Send us a textCan societal expectations around physical appearance really affect our children’s mental health? Join me on this eye-opening episode of Single Moms United, where we tackle the harsh realities of societal perceptions of imperfection and their impacts on self-esteem. Drawing from my personal journey with weight issues, I discuss how negative labels and judgments can lead to severe bullying and depression among school-aged children. I'll introduce a powerful formula aimed at helpin...
Can societal expectations around physical appearance really affect our children’s mental health? Join me on this eye-opening episode of Single Moms United, where we tackle the harsh realities of societal perceptions of imperfection and their impacts on self-esteem. Drawing from my personal journey with weight issues, I discuss how negative labels and judgments can lead to severe bullying and depression among school-aged children. I'll introduce a powerful formula aimed at helping parents positively frame their children’s unique traits, turning perceived imperfections into points of pride. This episode is your guide to empowering your children to embrace their uniqueness confidently.
It's not how you arrived at the title, but what you do with it.
Show Transcript
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00:00:03.505 --> 00:00:15.227 Hey, ladies, welcome to the Single Moms United podcast, where we cannot spell United without the letter U or Y-O-U.
00:00:15.227 --> 00:00:23.821 Hey, it's not about how you arrived at the single mom title, but it is what you do with it, moms.
00:00:23.821 --> 00:00:32.490 I've been talking about the letter I for these last few weeks, and one of them is uncovering your identity.
00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:36.606 And if you haven't heard it, girl, you better go back and listen.
00:00:36.606 --> 00:00:38.250 Some good stuff.
00:00:38.250 --> 00:00:44.466 Hey, if this is your first time visiting or coming or listening, welcome.
00:00:44.466 --> 00:00:49.465 If you are a repeat listener, thank you, thank you, thank you.
00:00:49.465 --> 00:00:54.642 And for the folks that provided kind words to me over the week, thank you.
00:00:54.642 --> 00:01:02.664 Sometimes the encourager needs to be encouraged as well, because we're all human and so I appreciate that.
00:01:02.664 --> 00:01:05.290 You just don't know from the bottom of my heart.
00:01:05.290 --> 00:01:08.763 All right, so let's get down with it.
00:01:08.763 --> 00:01:16.665 Today there is imperfect or imperfection, and I know you're probably like well, how did you come up with that?
00:01:16.665 --> 00:01:35.712 Monica Ray, tell you, and I encourage you to stay or listen to the entire episode, because I'm going to present to you a formula that I think will help with talking to your children about what society claims as an imperfection.
00:01:35.712 --> 00:01:50.856 Great segue Society and others defines, in my opinion, imperfection as a physical quality that doesn't match their expectations.
00:01:50.856 --> 00:01:58.500 I'll say that again a physical quality that doesn't match their expectations.
00:01:58.500 --> 00:02:08.715 So, for example, maybe your smile isn't what it should be, maybe a few of your teeth are crossing, crisscrossing each other, right?
00:02:08.715 --> 00:02:11.528 So society would say that's an imperfection.
00:02:11.528 --> 00:02:19.592 In reality, it's just uniqueness, because one thing I know as a Christian God doesn't make junk.
00:02:19.592 --> 00:02:22.169 He made us in his own image.
00:02:22.169 --> 00:02:26.491 So if you're talking about me or we're talking about others, we're talking about him.
00:02:26.491 --> 00:02:30.699 We have to learn to acknowledge and embrace our uniqueness.
00:02:30.699 --> 00:02:38.814 But what happened is society is saying, hey, if you don't look a certain way, you are imperfect.
00:02:38.814 --> 00:02:40.526 And guess what that leads to?
00:02:40.526 --> 00:02:49.644 Yeah, bullying, especially if you have school-aged children, leads to yeah, bullying, especially if you have school-age children.
00:02:50.044 --> 00:02:52.449 Now for me, my imperfection that society labeled me with is my weight.
00:02:54.131 --> 00:02:58.062 The average woman is 5'5 to 5'7.
00:02:58.062 --> 00:02:59.264 I'm 5'9.
00:02:59.264 --> 00:03:06.955 In addition to being tall, I actually have a few extra pounds and I always have the way I was talked about.
00:03:07.039 --> 00:03:11.669 You would have thought that I was the candidate for that show my 600-lb Life.
00:03:11.669 --> 00:03:13.561 But I wasn't that heavy.
00:03:13.561 --> 00:03:22.443 But I was heavy enough to not meet folks' expectations of what a perfect young lady should look like physically.
