I know most everyone is probably past it, but it's something we struggle with in our home on a nearly daily basis: Why are there no feminine role models for young girls in popular culture?

Broken Down

So when is it going to stop?
The exploitation of our children isn't happening behind closed doors
But while we watch;
While we pay to be entertained
by the slow decent into madness
self-hatred
lost innocence
never to be regained.
We watch as they kill themselves
as they strangle their own humanity.
We watch as a sweet baby girl, made in the image of God
to create, excel, to love and experience love
becomes a puppet
a sex toy
a prostitute.
But we shake our heads
and we blame the machine,
never admitting that we paid the bill
to build it, to maintain it.
It happens, over and over again
The wide-eyed, the beautiful
molded and shaped to become whatever will produce
the most dollar signs and attention,
developing an addiction in them, much deeper than drugs,
a high they can never keep.
They can't buy it, no matter how much they earn
And eventually, they're worn out.
They can't sell themselves anymore.
They've gotten too old
too weird
too needy
and we've lost interest.
Oh how I hurt
over these little girls
over the lies they've been told
over the loss they've endured
but may never even realize.
What can I say to my daughters
being raised in a culture that calls this stuff
art... theatre... freedom
or, at worst,
MUSIC?
What can I tell them about true beauty
What soap can I give them to wash these images out of their minds
The sweet girls they wanted to be like
Now broken down to shards of sweat-smeared glass
Nothing left of the shine in them
except what computer editing can give.
God, give our girls the strength to stand
As they're pulled and pushed around
By the waves of peer review and popular opinion
Give them eyes to see true beauty
THEIR beauty
Keep them safe from the sickeningly sweet,
then salty
then sour
then putrid
lure of sexuality as represented in this day
and may we never be a part of this machine
as long as we breathe
and have life on the earth.