VBT# Your Daughter Needs a Hero - Maria Furlough
On the lookout for a new teen book to help your daughter with self-esteem and encouraging her to be the best she can be ?
What drives teenage girls? What tempts them? What causes their insecurities? More importantly, what can parents do to make a difference in their lives? Author Maria Furlough battled self-image and self-esteem issues as a teenager, and in Your Daughter Needs a Hero she uses a mix of personal stories and years of experience counselling teenage girls in youth ministry to show parents what their teenage daughters are going through and how best to help them.
Furlough explains how things such as fad diets, the media, and pornography influence a teen girl’s body image, and she guides parents on how to counteract the constant pressures and influences that affect teen girls every day. This book will show parents how to effectively build their daughter’s self-esteem, self-image, and, most importantly, their faith in God and in their parents. If you have a daughter, Your Daughter Needs a Hero is a must read!
Book Excerpt :
I’ll never forget the very
first time I looked in the mirror and thought I was fat. I was nine years
old and spending my Saturday afternoon like I always did, locked in
my room with a Teen Bop magazine. The
afternoon festivities went something like this. First, I went to extreme
lengths to make sure neither my parents nor my younger brother entered
into my room without first alerting me. Second, I needed a
soundtrack, which usually included Wilson Philips or New Kids on the
Block. Thirdly, and most importantly, was the full-length mirror.
That full-length
mirror entertained me for hours. I would pose, dance, sing, model, dress
up, imitate my parents, and put on make-up all in front of that
one long, full-length
Reflection.
But this Saturday, this specific Saturday, would forever change the way I
looked in that mirror.
So, first on the
agenda for that afternoon was reading my
Teen Bop magazine, and truth be told, the pictures
Was the
only thing that really mattered? I would go through the pages, find a
picture of a girl I thought
Was cool,
and then pose like her in the mirror. At this particular moment in time, a
picture of Tiffany Amber
Thessien stood out to
me. She was propped up against a locker with one leg up and her hands on
her hips. Now was my turn, so I propped up against my dresser
carefully in order to copy her perfectly. I put one leg up and hands
on my hips. I remember feelings of dread and sadness came over me as I
looked in the same full-length mirror that had previously brought me
innocent views of myself. My next thoughts were thoughts that, to this
day, are embedded permanently in my mind: I don’t look like
her. I am not as skinny as she is. And that was it. From then on, was
ruined. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks: I don’t look like the
girls in the magazines. I realize that from the outside looking in, this
story doesn't sound like a very big deal. A cute little girl
realizes she doesn't look like the girl in the magazine. So
what? Well, to me and to so many young girls, it is a very big deal.
After that instance, I began to grow up believing I was too fat for words
(which I wasn't) and that my worth a woman lied solely in the way I
looked in a skirt. I lost all of my years as an adolescent going to great
lengths to try to get to a place where I was comfortable in my own
body, a place where I loved the way I
looked. The sad part I was on a journey to a place that could never bring
true fulfilment to a young woman simply because it is a
place that does not exist.
This place is a place that
the media convinces us exists, place of physical perfection. Us girls, we
tell ourselves that if we work hard enough
and hate our bodies enough, then someday we will find that euphoric place.
Sixteen painful years later, I can say with confidence that it is
a lie that I don’t want another single young girl to buy into.
Comments
Post a Comment