Look at her hairy legs

[Gruntled]

I've just fallen out with my mum. DD8 is wearing a short skirt and six times this morning DM has pointed out that she is getting hairy legs! I told her that she should stop saying it as it will give her a complex. AIBU to tell her to shut up? Now she's huffing about muttering about not being able to say anything these days. She has form for this sort of thing, no one can just be 'the little girl round the corner' it's always the black girl or the fat boy or the big nosed man.

And yes - reading the thread again but more slowly - YES! She always always had something to say about my appearance particularly the bits I could do nothing about. Mortifying for a teen and she didn't stop until I was mid thirties and DH did actually tell her to STFU as if anyone was going to comment in my appearance it would be him from then on. She did not like them apples one bit but she never did do it again to me!

Hedgehog that is such a sad post. Good for your dd to not feel she had to do it despite both parents wanting her to.

I could have written your post. You can't change what they say so you have to minimise the exposure to it. 30 years of it and I'm having counselling, think no man would ever want to be seen with me and have disordered eating. Oh and I'm NC
Leaving/asking her to leave is probably the only thing that will work

I don't get why people do it. I saw a thing that said before you speak, is it kind, is it necessary and is it more beautiful than silence? That's what I try to stick by

goodasitgets so sorry. I do understand. I'll never get over my deep rooted opinions of myself - too late before I realised how it had happened - so I wish you well with your therapy.

YANBU!

My DGD is nearly 3 and the other day a friend said to her-
'Oh don't eat all that chocolate (a small pack of buttons) or you'll get fat!'

I'm afraid I snapped at her!
Don't you Ever Ever say anything like that to her again!'

Friend won't and was sorry and then I thought I'd been a bit harsh but it was an instinctive reaction and I'd do the same again!

Thank you
It's really nice to learn who I actually am, and restful to realise you can't be the person they want you to be because nothing is ever good enough
I'm feeling pretty contented at the moment but there's still a lot to work through

YANBU you did the right thing in standing up for your DD, let your mum be in a huff, hopefully she'll think twice about doing similar again.

Horrible thing for her to say. My DD was very hairy at 8 years old. Thankfully no-one to my knowledge commented on it. Interestingly when my DD hit puberty the hair disappeared- she is 14 now and pretty hair free.

yADNBU. I would nip this in the bud right now. Seemingly innocuous comments about slightly furry legs repeated over and over is over the top and unnecessary in relation to a child. And potentially just the start. In a couple of years it could easily be "you're putting on a few pounds", "are you going to eat that?", "your clothes are getting tight", "you can always cover that with make up", "you're not as pretty as X", etc. Then you end up with a teen with low self esteem, poor self confidence, with a tendency towards difficult eating habits.

And I know this as you have just described exactly how my mother started.

My MIL is exactly the same. In fact I didn't speak to her for a few years over a comment she made to my child. She apologised eventually. Definitely a generational thing. So is the very LOUD voice too, lol.

I didn't want her to, I wouldn't have said anything (I hadn't noticed her legs tbh) .I thought that as dh had noticed and mentioned it to me that I would give dd the choice in case she wanted to. When I was her age DM had forbidden me from shaving my legs and in secret I was very over zealous with a 'silky mit' and took all the skin of my legs which took weeks to heal so I took the opportunity in boots to bring the subject up, much like I did when dd started to need to use deodorant, we went to boots I said lets get one of these.

No YANBU at all. Sounds like my mum. My sister has a very unhealthy body image and lack of confidence because of her constant remarks when we were younger.
She told my DSis the other week that her 4yr old dd was developing a double chin and looking fat round the tummy.
She told me that she won't by any slim legged jeans for my DS as she knows he has fat legs - he is 2.
I told her she was pathetic and damaging with comments like that but she'll do it again. She told me to stop being so touchy.
Seriously what sort of person says things like that? I told my MIL what was said and she was absolutely horrified - so generational? maybe, but I think a lot of it is just plain nastiness. Makes me so very

This is rather off the point of the thread, so please excuse me. I just wanted to say that some girls WERE encouraged academically in the 1950s and even more so in the 1960s. The 11+ exam did not distinguish between boys and girls, and high-achieving girls got places at very academic state-run grammar schools. There were also fee-paying academic girls' schools, eg the GPDST network. I'm not saying that this was good, but it definitely happened.