00:03:22.443 --> 00:03:25.991 As a result of that, it impacted my self-esteem.
00:03:25.991 --> 00:03:36.325 It still impacts my self-esteem, right, and so I try and have suppressed it over the years, but it's still hanging around deep down.
00:03:36.325 --> 00:03:39.173 And as a result of my own weight issues.
00:03:39.479 --> 00:03:41.242 Guess who else had weight issues?
00:03:41.242 --> 00:03:42.887 Yeah, my kids.
00:03:42.887 --> 00:03:44.569 They look great now.
00:03:44.569 --> 00:04:12.453 They've slimmed down and they've worked on themselves and because society labeling them as imperfect because of their weight, the part that really got me is I didn't know how to talk to them about it when they came to me, about folks talking to them about their weight and that they're fat and they're lazy and they're this and they're that and some of the same feedback I got.
00:04:12.453 --> 00:04:17.411 And I remember going even to my mom and said mom, they're talking about me.
00:04:17.411 --> 00:04:19.201 She didn't know how to respond.
00:04:19.201 --> 00:04:21.728 Here we go with the generational curse.
00:04:21.728 --> 00:04:31.569 So when my kids came to me, I didn't know how to respond other than to say I get it, I understand, but what is the solution?
00:04:31.569 --> 00:04:37.163 What is the comfort that needs to be provided in these situations?
00:04:37.384 --> 00:04:43.701 By the end of this episode, I hope to give you a formula Now.
00:04:43.701 --> 00:04:45.987 You're not going to find this anywhere else.
00:04:45.987 --> 00:04:47.411 Don't try to Google it.
00:04:47.411 --> 00:04:49.865 This is homegrown, this is organic.
00:04:49.865 --> 00:04:53.572 I think that's the word that's being used these days.
00:04:53.572 --> 00:05:04.627 When your child comes to you and they're saying, hey, mom, they're picking on me because of we want to change the word imperfect to unique.
00:05:04.627 --> 00:05:07.399 That's the first thing we want to do Now.
00:05:07.399 --> 00:05:19.757 If y'all need to go get a pencil paper no, just kidding, I know you can rewind it and listen to it again we want to change that word, that negative word of imperfect, to unique.
00:05:19.997 --> 00:05:26.807 When we talk about imperfect, it shouldn't be aligned Our physical features.
00:05:26.807 --> 00:05:35.956 Imperfection is all about character, and that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it, because nobody is perfect with their character.
00:05:35.956 --> 00:05:44.187 And again, when we talk about physical traits, god made us after his own image.
00:05:44.187 --> 00:05:51.050 If we talking about different folks and how they look, we talking about God, but he knew what he was doing when he put our parents together.
00:05:51.050 --> 00:05:52.444 Yes, he did.
00:05:52.444 --> 00:05:58.232 There are no imperfections as it relates to us physically.
00:05:58.232 --> 00:06:05.024 It's all uniqueness and that's why we have different fingerprints right, because we're unique.
00:06:05.024 --> 00:06:11.346 So if I don't look exactly the way you think I should look, number one, that's your problem.
00:06:11.346 --> 00:06:19.028 And number two, how I encourage myself and how you encourage your children it's all about you being unique.
00:06:19.028 --> 00:06:22.209 There's nothing imperfect about you physically.
00:06:22.209 --> 00:06:27.793 Your uniqueness, that's how you can respond to whoever's talking about you.
00:06:27.793 --> 00:06:34.634 Hey, you say my smile ain't the greatest, but I got news for you, boo, I'm unique.
00:06:34.634 --> 00:06:49.281 I have a unique smile because if you notice the different word choices imperfect sounds so negative, while unique has a positive spin on it.
00:06:49.281 --> 00:07:01.915 And that's what we have to do to turn this thing around, because if we don't guess what mom, your child is going to experience and now it's called depression.
00:07:02.497 --> 00:07:06.843 When I was growing up, I just had really bad self-esteem.
00:07:06.843 --> 00:07:17.803 It literally was difficult for me to look into the mirror because I had been so much put on and reminded daily of my weight.
00:07:17.803 --> 00:07:19.826 That weighs very heavily.
00:07:19.826 --> 00:07:32.976 I would the emotional hurt that you experience from bullying and people reminding you of your uniqueness right, or what they would call imperfection.
00:07:32.976 --> 00:07:38.408 That's long-term, that stays with you and you really never heal from it.
00:07:38.408 --> 00:07:50.769 I haven't healed from it and this episode is a little bit of a struggle for me because I am having to bring back those emotions that I finally learned how to suppress over the years.
