11/11/2025
My Dearest Daughter,
I wanted to write this letter to let you know how incredible you are but also address the things I want you to understand about your body. One day maybe an Instagram post, a mirror, or a careless voice—will try to tell you that your body is a problem to solve. I want these words to reach you.
You do not owe the world a smaller waist, smoother skin, or a face that photographs like a filter. Your body is not a draft that needs revision; it is the first draft of the rest of your life. Every freckle is punctuation. Every scar is something you survived. The stretch marks that may one day silver across your skin are not cracks in porcelain—they are lightning bolts proving you grew faster than the space you were given.
I have watched women fold themselves into smaller and smaller shapes, like paper cranes trying to fit inside a matchbox. They call it “discipline.” I call it disappearance. I refuse to teach you that hunger is a virtue or that your worth can be measured in the negative space between your bones. You are allowed to take up room. You are allowed to be loud in your laughter, heavy in your footsteps, soft in your heart. The planet has spun for four and a half billion years without needing your apology for existing on it.
Beauty standards are just weather vanes for someone else’s anxiety. They spin whichever way the wind of profit or panic blows. Today they want “thigh gaps”; tomorrow they’ll want something else you were born without. Do not chase. Plant your feet and let the wind turn around you. The only standard that matters is the one that keeps you alive and curious: Does this body let me run toward what I love? Does it let me hug hard? Does it let me sleep deeply and wake hungry for breakfast, for experiences, for the next impossible dream? If yes, then it is perfect.
There will be days when the mirror lies. It will show you a stranger and whisper that the stranger is flawed. On those days, remember that mirrors only know reflection, not context. They cannot see the way your heart tilts toward justice or the way your mind braids questions into answers. A mirror is a poor biographer.
You will meet people who treat bodies like scorecards. They will speak in calories and clothing sizes the way others speak in firm beliefs. Smile gently, step around them, and keep walking.
Here is the secret no advertisement will sell you: power does not live in being wanted; it lives in wanting. Want fiercely. Want the right to choose. Want the deep, honest connections. Want the friend who sees the mess and stays. Want the work that makes your palms sweat and your soul glow. Want the life that fits the size of your courage, not the size of your jeans. When you spend your desire on becoming, there is no currency left to buy shame.
One day you may choose to paint your lips red or cut off your hair or get a tattoo that wraps around your arm. Do it because it thrills you, not because it corrects you. Your body is not a before picture. There is no after required.
You are and have always been so much more than just beautiful. I want you to feel free. Freedom looks different on every body, but it always looks like joy.
If anyone ever tells you that your value is tethered to how closely you resemble a stranger’s fantasy, hand them this letter. Tell them your mother said the only fantasy that matters is the one where you wake up every morning astonished to be yourself.
I love all the parts that make you, you. I love the parts I haven’t met yet. Change is the only proof we are still writing the story.
You are special. You are exactly as you’re meant to be.
Your Mum 🤍
