Lesson Three: Perfection is in the eye of the beholder

Raising two tween girls, I am abundantly aware that girls sometimes have body image issues.  I might be biased of course, but I think my girls are beautiful and perfect.  The bodies that they have are the ones they came by honestly through the DNA that we gave them. 

Both girls have had the occasional question about their bodies.  My younger daughter is small for her age just like I was when I was younger.  She is shorter than most of her friends but perfectly proportioned as far as weight goes.  She gets frustrated because people mistake her for someone who is younger than she is.  She yearns for height.  I tell her that I was short until high school and then I grew.  (I am now 5'6-a perfectly respectable height for a woman).  My entire family is short but my husband is tall so I anticipate some height for her at some point.

My older daughter is tall like her dad, but extremely thin like both her dad and I were when we were young.  She has thin little legs and tiny little arms.  She has never been higher than the 10th percentile in weight since she was born.  We tease her all the time that she should still be in a booster seat based on her weight.  When she gets sick and loses weight, we definitely worry about her because she doesn't have much in the way of reserves.  Other than those times though, she eats just fine, she is athletic and healthy but she's very thin.

Yesterday my husband took her to a doctor appointment.  This was a new doctor who we had not seen before as we are in the process of changing our health care providers.  This new doctor looked at my oldest daughter and asked my husband if she should be freaked out about how thin my daughter was.  My husband calmly told her that she has always been this thin and that this is normal for her.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to be at the appointment to tell this woman what I thought of her comment.  How dare she say something like "freak out" to my daughter indicating that there is something wrong with her appearance.  Does she not have any concept of how sensitive tween and teen girls are about their appearance?  This is a family practice doctor who presumably deals with children all the time.  She will not be dealing with my children anymore.  Today I will file a complaint about her words to my daughter.

Both my husband and I sat and talked with my daughter last night at home and told her in no uncertain terms that she is perfect just the way she is and that despite what this woman said to her, her body is nothing to "freak out" about.  She is absolutely perfect just the way she is....as is her sister. 

Lesson Three:  Perfection is in the eye of the beholder