Alison Curtis: why puberty can be empowering for girls

Alison Curtis feels puberty should be a positive experience for girls. Pic: Marc O'Sullivan

IN the past week or so, my daughter, Joan, and I have gone back to reading a few pages a night of Celebrate Your Body (And Its Changes, Too!), by the wonderful Sonya Renee Taylor.

This has become the book I have recommended most to my friends and I have also posted about it on my social-media channels.

The book is factual, positive, uplifting, and inclusive and helps navigate puberty for our daughters.

Sonya is a powerhouse: She is a New York Times best-selling author, founder of The Body Is Not An Apology online community, and has helped me frame puberty in a positive way for Joan.

From the first page, it is clear that Celebrate Your Body is going to ‘talk’ to children in an accessible and supportive way.

One message, which is reinforced time and time again, is that our bodies are perfect for us and it is not helpful, or necessary, to compare our development, shape, or size to anyone else’s.

This message got through to Joan, and I have heard her repeat it like a mantra to her friends.

Not that long ago, Joan made a new pal in the park and they became fast-and-firm buddies for about an hour. 

The little girl told Joan that she doesn’t feel great about her body and Joan told her that her “body was perfect for her”. 

Joan also told this little girl that anyone who would say anything bad to her isn’t happy with themselves.

I was so happy that Joan is applying the same principles to her own life.

Sonya writes that she doesn’t use the word ‘beautiful’ often, because she thinks that there are so many better ways to describe ourselves, like funny, smart, and “the best peanut-butter-jelly sandwich maker in the world”.

I love this, because it reduces the importance of the word beautiful, it puts it more on an equal footing with other words we like to use to describe our daughters, and it suggests that being beautiful can mean a lot of different things.

The book covers so many important areas of how to take care of our bodies, “as they are so important to us”. It encourages our children to learn to care for their teeth and nails and outlines a lovely skincare regimen for girls aged eight years and up.

The language is always empowering and comforting and, crucially, it is very careful around menstruation. How this is presented to girls from an early age has a huge impact on their relationship with their periods growing up.

I was fortunate to have a sweet and gentle father, who, along with my mother, talked me through getting my period and supported me in how to care for myself during this huge life change.

The book outlines this phase of our life in a way that prepares young girls, not scares them. Sonya even encourages each reader to pick a trusted adult to talk to, and to get help from, along the way.

As parents of daughters, we have a huge responsibility to ensure that they grow up proud of their bodies and all that their bodies do for them.

We have to help them embrace the inevitable changes and to see it all as natural. We should steer them away from comparing themselves to others, teach them to appreciate their differences, and help other girls do the same.

In short, I want Joan to celebrate her body (and all its changes, too!)