Transcript | Ep. 127: Ask Unladylike: Mom-Daughter Body Image

Caroline: When I have talked to my therapist about my mom, ultimately it comes down to like, “What sort of delusion are you under that you have magical abilities to change someone by caring enough about them?” And I think that that's a really hard pill to swallow. It has taken me literal years to understand that it is a type of delusion to think you have that power over anyone, no matter how much you love them.

[theme song]

Caroline: Welcome to Unladylike. I’m Caroline.

Cristen: I’m Cristen.

Caroline: We are BACK with another episode of Ask Unladylike, where we answer listeners’ burning questions that Google just can't. Like how do I get my mom to be more body positive??

Cristen: Yeah this episode, we've a pair of letters about the very fraught relationships between moms, daughters and body image.

Caroline: And Cristen, as two daughters of moms, I have a feeling we've got plenty of personal experience to bring to this one.

Cristen: Yeah probably just a smidge, just a bit. And listen, I just want to quickly say, to my mom, if you’re listening, you probably aren’t, but if you are, I love you but it's true! It’s true. So with that out of the way, Caroline, if you’re ready, let’s get into it.

Caroline: Let’s do it!

[stinger]

Cristen: OK, Caroline, first up, we have a letter from a very concerned mom. A mom with a very big heart who wants to help her daughter. Would you like to read it?

Caroline: Yes, I would love to read it. This letter is from Amy. And Amy writes, “I am a mother of an almost 8-year-old daughter. I have wanted so much to not pollute her childhood with comments or weirdness around food and body image. And it's been a rough water to navigate as a parent. My daughter June is an extremely picky eater and will only eat a few foods. As a mother who cooks dinner every night for the family, I usually have to cook two meals to make sure she eats. I could go on and on. The point is, how do we navigate this journey of raising daughters in a healthy way around food? I honestly don't know. It just broke my heart because in the day to day realities of raising a girl and hoping she will get enough nutrients and vitamins, hoping she will go to school without mats in her hair, without making her think she has to look pretty, it seems inevitable unintentional interpretations will be made. I never say anything about looking pretty. And as a result, she seems to crave those kinds of compliments, hoping someone will give them to her, because I don't want her to ever think she needs to be or look pretty to be loved. Oh my God, I don't know how to do it.” Oh, Amy!

Cristen: Oh Amy

Caroline: Oh, your heart, your heart is in the right place. I'm so sorry you're so overwhelmed.

Cristen: Amy, I wish that we, first of all, could just give you a big hug if you're a hugger, a consensual hug. But the first thing that I want to reassure Amy is that, look, inevitable unintentional interpretations will be made. Yes, it is true. But, Amy, you are not the full and complete and total source material for what will become your daughter's body image and relationship with food.

Caroline: Yeah.

Cristen: I know that you're taking on a lot. And and it is so admirable that you are so concerned and are really paying attention to how you talk about her body and appearance and food. And obviously, like, you want to raise her to be a strong girl with self-confidence. But I think that you, first of all, can give yourself a little bit of a break in terms of feeling like all of it is on your shoulders.

Caroline: I know that you're on this tightrope of like, I have to literally be a caregiver and keep this child alive, but I also don't want to push things on her intentionally or otherwise, that could make her feel bad about herself. And I mean, Cristen, I will say Amy, Amy is right to be concerned. I looked at a couple of reports when I was kind of mulling over this letter. These are two pretty recent reports. There was one from Common Sense Media that found that a quarter of children engage in some type of dieting behavior by age 7. And the Girl Scouts did a report and found that by the time they're 10, 80 percent of girls are afraid of being fat. And a lot of that starts at home for sure, you know, parents saying judgey things or talking about their own weight. But like Cristen said, Amy, a lot of this is going to come from other people, too: friends, TV, movies, magazines like.

Cristen: Social media.

