In everything we've been reading the damaging effects of media has been a central force.

APA Report on Sexualization of Girls, Girls Inc.'s The Supergirl Dilemma, You're Amazing, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media all cite exposure to media as a central force in the girls beginning to define themselves as less than they truly are.

While every one of these sources cite media as a potentially damaging influence, they also recommend fighting negative media with positive media.

We have the power to - not just passively ban negative media, which we should definitely do - But we have the power to CREATE positive media for our daughters about girls.

I can tell you this - my daughter thinks it's pretty cool that she's the Poster Girl for Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me. This is one of the reasons I'm inviting you to send photos of your daughter to be included as a Poster Girl on this site. It is one way to take media from outside of our world to a creative and positive medium that includes them.

I created a children's book for my daughter's 5th birthday titled Ainsley, Perfect You. I am practically begging you to STEAL this idea for Christmas (or birthdays).

We read this book before the First Day of School, whenever Ainsley makes negative comments about her self, whenever she feels insecure or whenever she wants. It's a special book that sits out on a shelf and we must wash our hands before reading it.

In the book I addressed issues of beauty, because Ainsley seemed preoccupied with what it was and exactly what criteria people were using to make the judgement about who was beautiful. I addressed school, education, intelligence and learning. I addressed self-worth and a feeling of wholeness and "enoughness." I addressed the meaning of God and her role as a Child of God. I addressed risk-taking and trying new things.

Your family may prize different characteristics or place different values as a priority. What's important, is that you can use this tool to teach her who she is, but also influence, mold and raise or define the bar of expectation for who she will become.

A-N-Y-O-N-E can do this if they have a computer, a camera, $30 and an imagination. You may be thinking you're short on imagination so, while Ainsley, Perfect You is copyrighted I give you permission to steal ideas, concepts, words, etc. Your daughter is every bit as cool as mine, but she may have different attributes and characteristics.

I encourage you to use my book for ideas, but personalize them for your daughter(s). (Of course, its good for your daughter, but don't forget your sons.)

I used www.MyPublisher.com because they were the only company who had a "storybook" feature at the time. Turns out my parents and grandparents were also interested in having a copy of this book (one project many gifts!) and My Publisher has coupons they'll send you frequently. Flickr now offers the feature, and Snapfish and probably all the other ones too.

There are 20 pages so I'll run Ainsley, Perfect You as a series, starting with this foreword. I had to scan the pages, so please forgive the quality.

You'll want to get the RSS feed or an email subscription so you don't miss any of it.

We went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

One particular exhibit had a disconcerting effect on me for days.

You sit in between two mirrors and look at your self.

One is a regular mirror and show's you how you see yourself every day. The top photo is how I see myself.

The other shows you what other people see every day. It shows you what you really look like.

Do you see a minute difference between the top photo and the bottom photo?

I've been fascinated by my own emotional reaction. Truly, it was unsettling to see my reflection differently than I do everyday.

The top photo, what I see in the mirror is more attractive to me.

My eyes are uneven in the second photo. The right eye, when looking at it, is slightly lower than the left one.

I find I hold my head slightly tilted in a way that makes my features more even. I think I also hold that eyebrow higher to make the eyes look more symmetrical. I compensate for the flaw I've really only noticed once in a photo when I was pregnant with Zack.

Since you are other people and it's not your face I really have no clue how you are perceiving the attractiveness of the two photos or whether you see the unevenness of my eyes at all. For all I know, everyone who sees me, may choose to make the same correction that I do for myself.

It strikes me as a kindness to myself that my subconscious mind chooses to correct my minor flaw so that I not only feel more attractive, but literally see myself as more attractive.

It also strikes me that people who suffer from eating disorders, like anorexia and bulimia or the emotional disorder of body dysmorphia for some reason they aren't subconsciously fixing their features in their minds.

They are not only seeing their minor flaw - they are focusing on it and magnifying it.

Its also likely they are expecting the outside world, other people, to treat them the way they treat themselves. Did you see how I assumed that others would treat me with the same kindness as I show myself and that others would correct or overlook the minor flaw in their own perceptions, rather than focus on it and magnify it? This assumption is likely a result of my habit of doing such a kindness for myself and for others.

