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Debra Beck has focused for 15 years on working to help girls become confident adults. She first wrote her book, My Feet Aren't Ugly!: A Girl's Guide to Loving Herself from the Inside Out (Beaufort Books) as a manual to be used in her mentoring classes with teenage girls. Debra is the founder of Spirited Youth, and is available to travel and speak about her area of expertise - helping girls aged 11 to 15 to become confident, mature young adults.

18 December, 2007… by e-mail
DB: Debra Beck
MC: Margaret Chen

MC: Hi Debra, thank you for taking this interview with iCUBED.us so close to the holidays… How did you come to this work that you do? Is it a career path you envisaged as a young person, or did you come to it in your journey through life?

DB: I came to do this work definitely as a result of my journey through life. My teenage years were filled with anxiety, self-doubt, and a lot of self-loathing. I felt very separated and disconnected from everyone, especially my family. It wasn’t until I had two daughters of my own did I realize that those feelings were not exclusive to me. I didn’t want any girl to have to go through what I went through, so I started mentoring my daughters' friends and friends' daughters that is how it started.

MC: What happened in your teenage years to make you feel disconnected from your family and friends?

DB: My father was an alcoholic and my mom was very depressed, so my self confidence was very low. This in turn made me feel extremely disconnected in all of my relationships.

MC: Can you tell our readers a little about Spirited Youth? When did you start it? What is its mission?

DB: Spirited Youth is an organization for and about girls; I started Spirited Youth in 2005. Its mission is to help young girls have a better sense of who they are and make better decisions in all areas of life by learning how to love themselves and becoming empowered with self-esteem.

MC: Does 'spirited' refer to religion? Can you explain how you are using the term "spirited"?

DB: Spirited Youth is not about a religion. Spirited is about living in your spirit, living who you are. When we love ourselves for who we are, that is when we are the happiest. Have you ever notice that you feel the best when you are with people that let you be you?

MC: Do you think that fundamentally girls are different than boys? Please explain your answer...

DB: Yes, I do believe that fundamentally girls are different than boys. My daughter, who is now a mother, was bound and determined not to have my grandson be a “typical” boy, who played with trucks, guns, etc. and even though she was introducing other items to entertain him, he gravitated to boy toys, constantly and just plain being a boy. Girls start out wanting to play with dolls, to nurture, to care for something. I believe it is our hormonal make up. Boys have more testosterone, which has been proven in science to make rats more active and aggressive. I believe girls are more sensitive; this is not to say that boys never are. I have seen a lot of sensitive boys.

MC: I've heard many mothers over the past 15 years talking about the need to raise boys to be less afraid of being sensitive or vulnerable - that it's okay for boys to cry for example... so that they will grow up to be better and more compassionate partners to women. My question is, do you feel that boys and girls are innately different, and is it 'nature' or 'nurture' that determines how a person turns out...

DB: I think it is both. I believe we can influence our children to care about people and instill a good value system, although I believe to a certain extent our children are going to be who they are going to be.

MC: Can you explain the title of your book [My Feet Aren't Ugly!: A Girl's Guide to Loving Herself from the Inside Out], and how did you come to choose it?

DB: I was about 13 years old and living in Arizona, and it was a hot summer day. I was outside in about 110-degree weather talking to a boy I really liked. He kept looking down at my feet and then looking up at me, and then looking down at my feet. Finally, he said “My gosh, you have the ugliest feet I have ever seen”. I was horrified; I didn’t act like it then. I went into the house and looked at my feet and thought “My feet aren’t ugly, maybe a little wide, but not ugly”. Anyway, I didn’t wear open toed shoes for a year in Arizona because I thought my feet were ugly. The next summer I was at the river with some friends and the subject of feet came up and my feet were looking for cover. A good friend of mine said, “Deb has really cute feet”. I was so confused. I thought “How could that be, how can one person think I have ugly feet and another think I have really cute feet?”I realized later on that you can't base how you feel on what other people think about you.

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MC: I believe I read that you married young and then divorced after you had two daughters. Would you share some thoughts about what it is like to marry young? Are there a few points you might want to share with young people about love and marriage, or about marrying young?

DB: I did marry young and had two beautiful daughters, and then I divorced when they were four and five. It was a very tough time for me because my mother died six months after my divorce. This was a huge lesson for me about knowing myself and loving myself. If you do not know who you are, and love that person fully, it’s impossible to pick a partner that is right for you. You pick your partners out of a place of need, because you have a hole in you that you have not filled. So you have expectations from the other person to fill these holes, this in itself is an impossible job for a partner. I see it all the time, not just in teens but adults too. I think marrying before you have done some self-development to get to know yourself, no matter what age you are, is very tough.

MC: What's the most unexpected (or counter-intuitive) observation or insight you've had in the work that you do with teenagers, or girls in particular?

DB: That not loving yourself isn’t age specific, it is something we work on our whole life and that most all issues stem from a low sense of self.

MC: What's the single most important message you hope all girls will remember as they enter the puberty years?

DB: That you are a beautiful unique individual, and to remember that how you feel about yourself comes from inside of you not from the judgments of others. Also, to treat yourself like a precious little girl, envision having a daughter, and if you wouldn’t want her in a certain situation, then why would you put yourself in that situation. It's a great tool to use when making decisions for yourself.

Please also read :

KeriP-19 reviews, “MY FEET AREN’T UGLY: A GIRL’S GUIDE TO LOVING HERSELF FROM THE INSIDE OUT"