Admittedly, there were fewer university places for girls, especially at Oxbridge, and, while many bright girls were encouraged to become teachers or nurses, they were not helped to set their sights on a wider range of opportunities, eg in the law, science/medicine, finance or business management.

I apologise for mentioning the issue of class, but I think that in the 1950s and 1960s a lot more depended on social expectations and background than it does today. Society was more class-ridden, less fluid. It was socially easier for girls from professional families to aim for a high-flying academic career - especially if their mother had a profession (role-model etc). 'Brainy' girls did face prejudice as they applied for jobs (no equal opportunities legislation). But I really don't think that people thought 'looks were everything'.

People were thinner in the 1950s and 1960s - although for some the ideal shape was curvy, as earlier poster said. (But even Marilyn Monroe was not that big by modern standards starcasm.net/archives/169858.) The other ideal was very slim and well groomed Audrey Hepburn - 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' was 1961. Really skinny, boyish, looks - Twiggy as a teenager (famous from 1966 onwards) - became fashionable in the mid-late 1960s/early 1970s.

Yes, she was absolutely out of order for making a big deal about it. A passing comment is enough.

However, if your daughter does feel self conscious about it, you should allow her to start shaving. No point in letting hair chip away at her self esteem.

Her classmates are getting at an age where they might start noticing these things and whether you like it or not, it is cultural norms to have bare legs. Just keep that in mind for her, and don't dig your heals in to fight "idealized beauty" at the expense of your child's self esteem. (Not saying you will, but I've seen some parents refuse to let their teens wear make up in a battle that wasn't theirs to fight)

It does seem a shame that these sort of personal comments seem to be so much a part of older women's lives- I can't imagine what it must have been like when your appearance was your passport to a good marriage and wealth through your DH, and you were nothing if you weren't pretty hairless slim and man focused.
It was a horrible culture, where women were blamed for wandering men, and women's appearance was fair game for nasty comments.

However this is totally out of order now, when women are financially independent and we know life isn't a beauty pageant.

I'm glad you're standing up for your dd OP, personal comments and this kind of criticism are extremely harmful, and out of place in today's world.

Well done for pulling her up on it.

I would write your mum a letter and say that personal comments are off limits and if she persists, she won't be welcome. It's bullying behaviour, and very harmful.

*YANBU. Your mother is out of order.

The trouble is, a lot of women of her generation were conditioned into thinking that looks (in women) are everything.
*

My mother is a legacy of this, too, despite having had a very good career and being very intelligent. She judges female newsreaders on their looks and clothes very severely. I find women my generation much less judgmental.

YANBU. My MIL said something very similar regarding hairy legs to DD10 a few weeks ago, after a few glasses of wine. I asked her not to because I knew DD was already a bit concious of it (she's quite dark skinned so it's very noticable) but she still said it twice more. DD was a bit upset and asked when she could shave her legs afterwards when it was just her and I.

I don't want DD to start shaving, she's just too young and she shouldn't feel any pressure to do it until she feels ready.

My step mum is like this. She was always very skinny, and very scathing about anyone overweight. Sometimes the things she comes out with sound so angry and vitriolic. She totally gave here daughter a lifelong complex about her looks, not helped by her always saying how pretty I was, but never telling her own daughter that. Sometimes I feel like telling my step mum that she is not so skinny anymore, and rather resembles a cocktail sausage on 2 toothpicks. That would be wrong though.

My mother is exactly the same,

I've had a lifetime of put downs and emotional abuse, a lot of which is still to do with my appearance, e.g. "You're too fat, you're ugly, your hair looks a right mess, Why are you wearing that? It's horrible, Why can't you look better" It just goes on and on and never ends.

She criticises everyone else as well, whether it's someone on tv, or just someone in the street, and it's always to do with their appearance.

I ended up very unwell due to my mother's behaviour.

OP, I know it might be hard, it took me years to be able to stand up to my mother, but she needs to know that her criticising of your DD is not on.

I am not the only one with a DM like this then
I am going to try not to make a big thing about it but I'm going to just say "that's enough of that"
every time she comes out with a personal comment.