"T-Shirts, Glamour Mags, and the Worth of our Children"

"It Sucks to be Me"
    I picked up my fifth grade daughter from school this afternoon.  She lugged her 80 lb. backpack into the front seat and buckled in her 56 lb., fifth grade frame.  As we pulled away from the school she pulled out a glossy teen magazine and began to read.
    I rolled my eyes and said, “I wish you wouldn’t read that.”
    “Why?  What’s wrong with it?”
    “It’s junk, that’s what’s wrong with it.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Look at that magazine.  Do you see any overweight people in those pictures? (None) Any people of color?  Any people who are not good looking?   I don’t like that magazine because those people aren’t real.  People read junk like this and get the impression that you have to dye your hair and put on skimpy dresses and pump silicon into your boobs and be skinny- enough-to-make-you-sick so that you might be somehow worth looking at.  Those people aren’t real...they’re plastic.”
    “Dad...it’s just a magazine.”
    We arrived at our destination, joining a group of students at play practice.  A wonderfully talented, witty, normally-shaped high school student came over to talk to us.  She wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the quote: “It sucks to be me.”  I didn’t know her well enough to comment on her public proclamation, but there it was for all the world to see.  We visited for a while and the girl drifted off and began a conversation with someone else.
    I made my way back to my daughter and asked, “Did you see that girl’s shirt?  Why do you think she wears that message?”  
    “I don’t know,” she answered.
    “I wonder...I wonder if she’s read too many of those magazines like you’re reading there, and then looked in the mirror and thought, I’m never going to look like that?”
    It sucks to be me.  What would lead a pleasant, talented, funny young woman to such a conclusion?  And where are our children learning what they are worth?