00:07:50.769 --> 00:07:53.223 This is one reason why I'm a single mom.
00:07:53.555 --> 00:08:00.129 When my kid's father came along, he didn't see me as overweight.
00:08:00.129 --> 00:08:04.603 He saw me as beautiful, he saw me as smart.
00:08:04.603 --> 00:08:10.865 He saw all of these other things that people had told me that I was not.
00:08:10.865 --> 00:08:12.569 Now, did he manipulate me?
00:08:12.569 --> 00:08:20.875 No, I wouldn't say that.
00:08:20.875 --> 00:08:21.737 His expressions were sincere and genuine.
00:08:21.737 --> 00:08:24.100 As a result of that, I was able to develop a real relationship with him.
00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:32.190 And as a result of the real relationship but other things happen, because now I established trust in him.
00:08:32.190 --> 00:08:39.927 He was encouraging, he reminded me I could do things, he taught me things.
00:08:39.927 --> 00:08:45.660 There were just so many different elements made me vulnerable to him.
00:08:45.660 --> 00:08:48.745 And now I have two kids and I'll leave it at that.
00:08:48.745 --> 00:09:03.398 And, matter of fact, ladies, I probably will have an episode on intimacy later on in life, because that's an I word, right, but anyway, let me get back on the highway.
00:09:03.818 --> 00:09:15.826 So your children are going to experience people pointing out and again I'm no longer going to say imperfection, I'm going to say unique or uniqueness on them, those physical features.
00:09:15.826 --> 00:09:25.744 And even you, mom, encourage yourself, you say it's unique, it's not an imperfection, it's unique, and embrace your uniqueness.
00:09:25.744 --> 00:09:29.196 Because once you start to embrace it, guess what?
00:09:29.196 --> 00:09:30.277 Because once you start to embrace it, guess what?
00:09:30.277 --> 00:09:40.801 You are going to be more comfortable as you interact with your children as they come to you about their uniqueness, and that's the key.
00:09:40.801 --> 00:09:48.043 You have to be able to talk to what they're experiencing and identify with them.
00:09:48.043 --> 00:09:52.525 This is a critical aspect of parenting.
00:09:52.525 --> 00:09:56.187 This is going to happen.
00:09:56.187 --> 00:10:19.335 Somebody is going to point out their uniqueness, whether they're short, tall, skinny, overweight, their skin tone, dark or light facial features, small lips, big lips, small nose, big nose.
00:10:19.335 --> 00:10:25.604 It's going to be something where somebody feels like, well, you don't match my expectations, so I'm going to exploit it and really bring that out and really taunt you.
00:10:25.604 --> 00:10:27.249 And that's what it is.
00:10:27.249 --> 00:10:34.899 It's just a ton Again, mom, you are more than just a nurturer and a provider.
00:10:35.446 --> 00:10:44.155 You are a mentor, you are a listener, you are a leader, and I talked about that in prior episodes.
00:10:44.155 --> 00:10:46.052 We want to embrace this.
00:10:46.052 --> 00:10:49.110 We want to embrace it, we want to get ahead of it.
00:10:49.110 --> 00:11:00.337 We want to give you the tools so you know how to talk to your child or your children when someone comes up to you and starts talking about their uniqueness.
00:11:00.337 --> 00:11:02.389 Okay, so here's the formula.
00:11:02.389 --> 00:11:03.493 Are you ready?
00:11:03.493 --> 00:11:07.615 All right, I'm going to take that as a yes, all right.
00:11:07.725 --> 00:11:12.755 So it's called R-A-R-E, a-r-e.
00:11:12.755 --> 00:11:17.570 That's how you know this is organic, right, because it's kind of pretty simple.
00:11:17.570 --> 00:11:21.779 So the A represents accept your uniqueness.
00:11:21.779 --> 00:11:26.510 Yeah, I have a big forehead, or yeah, I'm overweight.
00:11:26.510 --> 00:11:28.173 Uh-huh, what about it?
00:11:28.173 --> 00:11:30.097 I got to carry it around, not you.
00:11:30.097 --> 00:11:34.645 Wait, uh-huh, what about it?
00:11:34.645 --> 00:11:35.567 I got to carry it around, not you.
00:11:35.567 --> 00:11:36.028 Right, think about it.
00:11:36.028 --> 00:11:40.399 But you have to accept your uniqueness and what you do is again acknowledge it.
00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:41.740 Yep, I do.
