I'm with God here I think :wink: We are each perfectly made in our own way...

I'm just fascinated by how societal expectations shape how we (especially women) view ourselves, and each other... Why don't we just grow up believing we are "perfect as we are"? (perhaps some do... but many of us, myself included, seem to have suffered from some insecurities or neuroses somewhere along the way...)

Would love to raise my own daughters someday (should I have some!) to see their own worth and value as they are... How does one raise a girl to become a woman in this society who loves herself as she is, who doesn't judge herself against impossible standards of elusive perfection...

Quoted from "soundinmotiondj"

Quoted from "REDHOTnBLUE"
do you think men hold women to impossible standards sometimes of physical perfection etc.?)

No. I think that women hold themselves and other women to impossible standards.

hear! hear!

(except me. I don't. I'm perfect that way.)

Quoted from "westiegrrl"
This is slightly OT, but my friend Samara is occasionally published on HuffPo and wrote <a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samara-oshea/ten-tremendous-women-who_b_332697.html">this article</a> the other day about some of the 10 of the most famous/accomplished women in history never to marry or have kids:

I decided not to negatively comment on your friend's post, because I get that she's trying to say that husbands do not equal worth. However, it's a deeply flawed list.

Whether you see lifelong legal independence as a virtue, or a choice, or a circumstance, including on this list of women who "never married"

1) several lesbians (who cannot marry and were whitewashed by history), 2) Oprah (with her longtime companion who she powerfully overshadows and would probably marry her and her fortune at any second) and Queen Elizabeth (ditto) and 3) a teenage martyr (most people don't marry by age 18 )

... REALLY weakens whatever point you're trying to make. Especially when you take a life out of its contemporary context.

But hey, she's been on HuffPo and I haven't, so WTF do I know about today's standards for journalism and punditry?

Quoted from "REDHOTnBLUE"
Would love to raise my own daughters someday (should I have some!) to see their own worth and value as they are... How does one raise a girl to become a woman in this society who loves herself as she is, who doesn't judge herself against impossible standards of elusive perfection...

Hmmm.. well, you have limited control over that. To a large degree, people are going to be who they're going to be. I think my daughters (who will be 17 this week!) are very well adjusted. They are achievers, but they always make time for the fun stuff, and they don't beat themselves up when everything isn't perfect. They are pretty and well groomed, but they don't worry about fashion, getting perfect hair and make-up, or obsess about their flaws. They have, and appreciate, good friends, and they don't try to fit in with the "in crowd." I'd like to take credit for this, but for the most part, I think I just got lucky with them.

But here are some things I would think about. 1) Children learn by example. Daughters are going to imitate their mothers. To a large extent, they will treat themselves the way you treat yourself.

2) They also get their examples from the things they read (and movies, T.V, etc.) When they are young, you have a lot of control which of these things they are exposed to. More than that, you can talk to them about what makes sense and what doesn't in the things they read and watch. I used to point out characters to my children who had enough to sense to realize they didn't want to be "popular", and also point out how certain things seemed unrealistic, or certain characters made their own lives harder than they needed to be because of having skewed values.

As they grow older, they will have to make their own judgements about what they see in the media, but they will better equipped to do that if you guide them well. Some of the things young children find appealing are terrible for them. (High School Musical comes to mind.)

3) The best current research I've found seems to indicated that praising children for effort is effective, but praising them for results tends to lead to children who choose easy tasks if they can, and tend to give up too easily when tasks are hard. (Good results are their own reward, and they don't need your praise for that. They do need to know hard work is appreciated even when the results seem less than perfect.)

3a) Also, false praise does more harm than good. Don't say his picture looks good if it doesn't. He can see it, too, and if he thinks you have to lie to him to praise him, how is that going to make him feel about himself? If a child is disappointed in his work, you can tell him it was a good effort, and even the best artists didn't started out with things that didn't look quite right. It took practice, and art classes, and more practice before things came out well. If he's not disappointed, but you don't exactly think it looks good, you can say that it's good for his age, if it is; that you love it because he did it, and you can see something of him in it. But don't lie.

r_c_s I would bet you can take some credit for having such wonderful daughters... it's both nature and nurture, right? congrats to you...

thanks for the thoughtful list. I like the part about praising efforts, not just results. I definitely didn't like to "fail" as a child (hated making mistakes) and this could have caused me to avoid tasks where there was a sharp learning curve for me. Yet if I had stayed away from these things entirely, I never would have learned how to lindy hop!

I had to learn that putting effort in, and making mistakes, was OK... My parents did their best to teach me that and I also just had to suck it up that I was not always as "perfect" as I wanted to be (my own expectations for myself were always crazy-high!).

I am glad that I'll be having children "later in life" vs. in my 20s when I think I would have been a very high-strung mom... I was not yet truly comfortable in my own skin. I'm much happier and more at peace with myself now... which I think will make me a better mom (the teaching them by example part...)

Quoted from "God"
The answer to this question couldn't be simpler. You are all perfect, each in your own way. If I had intended you to be perfect in exactly the same way, I would have made you into ants instead.

Well, you only made two perfect people... though technically they weren't perfect considering they were to stupid to realize they shouldn't eat from a tree that made them imperfect. Which by the way was Eve's fault, since how could you blame Adam since he was probably constantly distracted by Eve's perfect knockers.

Pretty much sums it up!

Quoted from "Shanabanana"
Dagny Taggart. Hard to make into a Halloween costume, though.