Were I unkind to myself, and if I made a habit of focusing on the minor flaws of other people, I would likely assume that others were also doing so to me.

That's my theory anyway, based on everything I've read about self-esteem, self-worth, and eating disorders and related emotional disorders.

It follows then that maybe we can teach our daughters to serve their own mental health and self-esteem.

Cutting ourselves, our daughters and others some slack for our minor physical flaws teaches, by example, our daughters this emotional skill vital to their self-preservation.

Treating ourselves, our daughters, and others - especially other girls and women - with kindness is also a teachable habit.

Self-love and self-acceptance is a skill. One we learn and one we can teach.

There was a story on MSNBC.com Today Show, Too young? Preteen girls get leg, bikini waxes, about how 20% of bikini wax customers at one Hollywood salon are tweens - pre-teen children.

"Nearly 20 percent of the clients that Nance Mitchell sees for bikini waxes in her Beverly Hills, Calif., salon are tweens, she says. . . 12 is the new normal."

"But nothing prepared her for being asked by one client to book a bikini wax appointment for her 8-year-old daughter."

{{{{{GASP}}}}}

Did you share my first reaction?

But, then I thought - wait, why is it the waxing that is making me gasp in shock?

Isn't it more alarming that 8 year olds have enough pubic hair to wax?

The sub head of the story is inaccurate: Moms are bringing daughters to spas for hair removal before puberty

The fact is that 50% of girls are getting their periods by age 10 and doctors now consider it within the "range of normal" for girls to develop outward signs of puberty, including breasts and pubic hair, by age 8. It's not that even medically alarming for 6 or 7 year olds to begin puberty, and many do begin developing breast buds or pubic hair.

Isn't it more emotionally alarming and worthy of a {{{{gasp}}}} that we're seeing a dramatic shift in girls' puberty development and no public health official is coming on the nightly news declaring,

"We're going to find an answer to this most disturbing development in girls, who hold the future reproductive burden for our entire species. In the meantime, don't let your daughters drink the water full of pharmaceuticals. Stop injecting milk and meat cows and other animals with hormones. Be wary that extra weight causes girls to make estrogen and develop pubic hair and boobs early. Avoid plastics. We're going to outlaw high fructose corn syrup in foods directly marketed to children. We understand the reproductive future of our entire nation depends on it!"

Instead, we hear about the early pubic hair trend in the fashion and beauty section of MSNBC's Today Show with a sexualization of girls slant.

Shouldn't those mothers be ashamed of themselves? the story basically asks.

Should they?

The story includes a quote by Philadelphia aesthetician Melanie Engle who says the 8 year old request for a bikini wax, "was about the mother's obsession with her daughter being a supermodel."

OK. I can buy that. I've seen mothers primp their daughters as a photographer and photographer's assistant. There is definite maternal beauty pressure.

Yet, if there was nothing to wax, if she were hairless, then her mother wouldn't be thinking her daughter needed to have anything removed to "look like a supermodel." Right?

Last year I did a story about Nair directly marketing to tween and teen girls with a "new" line of hair removal cream, Nair Pretty.

"It's profoundly disturbing," I wrote. It's also disturbing that Nair caught onto this early pubic hair trend and marketed to it, before I, as a parent, caught up with it.

I also went off on some radio DJ who was bashing Lordes, Madonna's young daughter, for having a unibrow and a slight mustache. I was appalled at the DJ's lack of class and placing all this beauty pressure on a young girl.

One brave mother, Athena of 1001 Petals, wrote in the comments section of that post, "I feel kind of bad now for telling my husband yesterday that if our daughter turned out to be as hairy as me, I'd start taking her to an esthetician for waxing as soon as it became evident -- unless she said she didn't care for it. This is because if you wax regularly at such a young age, you're saved a lifetime of regular waxing later on down the road. I had to take myself starting at 12 yrs of age, and now at 30 it is still practically a daily maintenance routine. . .I spend hundreds a year and a lot of time bothering with it."

Athena's right. The more I consider this hairy subject, the more I realize that I will likely assist my daughter, in some way, with her pubic hair and if she developed a mustache or side burns, for goodness sake, I'd help her eradicate it. Like I'm going to throw her to the Mean Girls and hope she survives?

