How and Why did iBbeautiful begin?
I've had so many people and subscribers ask me how I got the idea to start iBbeautiful. Each and every time I kick myself that I haven’t ever written about the beginning of iBbeautiful because it’s such an important story. From the very first month the company and the concept just took off and all our time has been spent packing, shipping and sourcing product thereby never having the chance to write the blurb I had always envisioned writing about why I felt compelled to do what we do here at iBbeautiful.
So, here it is, 4 years late, but at least it’s here now. When my daughter was in middle school she suddenly transitioned from this very assured, happy kid to a very sad, scared and lost pre-teen. She had always felt free to talk and share the details of her day with me but suddenly I was totally shut out of her life. She started coming home from school moody, with a slight edge of anger and panic yet the only thing she would turn to was her phone. The texting was constant and so very insulating.
I knew something was wrong, that was obvious, it didn’t really take a mother’s intuition to figure that out, and I knew it had to be something that had happened at school. However trying to glean even the smallest morsel of what had happened was impossible. All of my inquires were met with “you don’t know anything so how could you possibly help”, or the ever-famous “you couldn’t possibly understand”, which was basically an insinuation that I was just simply “too old to get it”. The irony of the statement “you don’t know anything” was the most frustrating and I tried to explain how she was exactly correct in that how could I possibly know anything if she hadn’t told me anything. The logic of that statement was lost on her.
So, weeks, perhaps even months went by with me helplessly observing this little girl fall into a pit where I wasn’t allowed in while I watched her confidence sadly fade away. I tried to reason with her that if she just filled me in on what was going on that I may not fully understand but I bet that I could shed some light based on myself actually being her age once. I even tried to assure her that if she just shared with me, I would give her my thoughts and she was free to not take any of my advice but could she just give me a chance to help and maybe, just maybe, some morsel of my advice may bring some relief to what she was going through. Of course all of this was just met with a quick glance away from her phone screen and a slight scoff. How could someone as old as her mom, a whole other generation ever begin to understand what life was like now for a preteen. There wasn’t Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram when I was a kid and the thought that I could help at all was simply absurd.
As I continued to watch her she seemed so lost. She was desperately texting her pre-teen friends who I was quite confident were just as lost as her, so where was that going to get her? So if I wasn’t to be consulted or filled in on the goings on I thought my best Plan B would be to at least try to bolster her confidence by reminding her as much as possible how smart, important, clever, bright and every other attribute I could think of in the hopes that at least the confidence in herself would come back. But there was just no hearing this on her part because, of course, I was the “mom, and every mom says that about her kid”. So all of my words of encouragement and attempted empowerment just fell flat. I thought should I enlist other people to call her and tell her how great she is….my friends, aunts, her grandma, etc? Of course that would most likely be regarded as lame and honestly, a bit weird. It was at that moment that I had the idea that if there was just some outside element that could remind her of who she was, be a gentle nudge about staying true to herself and to overcome whatever was going on in her life she actually possessed all she needed right there inside of her. She just needed to tap into that inner voice of her own and then she would know what to do. If that empowering voice came from outside her own family and came consistently then maybe some of the concepts I so desperately wanted for her to embrace just might start to sink in and she could then start to see herself as the strong, smart girl that I saw her to be.
Thus, iBbeautiful was born. Within the first few months of shipping out our boxes I was delighted to see that there were others moms out there that were feeling the same as I was and that our boxes were actually helping their girls. I was honestly very surprised when emails and letters began to arrive with people sharing details of what their daughters had been going through and how the empowering monthly theme actually struck a note for their kid. Wow, we were actually making a difference. This was simply fantastic.
So, it’s been four years and there have been countless stories shared which I so appreciate. But more importantly my eyes have been opened so much wider to the fact that our young girls are really hit with a ton these days….from the totally scripted “my life is perfect” Instagram feeds, to the absolutely impossible level of pressure to be and look perfect ever second of every day aka “#I woke up this way”. These days our mission here at iBbeautiful is more needed and more important than ever. We still have a lot of work to do and more than ever we’re up for the fight to help young girls feel more confident in themselves and to realize that they are beautiful just as they as they are.
Four years is a lot of monthly themes and empowering quotes, but we haven’t even scratched the surface as far as we’re concerned. Our most important goal is to help young girls find their inner voices and learn this is the key that will be their best guide for the rest of their lives. If they can learn to tune into that they will then possess one of the most important resources they have to get them through those inevitable rough patches in life. It takes practice and constant reminders of who they are and who they can be, which is the concept behind the monthly delivery of our boxes. Hopefully our boxes are a stepping stone in getting them on the right path, helping them learn to trust that deep inside of them they actually have everything they need to be whoever and whatever they are destined to be. We want them to believe and have confidence in themselves which is where it all starts.
Thank you all for all of your kind words, love and support.
Love + Happiness - Team iBbeautiful