TamraUpgrading the Next Generation
February 19th 2008 01:25
A couple of thoughts crashed into each other over the weekend to make me stop and think–perhaps we’re all just on this one revolving travelator, that has no beginning and no end, and it’s not actually heading upwards or beyond to anything better than where we’ve been before. And I don’t mean we’re just stuck in Westfield.
I thought as parents we were learning from our own mistakes, bringing our wisdom -as incomplete as it may be- to our children, and providing it to them as an offering, a ‘we’ve gone before and learnt this so you may travel easier’, sort of thing. But now I’m not so sure. On the way to school on Friday I walked past a newsagent with its long row of magazines telling us how we could re-shape, lose more, diet crazy, botox, vacuum fats, cut out meals, eat more carbs, to get the fab new you; then arrived to hear mothers in the playground discussing how desperately unhappy they were with their weight and their hairdos, all of course in front of their daughters.
Then the day ended at a party where I found myself discussing, with an intelligent trio of other women, the merits of receiving an appreciative verbal clap on the back from the boss with either, (a) a self-deprecating ‘it was nothing’, or (b) a full-bodied acceptance. There was consensus that the acceptance of praise would of course be followed by deep confusion and suspicion of said compliment…
Let me cut to the chase. How have we steered so far from self acceptance and self-love? What messages are we as individuals, parents and a society passing onto our children? At this rate, ‘the next generation’ will be as slow as us, need constant re-booting, and have unexplained periods of malaise and on-line drop-outs.
I did a quick sum and worked out that if we had spent the same amount of money on the whole of humanity – as we do on diet pills, magazines, overpriced hairdos, magic moisturisers and plastic surgery – we would have no war, starvation, famine, drought or mad cow disease…give or take fifty bucks. That is, if we loved and accepted who we were, enjoyed our bodies in all their wondrous shapes and sizes, we would be happy, happier, happiest. If our children saw us being confident in what we wore, how we presented ourselves, enjoying life, instead of constantly seeking some new, better version of ourselves (which complies with some standard set by the media of which we are all a part), they too might live this way and believe that we are all okay, no matter what side our genes are buttered on.
Surely no-one could say they were proud the first time their daughter went on a diet, or had her nose surgically shortened.
Look at what we’re inflicting on our kids. In our confusion about who we are and our own body image, we’re either over-feeding them crap or we’re telling them that skinny is the new normal. Look at the horrible rates of anorexia, bulimia and morbid obesity in children.
We’ve been aware of what it takes to make a healthy, fully-functioning human for some time now, but we still insist on thrusting our pathetic, societal self-loathing on our children. And in some cases it’s effectively shortening our own children’s lifespan.
What to do? Well, it’s clearly not easy. Or maybe it is. Sometimes as they say, the simplest things are the hardest to truly master. I think it’s time to slap ourselves about the cheeks and set a better example for our children. Isn't it our end of the bargain as parents to try and bring the best of ourselves and our world to our kids? Expose them to our frailties, but not our pre-conceptions. Give them a healthy diet and stick to it ourselves. Do something for others and get the kids involved. Take the focus off what’s ‘wrong’ with us and what’s right with us might just rub off on the next generation. Tamra
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