Swim suits are not designed to cover the pubic area. They haven't been for about 40 years.

In "Clean" Bikini Line I wrote about my own struggle since my teen years with various methods of shaving, Nairing, one excruciating episode with Neet and a vicious chemical burn.

I'm amused by Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS), but I still keep my bush rather trimmed, as a courtesy to my husband. I wear swim shorts rather than show off my all my private hairs when we go swimming. The itching always gets to me mid-grow.

But, is my daughter really going to be into wearing one of these modest suits that would cover her bikini area? Am I going to make her be the only kid at the swim party or pool to do so?

I shave my pits and my legs. I pluck my eyebrows. I search for stray hairs on my chin and pluck them immediately.

It is only my budget that keeps me from getting all this hair waxed off. When I lived in NYC there was hair & waxing salon on every corner and it was a mere $30 to get my bikini and eyebrows done. I did it whenever I could afford it.

It's the least painful than other methods, it lasts longer and it was the ONLY thing that prevented razor or chemical burn - in other words waxing was the only solution that I didn't trade unwanted hair for an unwanted rash.

It seems to me a young daughter growing early pubic hair is an even bigger motivator for waxing.

Certainly, the minute girls develop breasts or pubic hair society treats her with less respect and she hears more negative and sexual comments about her body. The more she looks like a teenager or woman, the sooner she will be seen as an object for male entertainment, instead of the three-demensionable little girl, the young child, she really is.

What bigger incentive is there to hide pubic hair, keep it as private as possible, or have it removed?

Does the removal of hair further sexualize girls, because the latest fashion is for adult women to remove hair and get a Brazillian wax? Ironically (and a little disturbingly) making them look more like children.

Or does the removal of a symptom or sign of puberty buy a little girl some more time to be a child?

Please comment, I really am interested in exploring this issue further.

Empowering Girls: Hootchy Clothes

Second Generation Mean Girl

Empowering Girls: Ho'oponopono for Girl Fights

Empowering Girls: Breast Cancer Risks

Empowering Girls: Early Puberty

Precocious Puberty

Image Source: Ohana Swimwear

Maybe you'll recall, last year my daughter had this annoying habit of harassing me about a school lunch tray and Lunchables. I sent her a healthy lunch in a pink plastic lunch box. Every day she'd negotiate with me, If I clean up my room can I have a Lunchable? Can I take a Lunchable on the Field Trip?

Only every time I sent a Lunchable she didn't eat it - because the food sucks.

Then I'd be superannoyed because they cost 3 freaking dollars. The whole point of sending a lunch is economy and health. Lunchables violates everything a lunch should be. It's the Kindergarten status symbol, don't you know?

But, then I read Jen's, Lunch Box Mania, Keyword "Mania." She wanted to cut down on disposable items like baggies. Good point. She did all the environmental and cost analysis homework for me and even told me where to buy these Faux Lunchable trays.

Target for $3 each.

How's that for peer pressure? Ainsley's status symbol is a Lunchable and mine is an economically and environmentally friendly object that will allow me to feed my kid healthy food without incessant complaining.

Please God, don't let it take her 35 years to figure out how to choose your peer pressure for your own self-preservation and best interests.

I figured I'd buy two so one could be in the dishwasher and one could be at school. Of course, I should have factored in the brother and bought 4.

I am also concerned about plastics due to the research I've been doing on early and precocious puberty.

Unfortunately, the only metal child-sized drinking options conflicted with our branding rules - High School Musical (I promised she could have High School Musical everything when she's in High School. But, it's not called 1st Grade Musical or Primary Musical), Princess and Bratz - those were my choices. So, I opted for the Dora plastic thermos with the snack compartment on the bottom until I can find a thermos without implications. (Okay, that's a good point - the lunch box is also plastic.)

As you saw in the video, the Baked Cheetos are going to buy me a lot of peace, I think. Last year I was probably too strict on her lunch snacks. This was daddy's brilliant idea. It's only 100 calories. We bought the bulk box for $8.95 at Sams Club and there are 30 packages.

That's 6 weeks of family harmony and peace - what a bargain.

