My very cool friend Jo (two mentions girl, don't go getting all "ego" on me!) sent an email to her girly friends, concerning Dove's Campaign for real beauty (you can read about it here)

I went to you tube and watched the Dove TV ad's (which you can do here). I fair dinkum lost it...I sat there watching the ads in tears.

Why? So many reasons...I want to take each one of those teenagers by the hand and tell them that all the high school stuff, the bitching and scheming, the "who kissed who", the "you aren't good enough because" is not the stuff of real life.

I want to tell the little Asian girl who wishes she was blonde that she looks so adorable the way she is, and that I would love to have skin the colour of hers.

I want to tell the little chubby kid with a missing tooth that she is cute as heck, and I want to punch anyone who says any different.

I want to keep my little guy by my side until he's so secure and prepared and stable that it won't matter if the world hates him, he'll still hold his head up...
Only I know that even if I had him with me every day for the rest of my life, he's still going to come up against people who seek to do him harm. It's not my job to shelter him; it's my job to give him the tools he needs to cope.

I want to hope that God sends us only sons. I am utterly terrified of having a daughter, and all the issues that come along with that- the emotions, the feelings of self doubt, and the body image thing. I feel more equipped to land a 747 in an emergency, than I do to parent a girl...

Most of all the ads made me cry for me, and for how much life I've lost, and how much time I have wasted, crying over things people have said or done.

I cried because at the end of the day, nothing about how you look should matter, but yet somehow it still does. You are judged before you even open your mouth.

The world has people who are tall and short, fat and thin, brown and yellow and pink and a mixture of all those things. We spend so much of pre-school teaching our kids that colour and appearance don't matter, and then they go to school and some superficial little snot tells them otherwise.

How do we immunise kids against all the crap which bombards them, which tells them “wear this and be cool!” “Eat this and be happy!” “Drink this and be surrounded by friends!” Most of all, how do we tell them that, even though the geeks and fat kids and disabled kids don’t get noticed or accepted very much, that they will probably grow up to be the coolest, most well rounded people you’ll ever meet?

I wish I could give those teens a crystal ball, so that they could see that the “cool” kids, who want to be models and actresses, will probably end up working in an office, and partying into their 40’s, at which point they will realise they are past it…and will more than likely end up at Mosman rowers for “grab a granny” night.

So what is the answer? Gosh, if you figure it out, I sure would love to know!