Does my bum look big in this blog?

 My daughter marched into the kitchen and announced that she was officially fat!  She does not have an inch of fat on her.  Of course I have more concern about this behavior because I was bulimic as a teen.  I know how deluded you can be in your youth.

Image is so important here in Spain.  The women are immaculate.  While I look half dead, hair sticking up and wearing sweats at 7am when I go out to get the bread and walk Sid my dog, I see women heading out to work looking perfect, child under arm also looking immaculate rushing off to day care.  There is no confusion, I don't wonder "is that a man or a woman" as I approach people here, the distinction is clear.  The women wear designer skirt and trouser suits and their hair long.  Short hair on women here seems to be rare.  There is great pride in their femininity which does not in any way make them second class citizens.  There is a strength that is clear in the way they carry themselves and the confident way they hold a conversation.  Ok I am making huge stereotypical generalizations here.  Of course there are exceptions to this image I am describing.  The school my younger children attend has a large gypsy population around it and the women there are similar to the hippies and farmers of Wales where I have come from.  When I reach the school gate there are women in pink slippers and dressing gowns, I actually look like I have dressed up to take my kids to school.

I watch my girls especially and wonder how this all effects them.  We are not a rich family and most of their clothes are given to us or passed down in the family.  I never hear a complaint, but I do see them choose carefully what they like and they all have their own very different style.  I may be reaching 40 next year but I remember clearly being a teenager and the terrible clothes I wore.  I can't believe skinny jeans are back in!  My Mum would not buy me any when I was 16 back in 1986 so I sewed my own. Ha!  They were ridiculous.  Of course they were not at the time because it meant I fitted in, I thought I was being modern and different, just as my girls do.  John refuses to buy our girls skinny jeans.
I was looking at some photos of an on line friend with her now husband in the 80's yesterday laughing at the familiar 80's clothes and hair styles, how we cared how we looked.

We are taught on the one hand that beauty is within yet we also spend a lot of time on our images.  I have found it interesting that the general young womens president in our church, Sister Elaine S. Dalton, is teaching our young women that beauty comes from within and she looks Barbie doll like, with her perfect unnatural blond hair and extra white, white perfect teeth.  I think she is an amazing young women's president, so down to earth and fantastic for our young women.  But for me a mother of teen girls I listen to her talks and wonder what our young women hear?  She jokes about how she knows what boys are looking for as she has been told by her own sons.  She says they are looking for inner beauty and virtue.  I don't doubt this.  But if I lined up a group of young women who were all amazingly inner drop dead beautiful (I know that is not grammatically correct lol) the choice would also be made from outer beauty too - I have teenage boys too.  I am just talking about image here and what our young women see.   When I was a young woman it was much more important what I saw than what I heard.  I believe we should do the best with what we have of course, and I am not being critical about Sister Dalton, she is fantastic and it is not her fault she is beautiful.  I am just observing the facts and that is when you are a spotty, greasy teenager who has challenges with her own weight, shape etc. as most young women do.  Surely seeing a general president who looks like Sister Dalton would make you want to diet, dye your hair and whiten your teeth.  I have no answers here.  Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that.  I know if I had more money and time I would do the same.


I know that now at almost 40 I am happier with my self.  I don't spend much time on myself.  I have 11 children!  But I know if I had felt about myself at 17 as I do now I would have had a completely different life, completely.  I wish I could inject some of that into my girls.  A knowledge that they are incredibly beautiful and any man in the future would be so very lucky to be with them.  But I also know that my Mum used to tell me I was beautiful, she still does, and as a teen it meant nothing - of course she feels that way she is my Mum. So sometimes I look in my girls eyes as I tell them how fantastic they look and I see myself.  Yea thanks Mum - whatever!  The only answer I have is there has to be a balance between the two.  Our bodies are temples and should be cared for and not abused, we should present ourselves the best that we can.  But we should also have in perspective that it is just our body and if we are not nice people it means nothing.  I honestly think that the reason I feel better about myself is that I am more secure, more secure about my talents and abilities, this I think makes me more attractive.  Sister Dalton presents herself as a confident, virtuous, humble person, which of course is attractive and who shines with love for the young women she leads.  I am grateful for this and know she is called by revelation to do the wonderful job that she does.   I just worry that image becomes so important that the really important things in life get lost.