Caroline: Yeah, and you're not you're not raising your child in a vacuum. So she's going to pick it up from other places. And I think that it's so commendable that you are being so vigilant about how - how you do model behavior and - and body image and all that stuff. There was a - there was an article in USA Today a couple of years ago, and they interviewed child psychologist Leslie Sim, who's the clinical director of the eating disorders program at the Mayo Clinic. And Dr. Sim said moms are probably the most important influence on a daughter's body image. Even if a mom says to the daughter, “You look so beautiful, but I'm so fat,” it can be detrimental. So, you're right to be concerned, I totally get it, but like like Cristen said, it's OK to, like, give yourself a little breathing room because you're already staying away from appearance-related compliments. You're keeping the focus on food is like a thing that you need nutrients from, you know, not whether it's good or bad or fat or skinny or whatever.

Cristen: Yeah. And one thing, though that I want to caution Amy and our listeners about is conflating picky eating with eating disorders, because, you know, Amy, you didn't say explicitly that you were concerned that your daughter has an eating disorder. You said that she is a picky eater. And that is a thing. I did a little digging myself, Caroline, and read up on picky eating and whether it's necessarily like a precursor to an eating disorder. And from what I gathered, they are two potentially overlapping but separate issues. And as far as like childhood picky eaters, experts recommend that you don't cook the second meal for the kid, that you essentially make dinner, and that's what's for dinner. And you let the child basically decide whether they are going to participate in that or not. And of course, there are all sorts of Pinterest boards and cookbooks and websites that can tell you all kinds of ways to kind of sneak in those healthy foods to make sure that your child's nutritional needs are being met, but that becoming a quote unquote like short order cook for your picky-eater child is only reinforcing those behaviors. And that if you want to engage your kid in terms of allowing them to select foods for themselves, that starts more as you are actually like buying the food that will be in the house, that's where you can actually do some more direct negotiation about the foods that she does have to choose from. Another thing, though, that jumped out to me is taking full and complete ownership for the fact that your daughter, an 8-year-old girl, is craving appearance-based compliments. You correlated the fact that you don't call her pretty to her wanting those compliments. And I don't know that the correlation-causation relationship there is necessarily on point because as as a former girl myself, there were so many messages constantly swirling around me that I was very well aware of by the time I was 8, that told me that to be pretty is the best thing a girl can be. So like it's totally common for even - even a child raised in the most feminist household to still maybe go through a quote unquote, princess phase and love pink and be into, like, really girly things and want makeup and want a compliment on - on how she looks. It's how you respond in those - in those instances. And if you are actively resisting commenting on her appearance at all, I could see her interpreting that as like some form of rejection. She's probably just like - what she's craving is some form of validation. So don't shut her down, you know, and don't - don't suggest to her that she is wrong to want to be pretty, but that there are many different ways and definitions of pretty. And it's about how she feels rather than how she looks.

Caroline: Right. Well, but I also think that there's a difference between saying, oh, you look so nice and centering pretty.

Cristen: Yes.

Caroline: You know, I think that you can say, oh, wow, I really like your outfit. You know, when she's dressed as like a half astronaut, half princess, you know, like, “well, you look great today” is not the same thing as as driving home a message of “I am only going to compliment your appearance and your prettiness, and prettiness is your currency and it's what you have to be” like. Not that she would understand that entire, like, gender philosophy at the age of 8, but I still think, like Cristen said, you can - you can still give validation because also, like as adults, I don't go around being like, Cristen, you're beautiful. But I still need to be like a functioning adult who can function in social situations and like, be comfortable complimenting another woman on her blazer, as I often do when I see Cristen Conger and she's wearing a blazer. “Oh, I love your blazer. You look nice.” And I will say there are some things that that fucked me up real good when I was a kid. There was a period in high school where I would grab a donut in the morning instead of like, I don't know, Raisin Bran or Cheerios or something. And I would get - Cristen, I would get the dreaded eyebrow and side eye from my father. He never said anything that I remember, I could have blocked it out, but I but I got the message was fucking clear that this was like - he did not approve. And that made me feel like shit, man, but the thing is, the donut was a shitty choice for a breakfast item for me as a growing high school student, not because it was full of sugar or fat or whatever, but because I was not getting nutrition like at all. I was basically like eating a sugary donut in the morning and then not eating again until like I had my turkey sandwich at lunch. And in the meantime, I would be shaky and woozy and like having a sugar crash. I wish someone had talked to me about my body and what it needs, not from the perspective of weight, but from the perspective of protein and energy and sustaining yourself.

