat” we can give them is to stay committed to developing a healthy relationship with our own bodies. The best parenting we can offer is through our health and well being. And wouldn’t that be a sweet treat for our children that will last way beyond a dark Halloween night?
Priscilla Dann-Courtney of Boulder is a clinical psychologist.
