"be good to your daughters"

"So fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too"

When my daughter woke up this morning, too early as usual, I pulled her into bed with us. She lay there quietly for a minute, just looking at me and smiling. I looked into those soft brown eyes and at that perfectly beautiful face.

Does my daughter even realize how precious she is?

My daughter, who is 2 years old, is very confident in herself. She is happy and inquisitive, and simply beautiful, as all daughters are at this age.

But for a lot of them, something changes. Life whips it out of them. So how do I teach my daughter that she is indeed beautiful and perfect just the way she is while the world around her screams at her the exact opposite? How do I instill in her that confidence?

Perhaps there was a day, once upon a time, that I felt that true confidence in myself. When I thought I was beautiful, like my daughter, who tells me "I pretty", when I went about my day unafraid and confident in what I did. By my teens, I certainly wasn't that way. I don't blame my parents, but I wonder, was there something they could have done differently in raising me that could have helped with my confidence and self-esteem, or would it have happened anyway just by my personality and how I interact with the world around me? Is there something I can do to make sure my daughter knows she is a person of great worth, despite what the world may shout at her?

I mention daughters, not sons, only because boys tend to be less aware of the world, or at least less focused on it, than girls do. Not that they can't or won't be swayed by what messages they receive about body image, self-esteem, inner and outer beauty, but they seem less affected by it in the same way girls are.

What do you think?