Cristen: Yeah, well, and I think that some of the bottom line advice I would give to Amy is to lean in to the positive impacts that you can have, because what I hear in this letter is full and complete overwhelm at the inevitable negative impact that you're going to have and feeling trapped by that. But the good news is that there are research-backed ways that moms do build up their daughters’ self-esteem. And that mother daughter relationship, it is so powerful. So you do have a lot of potentially positive power that you can really exert in this formative time in your daughter's life. And also, I mean, she's at an age where she is not too young for you to start really discussing and kind of teaching her some baseline, like media literacy around like the kinds of bodies and food habits that you are seeing on media and TV. I mean, you can use pop culture as a teaching tool at this point to kind of show her the ways that the things that are unrealistic and toxic in terms of body standards or also just like if you see commercials for, quote unquote skinny food or guilt-free food or, oh, this is my cheat day, when you hear that kind of language come up, whether it’s IRL or, you know, in media, you can point that out to June and flag that as like, hey, this is some of that red flag language, that's unhealthy. There is no such thing as like bad food. This is the stuff that fuels our bodies. And these are the only bodies we have. And so we should treat them as such and appreciate them. So I think that focusing on that will hopefully take a load off of your own mind and also help you instill some self-esteem in in June.

Caroline: Yeah, give yourself a break, Your heart is in the right place. Ultimately, your daughter is her own person, and you're doing - you're doing the best you can. And then she's going to be her own individual human.

Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break.

Caroline: When we come back, we're flipping the script with a daughter who needs some body image help with her mom.

Cristen: Stick around!

[stinger]

Cristen: And we’re back!

Caroline: OK, Cristen, what do you do when the tables are turned and the concerned party is the daughter who's worried about her mom?

Cristen: Yes.

Caroline: So we got a letter. Our second letter is from Katherine, and Cristen, could you, could you read Katherine's letter for us?

Cristen: Oh, yes, I could. So Katherine writes, “I wanted to ask how to approach a conversation with my mom about body image. I've always looked up to my mom and I genuinely believe that she is beautiful inside and out. The problem, though, is that she doesn't see herself in that light. She constantly mentions to me that I'm prettier than her and that she never looked like me when she was my age. She denies any compliments she receives, and she's watched her weight for as long as I can remember. My mom is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met, and yet she can't accept any words of praise handed to her and clearly has no self-confidence. Above all, what's most concerning is, she lost her sister to cancer in October and she absolutely cannot discuss Aunt Penny without putting herself down. “Aunt Penny was always smarter than me.” Everything of that sort. I've always been concerned about my mom's perception of self. But hearing her talk about Aunt Penny, it's worse than I ever thought. I want to slowly but surely help my mom see what I see, a funny, giving, loving, silly, bright light in this world. How can I approach talking to my mom? How can I help her see that she can accept compliments, she can talk about Aunt Penny and just about Aunt Penny without putting herself down, and she can talk to me without putting herself down? Thanks.” Oh, I mean, we've got I mean, between Amy and Katherine, so much love and so many good intentions here.

Caroline: I know. I know.

Cristen: Katherine, you love your mom so much. And I bet if your mom just heard this letter

Caroline: all the tears

Cristen: Now, granted, she would probably just like internalize that -

Caroline: Yes, yes, I was just going to say

Cristen: - as something negative about yourself and what a terrible mom she is. But I mean, oh, there's so much love there.

Caroline: OK, so in our last letter, I - I cited that Mayo Clinic child psychologist who said even if a mom says to the daughter, “You look so beautiful, but I'm so fat,” it can be detrimental, which Katherine, you basically just said, like, that's kind of the gist of your mom's running commentary. So first, I want to ask if you are OK. Are you OK? Like before we dive into any mom-daughter dynamics, I do want to just make sure that you are taking care of yourself first and foremost, you know, and checking in with yourself about how your mom's like super negative self-talk might have affected you growing up or even now, because I think you sound like a fantastic person and a fantastic daughter who really does love her mom and wants her mom to be happy.