00:11:41.740 --> 00:11:47.952 Or I'm sorry to the person that thinks it's important to point out your uniqueness.
00:11:47.952 --> 00:11:49.676 I'm sorry you feel that way.
00:11:49.676 --> 00:11:50.717 I'm happy with me.
00:11:50.717 --> 00:11:52.886 I'm sorry you're not happy with me.
00:11:53.368 --> 00:11:56.315 Next letter R reassure.
00:11:56.315 --> 00:11:59.322 Reassure your children and yourself.
00:11:59.322 --> 00:12:03.009 Everyone isn't meant to look the same period.
00:12:03.009 --> 00:12:09.138 Could you imagine how boring this world would be if everybody looked alike?
00:12:09.138 --> 00:12:25.687 As different fads and styles come out, especially with weaves and lashes, it's almost like, wow, everybody looks the same, nobody looks unique, and that's boring.
00:12:25.687 --> 00:12:28.309 Reassure yourself, reassure your children.
00:12:28.309 --> 00:12:30.931 Everybody is not meant to look the same.
00:12:30.931 --> 00:12:36.335 There's a reason you have different fingerprints than anyone else.
00:12:36.495 --> 00:12:38.115 And then, finally, e.
00:12:38.115 --> 00:12:40.538 E represents embrace.
00:12:40.538 --> 00:12:42.139 A better term is hug.
00:12:42.139 --> 00:12:46.883 Right, if I bring it down to eye level, we're talking about hugging.
00:12:46.883 --> 00:12:55.866 Remember, emotional hurt is a lifelong burden.
00:12:55.866 --> 00:12:56.788 It's going to remain there.
00:12:56.788 --> 00:12:59.693 You can try to suppress it, mask it Again to reflect back.
00:12:59.693 --> 00:13:15.561 For me personally, to reflect back on my own childhood, how and I will say, taunted about my weight, made to feel less than it had such a negative impact on my self-esteem.
00:13:15.561 --> 00:13:19.918 And we wonder why kids are talking about committing suicide.
00:13:19.918 --> 00:13:25.389 To me that's just extremely sad, because children should know anything about that word.
00:13:25.389 --> 00:13:28.875 And now they're being bullied on social media.
00:13:28.875 --> 00:13:43.576 And so, moms, you're going to have to turn it up a little bit as far as knowing what's going on in your child or your children's lives, because they're exposed to so much more.
00:13:43.576 --> 00:13:50.339 So you're going to have to be vigilant and monitoring and observing their behavior.
00:13:50.339 --> 00:13:57.575 If their behavior changes all of a sudden, it's a pretty good chance to probably being bullied by someone.
00:13:57.884 --> 00:14:16.587 You teach them to accept their uniqueness, you reassure them everyone is not meant to look alike and then you gotta incorporate that physical piece which is giving them a hug as a parent.
00:14:16.587 --> 00:14:23.240 And one thing I regret I did not do enough hugging with my kid.
00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:42.599 I admit it, I did not do enough hugging with my kids and I'm so grateful that they have turned out as well as they have because of my lack of intimacy with them and reassuring them, because remember once you reassure them and embrace them.
00:14:42.599 --> 00:14:47.111 That's the physical reassurance, is that embracing?
00:14:47.111 --> 00:14:48.914 That's the formula, mom.
00:14:48.914 --> 00:14:51.720 I challenge you to try it.
00:14:52.380 --> 00:14:54.926 And again, this is all about critical thinking.
00:14:54.926 --> 00:15:02.158 So you may say, yeah, this is good and or, yeah, this is good, but you can do that.
00:15:02.158 --> 00:15:08.173 You can tweak this to make it your own, because you know your household, you know your child.
00:15:08.173 --> 00:15:16.308 We got to do better when it comes to talking to our children about their uniqueness.
00:15:16.308 --> 00:15:30.732 You can do it All right, ladies, you have a great day, a fantastic week and a monumental month, and if you enjoyed today's episode, that's right.
00:15:30.732 --> 00:15:36.759 Tap that young lady on the shoulder and say, girl, you better go over here and listen.
00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:40.133 Ooh wee, this was a good episode.
00:15:40.133 --> 00:15:47.918 Now, again, if you enjoyed it, the encourager can always use some encouragement.
00:15:47.918 --> 00:15:54.253 So go to my YouTube page, go to singlemomsunitedpodcastcom.
00:15:54.253 --> 00:15:55.115 Drop me a note.
00:15:55.115 --> 00:15:56.731 Would love to hear from you.
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