Empowering Girls: Lunchables

Potty Dance and YouTube Peer Pressure

Empowering Girls: Girls-Only Public School

Empowering Girls: Early Puberty

Precocious Puberty

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Go Bratz Go!

by Tracee Sioux

Perfection - it's the pervasive modern-day feminine Achilles heel and we're passing it down to our daughters according to The Supergirl Dilemma a report about the pressure girls today are under.

Girls feel strong pressure to be perfect, look perfect and behave perfect all the time.

And I don't feel this is something we can blame on men. When was the last time you heard a man exclaim, I can't be perfect! I can't be everything to everyone all the time! Um, Never.

No, this is not an external problem - it's an internal feminine problem stemming from MOTHERS.

{{{{{Gasp}}}}} I said it.

To illustrate why I think so, here's two quick references to mother's preoccupation with perfection in our current feminine dialogue: Christine Fugate writes in the foreword of her new book, The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood Volume 1,

Over one hundred essays poured in from 26 states and four countries. Reading the essays shed light on the current state of the mom-mind. For example, the word 'perfect' (of a variation of it) was used over 92 times. That's almost one 'perfect' for every mom. While I think the questioning of perfection is positive (although not every essay questioned it), the frequency shows that the desire to be 'perfect' continues to loom over our sense of identity.

In The Feminine Mistake, Leslie Bennetts writes,

All too many American women are in thrall to increasingly deranged ideals of perfection. We live in a culture that constantly exhorts us to improve ourselves - and that assumes the perfectibility of virtually everything. If you don't like your nose, get a nose job! If you don't like the color of your hair, dye it! If your thighs are lumpy have liposuction! If you want abs of steel, go to the gym! Personal maintenance has become a national obsession that consumes a staggering amount of energy and resources; if American women put even a fraction of the time they spend on their appearance into working or social and political change, this country would be utterly transformed.

The Supergirl Dilemma, the report we discussed on Friday about gender stereotypes by Girls Inc., does not ignore the influence of adults in the girls' perceptions of what is important.

It's no surprise that the adult women - mothers and nonmothers included - answers to the questions mirrors the girls' answers to the questions.

True, People think that girls care a lot about shopping, 92% of the women said.

True, girls are under a lot of pressure to please everyone, 84% of the adult women said.

True, Girls are under a lot of pressure to dress the right way, 89% of the the adult women said.

What's fascinating is that women were much more likely than men to say they disliked that these stereotypes are true. Women are also more likely than the girls to say they disliked that these stereotypes are true - by a lot.

One reads the women's answers to the questions about girls and wonders if they aren't really answering what it was like for themselves as girls.

Perhaps because the women themselves are caving under the pressure of being perfect?

Our daughters emulate us, especially emotionally.

As in most reports about girls there's a lot of talk about media influence and pressure.

I'm definitely interested in helping Ainsley resist media pressure - but, who is helping her resist internalizing my feelings of being under pressure?

I'd like to see a report about how the media - television, marketing and advertising - is impacting mothers.

Are mothers figuring out how to deal with The Onslaught about women's bodies and sexuality, or are we internalizing it in an unhealthy way and then passing that onto our own daughters?

How are mothers going to resist media pressure that tells us we're never good enough?

If we can get right with ourselves, learn to accept our own selves in our imperfect states, and let this perfection pressure go, nothing will be able to hold our empowered daughters back.

If not. . . well, there's a lot of pressure to be perfect and I don't have to tell you how that feels - you already know.

Empowering Girls: Criticize Daughters' DNA

My Face/Her Face

Self-Loathing Sin Bank
Empowering Girls: Marketing Boundaries

APA Reports Sexualization of Girls Devastating

Math: It's A Tie

One of my goals, as a parent, is to teach my daughter coping skills and practical techniques for dealing with stress.

Personally, I've found yoga to be instrumental in building a core strength, core inner self and self worth, stress reduction and in communing with God.

Of course I want her to have access to skills like this before she hits adolescents and all the negative coping strategies become available to her.

I used to use negative strategies like smoking cigarettes, experimenting with drugs, defining my self worth by boys and men, and a daily diet of Wellbutrin and Xanex. One of my primary objectives is to prevent the adoption of those.