Cristen: Can I give you maybe an odd sounding take?

Caroline: OK.

Cristen: So when - Katherine, when you say, “I want to slowly but surely help my mom see what I see, a funny, giving, loving, silly, bright light in this world.” Katherine, I think you want to be your mom's rom-com hero. Isn’t - isn't that like the classic rom-com formula of like there's a Hugh Grant is the only one who truly sees what no one else can see in Julia Roberts, this beautiful, funny, weird, shining light of a woman. And if only she could see herself through his eyes, then she would be healed. And we know that that is a very flawed narrative in rom coms. And I think it's a very - it’s a flawed - it's a flawed narrative for you, too, and I even hesitate to say it because I know it's coming out of love, but. It concerns me how much you want to do for your mom and how important it is to you that your mom finally, finally understand that she is a valued and valuable, worthy person. And my first challenge to you, Katherine, is to ask yourself why that matters so much to you. Because, yes, it's because you love your mom. But like you were mentioning a minute ago, Caroline, and I think that there might be a deeper connection to how it makes you feel and the impact that it has had on you that I think would not be a betrayal to your mom, but a healthy thing for you to explore for yourself.

Caroline: Yeah. And I will say that it is magical thinking to believe that you and you alone possess the key to help anyone let you know, let alone your mom, change. It's not up to you, and you can't make people change, and I'm saying this to you as someone who has been talking about her mother in therapy for years now and has openly wept, I am not a crier and I fucking hate it sometimes. But like, I have openly wept in therapy about my mom and the way that she sees herself because she's also like super negative about herself. Her entire self-worth is based in “Can I lose weight? Am I wearing the right clothes? Am I driving the right car?” And there's nothing I can do to change that. There are lots of things I can do to make sure my mom knows she's appreciated. You know, I can practice gratitude. I can, you know, similar to what we told Amy about, like, oh, mom, you know, I really admire when you volunteer with kids. I really think that your painting skills are out of this world, like, oh, my God, when you cook that lasagna, it's like the best thing I've ever had. You know, there are like a million ways that you can express gratitude and show your admiration for her.

Cristen: But she won't accept a compliment.

Caroline: Well, I was going to say she will probably swat all of those down, at which point you are at liberty to say, “Why doesn't my opinion count? Why do I not matter?” Because ultimately, you can't change your mom, but you can give her a little shock to the system and you can challenge her a little bit. And ultimately.

Cristen: Yes.

Caroline: People who can't accept compliments are exhausting. Just accept the fucking compliment. I'm not trying to get anything from you. But the only way to really shock the system is to appeal to the part of your mom that does hate herself because your mom hates herself, and I hate that she does. But that's true. And so clearly being nice and kind and Disney rainbows and bunnies is not getting through to her. And so, yes, absolutely tell her all the things that you admire about her. But when she inevitably swats it down, do not be afraid to say, “Do you not think my opinion counts?” Because the thing is, she might not have a sense of self-worth or identity outside of being a mother, and that's really common and it's something that I have dealt with, too. And the fallout from someone not having a separate identity is that they they're sort of unmoored. I don't know, I think you kind of have to go nuclear, even though it's like nuclear in a very loving way to really challenge her narrative.

Cristen: Yeah, and one thing that I learned in doing a little research on the compliment factor on why why can't my mom take a fucking compliment? One thing that I that I learned is that cognitive science has shown that basically what is happening is, when you really believe that you are a worthless sack of shit and someone compliments you, it triggers cognitive dissonance. So what your brain does is deflect that because that is - that is really - that's your mom's brain's way of sorting that vast difference between what she believes about herself, which is that she is worthless and less than, versus what she is hearing, which is that oh, no, she's she's actually a decent, worthy person. And so that cognitive dissonance creates those deflections of like, attributing things to luck, or it's happenstance, or it's always like externalizing things, that is how deeply hardwired this has become in your mom's head. I can also empathize with getting into that negative headspace and just how truly easy it can be to really start believing all of that negative shit about yourself. Because I have been there before, and Caroline, you were a major catalyst for me to really start paying attention and doing some much deeper work on myself. Long story short, years ago, you and I were working together at my house in the pre-quar days, oh my God, we could freely come and go. And I was just in a, I don't know, probably like, let's say a year into like a very deep depression full of self-loathing, reached a point of self-worthlessness that I had never reached before, truly hated myself, didn't even want to look in the fucking mirror, OK? And I was manifesting all of that in just constantly hyper-criticizing every fucking thing that I touched, every piece of work, every attempted sentence that I typed, whatever it was. And that negativity was also just spewing out onto everything. And I will never forget the moment, Caroline, when I made some shitty remark about like some - something we were working on of like along the lines of like, it's not good enough. And you lost it on me. And you said, “You are so mean!” And y'all, it was very hard to hear. Tears were shed.

