There’s a lot of chatter right now about beauty. Mostly, it’s about two doors.

Will you go through the beautiful door or will you go through the average door?

As with most things on the internet, there are writers who are loving Dove’s newest campaign, they are finding it inspiring, powerful. And there are writers, of course, who have had enough, they aren’t buying it, they don’t want it.

Dove doesn’t always hit the mark for me with each campaign, but what it does is make me think about who I am and what I think about myself and, more importantly, how I want my daughters (and son!) to think about themselves. These conversations are worthwhile, good, important.

They are conversations I didn’t have as a child, as a tween, as a teen, but I wish I had.

You see, I would have 100% gone through the average door without thinking twice or looking back once. Sigh. I wish like hell I would have gone through the beautiful one.

And I would have 100% pushed my daughters through that beautiful one. My girls are smart, they are fierce, they are talented, determined, kind, compassionate, stubborn, strong, sensitive, loving, funny. Beautiful. I want them to think this, know it, feel it from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes to their inner cores.

The thing, actually, that stayed with me in this video were the groups of people who encouraged each other to go through the beautiful door. Moms, daughters, friends. How they built each other up. And that is something there’s just not enough of in our lives right now. Being a tween and a teen is hard enough. My almost 10-year-old daughter cannot wait for school to be over because she has had enough of someone calling her fart face when she walks by. My 14-year-old stresses too much about getting a 96% on her exams when her friends are getting 100%.

In middle school there’s so much cattiness, comparison, and competition; there’s this mentality to tear each other down. Trust me, I know. I was a tween, and then a teen, not that long ago. I have seen it, I have experienced it.

There’s a constant conversation we have with our kids. The “rising tide lifts all boats” conversation. We remind our kids that it costs nothing to make another person feel good. It does not bring them down to raise someone else up. We remind them about some of the special people in their lives who are so good at this, so good at championing for others, encouraging others, supporting other. They make YOU feel special by doing nothing other than smiling, listening, offering kind words and feeling genuinely happy for others.

The people in the video, the ones encouraging their loved ones to go through the beautiful door?

That’s who I want my kids to be.

Because THAT is beautiful. 

{Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have written about Dove and beauty before. I have written sponsored content—I was proud to put the Dove logo underneath my byline. I once wrote about raising unstoppable girls (and boy!). I once wrote about self-esteem workshops and conversations we have with our tweens and teens. But what I’m writing today is not sponsored in any way by anything other than coffee and cookie dough.}