Over the summer I've been practicing yoga listening to Elsie Escobar classes on iTunes during Zack's nap. Sometimes I invite a friend. Sometimes I encourage Ainsley to try a few minutes.

She posed for these photos and then got bored before we moved out of the sitting pose. A fascination with the incense stick took over and she sat near me waving it through the air like a 4th of July sparkler.

The next afternoon I came out of the shower and found her teaching her friends yoga with a DVD, lit candles and burning incense.

Ssshhhh, Mom, we're having our relaxing quiet yoga time.

The APA's Report on Sexualization of Girls recommends teaching your children a way to center themselves, meditate, pray, and view one's body as having value beyond its appearance, beyond male entertainment. Yoga does that for me.

Hopefully, you have healthy coping methods that center and ground you and hopefully you're finding ways to teach those to your kids.

Teach what YOU know.

The Olympics are always an exciting time, to see those teenagers and early adults become the best in the world. It's awe-inspiring.

I want to do that! Ainsley said about her newest Heroine Gou Jing Jing.

Those children train every day from the time they are 3 years old for hours and hours. They don't go to regular school, they practice and practice and practice every single day. Their parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on training, I told her.

Oh, I don't want to do that, she said.

All that sacrifice - of youth, of fun, of childhood - makes me want to cry when one of them gets injured at the last minute and can't compete, like poor Chellsie Memmel whose ankle was injured and then she fell from the parallel bars during the qualifying round.

Listening to the bios you realize that, at least at first, shooting for the Olympics is a parental dream. Or, in the case of China, the State's dream.

Some of the Chinese girls were required to leave their family lives to train for the Olympics because they were inherently extra bendy and flexible or showed innate swimming skills when young.

Some say this is unfair, but my husband says, they were saved from a life of being farm or factory workers.

He has a point.

Some of the American athletes have parents who were Olympians. Mom or Dad won Gold - talk about pressure.

On the bios I heard that many of these teenage girls left their homes to train and one admitted that she has no friends outside the team.

What do you think? Does watching the Olympics make you want to sign your kid up for some hard core training?

Julie Pippert is featuring my essay: Empowering Girls: Hootchy Clothes and Mean Girls on Moms Speak Up, a blog collaborative. Take a trip over there and give it a Kirsty won't you?

Thanks Julie.

Taken from xkcd, also appearing on feministing.

For the life of me I can not tell you why it never, not once, occurred to me to buy Ainsley a train set.

I've been shopping for Zack's 2nd birthday and realized there is a host of toy options for boys that I never considered for my daughter.

Of course, she would've enjoyed a train village. Why wouldn't she? I'm sure she'll get plenty of use out of Zack's.

To understand where we're going it's helpful to understand where we've been. Check out this flickr photoset called Mom's World. It's a photo-essay of a woman, Dotty, in the 1950s who documented her life. It's beautiful and fascinating.

Watch it with your daughter, she'll be equally transfixed.

By Tracee Sioux

Have you gotten the four-page Hannah Montana Branding advertisement from Walmart?

Maddy gets ALL the Hannah Montana stuff! She has the wigs and the microphone and sleeping bag and DVD and CD. How come she gets it and I don't?

Hannah Montana is a Disney Channel sitcom and she's played by Miley Sirus, Billy Ray Sirus's daughter. She's a secret rockstar by night and a normal girl who goes to public school by day.

Last year Hannah was on our Not Allowed to Watch list because of her tone and the dating themes. But, I think we've established that Ainsley is getting her tone straight from the source - me - rather than Hannah.

I argued allow Hannah because she keeps Ainsley (and Zack) occupied while I write.

I've been contemplating doing a post about how the whole plot is propaganda to trick little girls into believing they really can have the best of both worlds (insert theme song music here) with the whole motherhood/career thing, without having to sacrifice anything.

But, since the Best of Both Worlds Tour commenced, the commando marketing is starting to get to me. Have you ever seen an entire four page ad dedicated to one celebrity brand? I can't say that I have.

Of course, Ainsley wants everything in it.