Caroline: Well, I also didn't deliver it in a very like tactful way.

Cristen: But no! Hey, listen, I I didn't deserve tact. Tact would not have worked on me at that point. You know what I mean? I I'm not I'm not suggesting, Katherine, that you need to go yell at your mom. But it really - it really took that moment of, like, shaking me kind of to my core to get me to really say, like, oh, my God, like, what am I doing? I am being mean. And it starts with how truly, horrendously, unrelentingly mean I am being to myself. [sighs] And, you know, later I got into therapy and that started, you know, start breaking through things, but it was like I really Caroline, I thank you because that was a painful moment. But it was such an important moment for me to start recognizing that I had thought I was just self-critical and I was just keeping it all in, you know. Oh, I'm just I'm just hard on myself. Like, no bitch. Like, you are a terror to yourself, but you're also becoming a terror to other people because like I felt like I was tainting everything around me. I was just like a biohazard. So that was a really important moment of like, whoa, I don't want to lose all of the amazing people in my life. And I'm gonna, if I stay in this space, I will become a total biohazard. So to pull it back to Katherine, I think that you have the relationship with your mom to push back a bit, that when you hear her put herself down, ask her the harsh question of “Why doesn't my compliment matter? Why doesn't my opinion of you matter?” And accept that you're not going to change her overnight. And also, at some point, Katherine, I do think that you're going to have to let go of your mission to be your mom's rom com hero.

Caroline: Yeah.

Cristen: And let her save herself if she wants to. One last thought, Caroline. I thought it was so interesting that Katherine started this letter saying I wanted to ask how to approach a conversation with my mom about body image.

Caroline: I know.

Cristen: Because by the end of her letter and I'll obviously, by the way, you could tell by the well everything that we’ve just talked about that has nothing to do with body image like. You want to talk to your mom about so much more than body image, and maybe body image is just kind of the Trojan horse to, like, get into it all. But what's going on and what you’re feeling is, is so much deeper than just the way that your mom thinks about and talks about her, her body. And Katherine, your mom is lucky to have you as a daughter.

Caroline: Yeah, she really is.

Cristen: We’re gonna take another break.

Caroline: When we get back, it's time for some ... Terrible Advice??

Cristen: Yayerrr! Stick around.

[stinger]

Cristen: And now it's time for a segment we call Terrible Advice, where we dig back through the archives of women and teen magazines to highlight some of the worst advice given to women and girls. Caroline, are you ready for some terrible advice?

Caroline: Boy, am I.

Cristen: Now, Caroline, I got my hands on the perfect bit of terrible advice for this very episode.

Caroline: Oh.

Cristen: It's a list called Things to Do to Boost Your Self-Esteem from a 1996 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Caroline: Oh, God.

Cristen: I mean, Cosmo's usually where you go, right, when you need to figure out how to boost your self-esteem?

Caroline: Usually? Cristen, always.

Cristen: OK, Caroline, here we go. And again, this is Cosmo’s list of Things to Do to Boost Your Self-Esteem from 1996. Just the first three suggestions alone made me realize I had to share. OK, so. Thing one, reread old love letters. OK.

Caroline: I mean, that could also be a real mindfuck, but OK.

Cristen: Yeah, yeah. Now, how about this? Do 50 tummy crunches without cheating.

