We Must Teach Our Boys About Beauty

Hey, boy moms.

I need you to listen up.

Because we talk a lot about how girl moms get to speak into their daughters’ hearts when it comes to beauty and self-confidence and self-worth.

But you and I, the mamas of little boys—we have a role in all this.

We ought to—nay, we have to—be part of the conversation, too.

Because our little boys won’t always be little boys.

Our little boys will become men.

Men who just might date or marry those little girls.

And our boys need to understand beauty.

Our boys need to understand self-confidence.

Our boys need to understand self-worth.

They need to understand it for themselves, first and foremost, but they also need to understand it for the women they love.

Because it’s up to us to instill in them some much-needed truth.

That what you see on the outside only scrapes the surface of a woman’s beauty.

That women are never defined by their appearance.

That women aren’t trophies to be won or displayed.

That women who love well—who are kind and compassionate and gracious—are the most beautiful of them all.

So let’s be careful what we tell our sons about beauty.

Not just with our words, but with our actions.

Let’s show them women who are confident but humble.

Let’s show them women who know their value, a value that’s infinitely greater than makeup or curling irons or the number on the tag in a pair of jeans.

Let’s show them women who love themselves well, giving them the capacity to love others well, too.

Because we need to be part of the conversation.

We can’t just sit idly back hoping our boys will define beauty the way it’s meant to be defined.

Because they won’t.

If we don’t tell them—if we don’t show them what that looks like—the world will.

And the world has a completely distorted story to tell about beauty.

So talk to them.

Be intentional.

Let them know that they’ll be bombarded with an entirely different narrative, but you’re here to share with them the truth.

The truth that women are beautiful.

But they’re also strong, and kind, and smart, and funny, and courageous, and capable, and precious, and brilliant, and caring, and worthy.

Because the beauty of a woman is complex.

And wonderful.

Yet it’s undoubtedly the least important thing she has to offer the world.

This post originally appeared on Kisses From Boys with Krista Ward

 

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