• socks
• shirts
• capris with Hannah's face on cuffs
• electric toothbrush
• gift card
• glasses frames (Hannah doesn't wear glasses)
• purse
• guitar purse
• watch
• t-shirts
• hats
• pajamas
• sleeping bag
• plates and napkins
• mini-wheats cereal
• song cards
• bedding set
• throw
• Nintendo system and games
• posters
• sticker card fun pack
• paperback books
• DVDs
• CDs
• Wigs in many different colors
• singing dolls
• doll paraphernelia
• electric guitar

With the concert selling out at reported $1,000 tickets Hannah mania is feeling more and more like a deranged attempt to seep funds out of parents' pockets.

The lesson here is to teach girls how to resist commando marketing.

No. You don't need all that Hannah Montana stuff.

It sounds so simple doesn't it? No. You don't need it.

I just haven't gotten a lot more creative than that.

Well, aside from my ordinary lessons on being a wise consumer:

Patience grasshopper, by spring I'll find loads of Hannah Montana stuff that spoiled girls demanded, recieved and grew tired of at garage sales.

With 5 years of experience as a reporter, two awards in photography and reporting and a very impressive portfolio and resume I was given $38,000 a year at a large publishing firm in 2000.

In the magazine a man hired at the same time, with a portfolio of crossword puzzle editing, no awards and a work history of equal duration was paid $50,000.

Right across the street at a similarly-sized publishing firm my husband, with no work history at all, no awards or accolades and no portfolio at all was hired for $39,500. That $1,500 MORE than I was making with all my experience, credentials, accolades and portfolio.

Pay discrimination is alive and well. But, we can take action right now to put a stop to it.

Take two seconds and sign the petition to get Congress to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act.

It is within our power to make this a non-issue for our daughters.

I am proud to have been spotlighted on All Diva Media again by DJ Nelson.

My story, Girl Fight, was featured in 5 Posts That Made Me Say Hmmm.

Thanks! I'm honored to have made you think.

Since Title IX has enforced rules about spending for girls sports in the public school system it has led to a 400 percent increase in the rate of female participation in college sports and a more than 800 percent increase in participation at the high school level.

Sports are great for girls. They encourage healthy competition, good physical health and feeling physically, emotionally and mentally strong.

Boys are not the only athletic winners, except when it comes to some school athletic budgets.

Despite the significant gains girls and women have made since the enactment of Title IX, a significant drawback to the law's enforcement at the high school level involves the lack of data reporting. The U.S. Department of Education has not required these schools to report athletic opportunity, participation, and funding statistics to any higher authority. Colleges are required to report this data, it's time our high schools are too.

American Assocation of University Women strongly supports the High School Sports Information Collection Act (S. 518), which would require high schools to report basic information on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs and the expenditures made for their sports teams. Sadly, this bill only has five cosponsors. The Senate is currently working on adding provisions of this bill in the No Child Left Behind Act. An increase in the number of cosponsors will demonstrate support for including the provisions in NCLB.

Be a girls' athletic supporter by clicking on this link and letting congress know that you want to empower girls through sports.

Miss America, the pageant of all pageant's. The, the, the . . . most obsolete thing in the world.

TLC got a hold of the Miss America pageant and aims to modernize it on a reality show called Miss America Reality Check. Which sounded like a potentially promising thing. For a minute.

There was this part of me - the wicked part - that loved every minute of the tongue lashing the 52 pageant contestants got from What Not to Wear stars Stacy and Clinton. Admit it we've all wanted to say "enough with the sequins and take the hair down about 1,000 notches, you look like a drag queen, and for goodness sake stop it with the spray tan!"

I watched again last night (after the kids went to bed) thinking maybe they were going to move onto to some actual modernizing or dare I dream, feministing, of the pageant.

No, we had an intellectual competition. Who is the most smartest beauty pageant contestant? Host Michael Urie, the mean boy from Ugly Betty, made the girls get into their swim suits and stilettos and they were forced to {gasp} jump in the pool to ruin their make-up and hair if they got it wrong.

So, then it became just another way for women/girls to be humiliated in as little clothing as possible. And was it really a challenge of intelligence? The last winner-takes-all question was about which country Borat comes from.