Isn't a Dagny Taggart costume just a John Galt costume with a bent-over female mannequin stuck onto the crotch?

"Infinite goodness is creating a being that you know in advance is going to complain."

Quoted from "REDHOTnBLUE"

Quoted from "Shanabanana"
Dagny Taggart. Hard to make into a Halloween costume, though.

OK here is where I publicly admit I have never read Ayn Rand (clearly I am not the perfect woman. ;) ) Had to look up Dagny Taggart on Google to find out who she was. have to read Atlas Shrugged! (I KNOW what a classic it is...) Oh and Miss Piggy, definitely, yes, she's one of the top woman/divas of all time...

Ayn Rand has fans who would like her books to be "classics" but they will never compare to the true classics by whom others compare, Adam Smith, Keynes, Aristotle, Hume, Hobbes, ... list goes on.

Skip Rand.

Quoted from "pocotell"

Quoted from "zeno"

Quoted from "REDHOTnBLUE"

Quoted from "Shanabanana"
Dagny Taggart. Hard to make into a Halloween costume, though.

OK here is where I publicly admit I have never read Ayn Rand (clearly I am not the perfect woman. ;) ) Had to look up Dagny Taggart on Google to find out who she was. have to read Atlas Shrugged! (I KNOW what a classic it is...) Oh and Miss Piggy, definitely, yes, she's one of the top woman/divas of all time...

Ayn Rand has fans who would like her books to be "classics" but they will never compare to the true classics by whom others compare, Adam Smith, Keynes, Aristotle, Hume, Hobbes, ... list goes on. Skip Rand.

Ayn Rand books are absolutely classics and are well worth a read. I don't think any literary person would argue, especially, that the Fountainhead isn't a classic. Not everyone agrees with Rand's philosophies, but if anything, that's helped her status as one of the great writers of the 20th Century, not hurt it.

There's Ayn Rand the novelist: Success.

There's Ayn Rand the critical philosopher: Failure. (This is widely known in the world of philosophy.)

Quoted from "REDHOTnBLUE"
... Would love to raise my own daughters someday (should I have some!) to see their own worth and value as they are... How does one raise a girl to become a woman in this society who loves herself as she is, who doesn't judge herself against impossible standards of elusive perfection...

Did you ever see "Little Miss Sunshine"? She was raised just like that ... the problem is that you can't overcome society. So along with raising your daughters (and sons!) to see their own worth and value as they are, you have to give them skills to compete against those who still value perfection.

Also, did you ever see "Mona Lisa Smile"? Julia Roberts' character did her best to foster the young women's beliefs in themselves - that they don't need a husband to validate their lives. In those days, societal pressures were still too strong for many to stand against.

And how about "Fried Green Tomatoes in the Whistle Stop Cafe"? The transformation of Kathy Bates' character as she learned to hold herself in higher esteem was just beautiful.

IMHO, the perfect woman is as Zeno defined: 100 at ease with herself. For some, it's being a mum. For some, it's being a wife. For some, it's having a career. For some, it's trying to combine all three. And I agree wtih Chiv - the definition of "perfect woman" is so subjective.

Culturally, the perfect woman differs from region to region - a perfect woman in Germany is vastly different from a perfect woman in Italy ... different again from one in England or one in South Africa. And society's expectations of women in the different countries are different too.

Being married (staying married) and having kids, or never marrying and/or not having kids doesn't add more value to women. They're not necessary in the definition of "perfect woman". Do you ever see the value of men measured in those terms?

Quoted from "mouth"
This is a critical issue I'm glad you're raising RH&amp;B. Huffpo has been doing an interesting series of articles on women's happiness in the last 40 years and guess what? It's gone steadily down. Have we gotten access to more, had more success, achieved greater heights, made bigger impact, increased our choices/options, broken through so many glass ceilings? Yes, yes, yes. And yet we're less happy than we were. What's up with that?

I was under the impression that people in general have become less happy for at least the last half-century. Despite the increases in wealth, quality of life, political equality, etc that have been made. Additionally, I think there is a certain level of wealth where once you pass it, people actually become less happy.

Perhaps it has something to do with a culture of appreciating what you do have, versus a culture of wanting more?

People are also likely to have fewer tight friendships (in favor of larger, less personal networks) now than we were before the internet age.

Quoted from "OpeningMinds"
Being married (staying married) and having kids, or never marrying and/or not having kids doesn't add more value to women. They're not necessary in the definition of "perfect woman". Do you ever see the value of men measured in those terms?

Maybe not in the same way as women, but I do think being a "real family man" is part of what our culture would see as part of the perfect man. But I think men worry less about obtaining perfection than we do.

Quoted from "r_c_s"

Quoted from "OpeningMinds"
Being married (staying married) and having kids, or never marrying and/or not having kids doesn't add more value to women. They're not necessary in the definition of "perfect woman". Do you ever see the value of men measured in those terms?

Maybe not in the same way as women, but I do think being a "real family man" is part of what our culture would see as part of the perfect man. But I think men worry less about obtaining perfection than we do.

But how is a "real family man" defined? He's the guy that coaches little league, takes the kids to the movies when mom needs a break, etc. He gets to do the fun stuff - he's (generally) not staying home from work when the kids are sick, washing their dishes and clothes, preparing their food, etc. And I agree - men probably worry less about obtaining all-round perfection than women do ... so why do we pressure ourselves like that?