Wicked Forced Me to Have a Conversation I Hoped My Daughters Could Avoid

A couple of weeks ago, I took my 8- and 11-year-old daughters to see Wicked: For Good. We all enjoyed the first Wicked, so naturally, my girls wanted to see the second. They asked to go to the mall to pick out pink and green Glinda and Elphaba tees and hair bows to wear to the opening day of the sequel at our local theater. The showing was packed with my daughters’ elementary-aged peers, many of them clad in pink and green of their own. They’ve been dressing up as their favorite characters since they were old enough to ask for it, and every year it’s something new: Frozen, Descendants, KPop Demon Hunters, and now Wicked, of course.

I knew going into this that Glinda, Elphaba, and Madame Morrible’s physical appearances had changed from the first movie, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so pronounced. I was stunned: Not only was I completely distracted by their noticeably thinner bodies in nearly every scene for the two hour and twenty minute duration of the film, but my whole being clenched, seeing it through my daughters’ eyes.

In our family’s experience, “body shaming” becomes a buzzy phrase in junior high and high school. Our elementary-aged kids have always seemed less aware of what it means, but that’s when I’ve found it’s even more important to practice thoughtful conversations. (I don’t allow phones until middle school or social media access until 16, but there’s not a whole lot I can do to prevent them from being exposed through their friends’ devices.) I have learned to approach a topic before it becomes an issue. I have also learned that discussing other people’s bodies can be harmful and toxic, and thus, I’ve adopted a strict rule in our home about no body talk. We don’t use words like “fat,” “skinny,” or “chubby,” and instead use descriptors that allude to age, cultural identities, hair color, or clothing when we refer to people whose names we don’t know. “All bodies are good bodies” is a phrase used often in my home. It is critically important to me to raise self-aware, kind people.

I learned this the hard way: When I was a typical 90s tween, my shag-carpeted bedroom was a shrine of magazine clippings—photos of Kate Moss and Claudia Schiffer, their hollowed out cheekbones framing scowls and dark under-eye circles. It wasn’t until I was well into my teenage years that the dangerous cocktail of glamorized waifs and my own rampant insecurities caught up with me, manifesting into a full-blown eating disorder.

This was thirty-odd years and many lifetimes ago, but the same body that I resented and restricted eventually bore me six healthy children. Three boys and three girls with their own minds, curiosities, and insecurities, growing up in a very different social landscape. Their peers with their pockets full of tiny screens provide a direct and intimate connection to the very underbelly of the human experience. The criticisms and compliments in their comment sections are a ticker-tape of toxic messaging. I have also become immersed in the deeply saturated internet universe, only I have six sets of lenses atop of my own: I see the world through my children’s eyes, both in its breathtaking beauty and heart-stopping panic.

After the movie, I approached the topic the second we got in the car, when I knew it was still swirling in their minds. (Our easiest and most natural conversations happen while I am driving and they are looking out the windows.) I was careful to not ask leading questions or put ideas in their heads, but I wanted—needed—to know how the images of Glinda and Elphaba made them feel.

“They are such amazing singers, don’t you think?” I asked. “They surely seem like amazing women.” My eight-year-old replied: “I think she’s a girl, Mom. Glinda is, like, a girl. Not a grown-up.” I asked my daughter what made her say that, and her sister chimed in. “Her voice is small and her waist is really small, like a Barbie.” I asked, then, if they seemed different than when they were in the first Wicked, and my girls nodded.

We almost always remember the first time we are exposed to something, especially if it encourages new curiosities and feelings. I imagined this for my girls: Glinda and Elphaba as today’s Paris and Nicole. Trepidatiously, I suggested that sometimes people have big feelings and it affects how they care for their bodies. I expressed the hope that the actors are feeling okay. I certainly don’t have all of the answers, but I do know that transparency, accountability, and authenticity are the best way to guide our easily-influenced children, and that part definitely starts at home.

You might be wondering why I let my children see Wicked at all. One thing I have learned in my 19 years of parenting is that controlling any narrative is not realistic or practical, particularly when so many kids have internet access as early as first or second grade. Ostracizing them from pop culture that all of their peers are immersed in would be doing them a disservice. By not letting them see Wicked: For Good, it would become a bigger deal than the very reason I would restrict it.

The parasocial relationship today’s celebrities build with their fans establishes a deceptively intimate level of trust. Their faces, bodies, and likeness are everywhere. Perhaps it’s none of my business. But as mothers, we want to prevent our children from leaving a movie theater mistakenly equating thinness with health, fame, popularity, and wellness. That is when it becomes my business. It’s all of our business—because we are raising children who see glorified, unhealthy body images pumped into our phones, in magazines, on our radios, and in our bank accounts. Most importantly, into our children’s psyches. We can’t let history repeat itself, as it always seems to do.

Related:

• Why I Send My Kids on ‘Sibling Dates’
• Here’s What I’ve Learned About Raising Boys in My 30 Years as a Child Psychologist
• Motherhood on Mushrooms: How Microdosing Psilocybin Helped Me Cope

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