Borat? That's how we gauge intelligence in this country now? From knowing about last year's crude comedy? Fictional geography?

Why did we give carte blanc to all gay men to humiliate women on television? Why are they allowed to be as insulting and cruel as they like without any public backlash? Were a straight man or a woman to say most of what Michael Urie says on that show it would be socially unacceptable. What makes gay guys the ultimate in fashion experts anyway? They don't have to wear the clothes or the heals or use the products - why should women care what they think looks best on us? Why don't we expect even a minimum of respect from them? It's like women have become the gay man's real-life Barbie to make-over as he sees fit.

And who do we have making over Miss America? The fashion industry. Brilliant! Because they've been so wonderful and uplifting to girls and women in America thus far. The fashion industry knows exactly what the American people want to see in Miss America. Not.

Let's see . . . Who has done more harm to women's self esteem and self image -pageants or the fashion industry?

Really I would love to know - how is this better?

There is a column worth reading on the New York Times Opinion Page about the film Juno. Juno, is the name of a teenager who gets pregnant and gives the baby up for adoption.

Columnist, Caitlin Flanagan, has a valid point about the message of the film and how it effects girls. (I, personally, haven't yet seen the film.)

Get your shoes on Zack, come to Home Depot with me, he said.

We were going to watch Jon and Kate plus Ei8ht, I said.

He'd rather go to the hardware store.

Zack loves the babies. It's his favorite show.

What do you want to do Zack? Pick the hardware store. Don't be a girl!

There is nothing wrong with being a girl!

Sometimes I think he forgets who he's married to.

One of the things most important things I want to teach my daughter is how to make her life happen, as opposed to allowing life happen to her.

I want to give her power. Power to do or be anything she chooses. I don't want her to be limited by the past. I don't want her limited by history. I don't want her limited economically or politically or socially.

I want her to know how to dream. Then to know how to achieve her dreams. Since it's my job to teach her these skills, and dreaming is a learned skill, I've been exploring these issues myself.

Can I make my dreams come true?

During this quest I saw The Secret and I've been experimenting with The Law Of Attraction with success (remember my new house that seemed custom-made for me?).

And see you, you are reading this blog are you not? I've been praying that you would come read this blog.

A month ago I attracted a Law of Attraction Mentor, Jeff Howard, who sent me his Law of Attraction Action Pack. It's a seven day program with tools to help you focus on what you want to attract and shows you how to attract it.

While going through the process I have included my daughter. Great tools for me equal great tools for her. We've made dream boards and listened to the meditation exercises together.

I think it must be working for her, because you would not believe her new room. As a child, I never could have dreamed up such a room. Her new room has two closets, one of them is so big it has a reading nook and a whole rack for her dress up clothes. She even has her own bathroom! A six-year-old has her own bathroom.

As we progress in our spiritual journey or our goal-achieving quests, it's important that we include our children in the process. Whatever the process is for us.

I hope you shared this moment, when the first woman ever won a United States Presidential Primary, with your daughters last night.

Regardless of your political leanings, I sincerely hope that the significance of Hillary Clinton's participation in the democratic process is not going unnoticed.

I also hope you watch what you say about her femininity in front of your girls, whether you agree or disagree with her politics.

For parents of girls this is no time to be laissez fair about the first female presidential candidate of the most powerful national on earth.

When so much of the media exposure portrays women as sex objects or a joke, and the national feminine chatter is about the battle to be beautiful or catch a man, it is vital that girls see a woman on the national political scene being taken seriously.

I think the psychological impact of having a female Commander in Chief would have on our daughters is as relevant to the race as anything else. As a woman, I need to see it and my daughter needs to see if even more.

When we were growing up, women in the media were primarily portrayed as housewives, because sex was highly censored. With the increased sexualization of women in the media, it's even more of a struggle for girls to grow up strong and confident.

Last night when Hillary was in the lead in New Hampshire, Ainsley and I shared a high five that made me a choke up. For her, maybe anything really can be possible. As a mother, that's the reality I want for her.

Certainly, witnessing a woman being taken seriously about real issues will make girls feel more legitimate, valid, and ambitious.

Don't miss this opportunity, call your daughter over to the computer and watch the acceptance speech right now.