I am not Pretty Enough!

(The effects of social media on our youth)

 

With the advancement of modern technology, it is considered normal to find our youths scrolling down their social media pages for hours on end.

Most of us are okay with it because we believe that they are at home – which means they are safe, right? What if I told you that they are not safe. The content that they peruse daily is being embedded into their subconscious minds. For hours on end! The more scrolling that they do, the more damage that is being done to their self-concept — how they perceive themselves.

So, after they look at the Kardashians, the Amber Roses and the Cardi B’s – they start to emulate their looks and their personalities. It’s not soon after, that many parents notice big changes in their children’s personalities.

Because these children don’t look like these women — they start looking at Pinterest — looking at the latest fashion so that they can learn how short and how tight to wear their clothing, to get noticed. How to style their hair. Oh, I almost forgot about the YouTube videos on how to wear makeup so that they can look as pretty – as the superstars that they follow on their social media pages. They don’t understand that these people make a living out of fake body parts, liposuction and possessing little to no moral compass.

No matter how hard they try to look like them, they can’t because most of those women are manufactured. And unless they can convince their parents to opt for surgery, they may not be able to achieve such fake goals of beauty. Many times, our youth become depressed and start to believe they aren’t attractive, all because they believe the narrative that constantly written about how dark is ugly and how white is right!

How do we get our youth back to believing and understanding how special they are — how beautiful they really are? We must first help them understand that true beauty comes from the inside then it expands outward. They need to understand that their clothing and shoes don’t have to cost a fortune to drip finesse!

It is our responsibility to make sure that our children understand that a beautiful woman is a woman who has a distinctive personality. She is comfortable in her own skin. She doesn’t have to follow the crowd and is perfectly okay with being a leader. She knows that the power within her should be used for good and not evil. She loves without expecting anything in return. She has morals and standards. More importantly, she knows and loves GOD. He is her foundation and her rock. There is no need to fit acquiesce to the world’s standard of beauty because she is beauty personified.  She embraces her beautiful skin whether it is dark as a Hershey’s Bar of chocolate or as light as a Cookies and Cream bar. She embodies that because GOD didn’t make any mistakes in creating her!

Why follow and emulate people that aren’t even comfortable with being their true selves? Some feel the need to butcher and mutilate their own bodies — some even to the point of death—all to be accepted by society and its standards.

If we are going to post all these beautiful, flawless pics of cosmetically altered women, then we need to post the pics of botched surgeries and how some of these same women die on the operating table?

How did we get the gigantic holes in our hearts to believe that our natural beauty isn’t enough? How do we learn how to really love and accept our true selves?

Please understand that most of these young women eventually grow up and become grown women who still believe they are not beautiful because they don’t understand that they are so much more than their physical body. They are intelligent, they are creative, and they are a life force to be reckoned with!

How do we stop this cycle of not loving who we are – as beautiful as we are, as people?  How do we stop it?

I say it begins at home with our little girls. We need to monitor what they can watch on TV. The music that they listen to, and even the friends that they choose to hang around. As for me and mine — I am taking a stand against social media! I have taken my girls off social media for the summer and maybe even longer. They are learning how to love and accept the skin that they are in! I am exposing them to positive shows and environments. They are required to read a book a week then explain, in depth, the storyline and theme. I am picking subjects about self-love and self-care, and about why loving and accepting how GOD made them is so important.

I encourage every parent to do the same. Our kids are being brainwashed and if you ask many of them what they want to be when they grow up — you will be surprised with their responses. We must bring our kids back to the basics before we lose them to the complicated lies of this world!

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