Caroline: Nope, nope. Fuck, fuck it. No, moving your body, feeling strong in your body. These are great things. But boosting my self-esteem, doing 50 crunches is not boosting my self-esteem. Fuck that, Cristen. Fuck it.

Cristen: OK. Well you might need to save some fucks for the next one. Have salad-only lunches for a week.

Caroline: Oh my God. Wait. OK, wait. Is this “how to boost your self-esteem” or is this like how to go on a diet” or “how to be disciplined with eating salads”? What is this?

Cristen: I swear to you, the title of this article is Things to Do to Boost Your Self-Esteem. I promise.

Caroline: OK. Go on!

Cristen: All right. “Splurge on loads of new underwear.”

Caroline: OK, I mean, OK, sure, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm short on cash, but I like I like a new - I like a new underpant.

Cristen: Now, this one this one is straight out of ‘96. Run in the park with your Walkman blasting Rod Stewart tunes.

Caroline: OK, OK, that like was me.

Cristen: I wish that I knew what I knew now - before all these salads.

Caroline: Wow.

Cristen: OK, here we go. Next suggestion, if you don't feel like going running, how about this? “Buy pants a size too big. It'll make you feel skinny.”

Caroline: Oh God. Come on!

Cristen: How about how about “Sleep with an old lover who you know won't hurt you emotionally.”

Caroline: Wait did you just make that up or.

Cristen: No! I did not. I have been reading verbatim.

Caroline: I thought for sure because you started it out with a voice

Cristen: “Sleep with an old lover.”

Caroline: I mean, OK, have done it. It can be you know, if it's somebody that isn't like emotionally or mentally toying with you and you know what you're getting into, it can be fun and feel great to dip back into that pool.

Cristen: The list also recommends next: “Sleep with a new lover.”

Caroline: See - see previous response.

Cristen: They also suggest “Ask the ex who's still a friend to take you out.” All of these rely on men. All of these rely on heterosexual men to pull off.

Caroline: Yeah, Cosmopolitan loves some external validation. Why can’t you take yourself out?

Cristen: Right.

Caroline: Go out with friends.

Cristen: Do you want to take a tiny risk, Caroline?

Caroline: Oh god. I don't know.

Cristen: “Take this tiny risk. Ask your handsome neighbor upstairs if you can borrow his laundry detergent. See also: sleep with a new lover.”

Caroline: Oh, my God, you should see my upstairs neighbor.

Cristen: OK, I have I have one more for you, and this is the most detailed piece of advice that they have, so just get ready and listen to the whole thing, OK?

Caroline: OK.

Cristen: “Save up calories for three days, then feast on chocolate truffle pie with vanilla ice cream or whatever sinful sweet you crave. Of course you're going to feel terrible for those three days.”

Caroline: Oh God. Food is not sinful or angelic. Food is not good or bad, food is just food.

Cristen: And you can't save up calories. Oh, my gosh. I will say, I do like - I do like one bit of advice they offer, which is “sleep nine hours.”

Caroline: Nice work, if you can get it. Won't you tell me how?

Cristen: Maybe you need to sleep with that old lover first, induce some slumber?

Caroline: No, that's me sleeping for nine hours is after eating the entire chocolate pie.

Cristen: Hmm.

Caroline: You find me in the morning just chocolate across my face. I had a great night.

Cristen: And this has been Terrible Advice.

Cristen: Thanks to everyone who's sent us Ask unladylike questions! And Rod Stewart..

Caroline: Rod Stewart you can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get our undying love and weekly ad-free bonus episodes, like our recent recap of Sexy Beasts on Netflix at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.

Cristen: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Michele O’Brien is our associate producer. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.

Caroline: This podcast was created by your hosts, Caroline Ervin

Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media.

Caroline: Next week...

Anne: I took a little bit of time off and I was like, OK, we're good. Like I took like three days. I was like, I got a massage. I got a facial. We're good. I was not good.

Caroline: We’re talking to writer Anne Helen Peterson about her experiences with burnout and how our obsession with non-stop work and #girlbossing is burning us ALL out!

Cristen: Anne is one of our all-time favorite thinkers and writers so you don’t want to miss that episode! Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Caroline: And remember, got a problem?

Cristen: Get Unladylike.