Brooke Shields Promotes Mothers Act & Chain of Confidence
Brooke Shields supports the Mother’s Act and The Chain of Confidence for girls by F& EG Staff -5/2007-
Actress, mother, wife, Brooke Shields adores her two daughters, 4 year-old Rowan, and 14 month-old Grier. Married to TV writer Chris Henchy, 42 year old Brooke Shields takes her parent role seriously while at the same time continuing her acting career and supporting two worthy causes, The Mother’s Act and The Chain of Confidence for Girls.
Brooke says she’ll support her daughters if they want to get into the spotlight, though she’s not necessarily wanting them to follow in her footsteps.
Brooke Shields, daughter of Revlon executive Frank Shields, began her acting career at the age of one with her actress manager mother, Teri Shields, helping her along. Born and raised in New York, she landed her first role in a commercial, as the ‘Ivory Snow Baby,’ she was known as “the most beautiful baby in America. Shields’ demand in commericals grew and her mother started marketing her under the logo ‘Brooke Shields & Co.’
In 1976 she made her first feature film Alice Sweet Alice and her career took off a couple of years later at the age of 12 with Pretty Baby, known as one of her best acting roles.
Though handled with some taste and discretion, this film, and others that she did, generated a lot of controversy and questions of her being exploited because of the adult scenes and nude body doubles. And in 1980 her best-known film, The Blue Lagoon, with teen actor Christopher Atkins, stirred more controversy with nudity in a story of two shipwrecked teens trying to survive a desert island.
Shields was also one of the world’s top fashion models doing ads for Calvin Kline, like “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.” She also did public ads in which she advised young girls to abstain from sex and other ad campaigns against smoking.
Shields graduated with honors from Princeton college where she majored in French Literature. She became interested in the theater, performing in two regional productions of Love Letters.
After college, Shields returned to acting full time and later proved herself to be a competent, charismatic comedy actress. In 1996 she was given her own situation comedy on NBC network’s Suddenly Susan, where she played a single career girl struggling to reassemble her life following her breakup with her wealthy fiance’.
Awareness in postpartum depression
After the birth of her first daughter, Shields had a tough time with postpatum depression and chronicled her experience in her book, “Down Came the Rain.” Shields says she just thought she was a bad mother and would have been spared the misery had someone warned her about the illness.
During a news conference, Shields was asked what she would say to people who don’t believe postpartum depression is a treatable disease. She answered, “Grow some ovaries, and then we’ll talk,” she said. Shields also lost her ‘Suddenly Susan’ co-star and friend, David Strickland, to suicide in 1999. Triggered by these traumas in her life, Shields became an advocate of suicide prevention and the Mother’s Act.
In her efforts to support the Mother’s Act she teamed up with The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. At the 19th annual Lifesavers Dinner, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in May of this year, Shields stated that she was “..honored to lend support to AFSP and to have a role in this worthwhile event.”
The Lifesavers Dinner generates crucial financial support for AFSP’s research and education programs and helps to raise greater public awareness about suicide and mental illness while helping to erase the stigma associated with getting help to prevent suicide and recover from depression.
This June Brooke Shields joined lawmakers at a news conference to introduce the Mothers Act to the senate. The legislation would initiate the use of new federal investments to promote postpartum depression education, detection and treatment programs for new mothers.
In her plea to support the Mother’s Act, Brooke Shields said, “The knowledge of postpartum depression is a tool that I believe all women deserve. And this bill represents that tool. And it’s an easy gift to give to women everywhere. We need to recognize it’s real and it’s biochemical and we’re not responsible for it. We’re responsible to take care of it.”
Empowering Girls for the future
Inspired by the love and closeness that her daughters have for each other, Brooke Shields recently joined with Tupperware as an advocate and spokesperson for The Chain of Confidence for Girls campaign.
Tupperware designed this campaign to empower females and encourage strong bonds and relationships in order to boost confidence in girls.
Being an only child herself, Brooke is happy to know that her girls will have each other to lean on in the future and wants to promote self-confidence through the power of female friendships.
Shields says, “If I give my kids anything, I’m hoping I give them the ability to be self-confident… Our society is not based on that. The advice I’d give to mothers is it’s OK to be strong and confident, communication is so important. There’s so much more that’s important besides your looks.”
Tupperware recently conducted a national survey to determine the significant source of women’s self-confidence and the role it plays in their lives. The results showed that 85 percent of women say that a supportive network of female friends is more likely to make them feel more confident in their lives than simply looking good will.
According to Tupperware CEO, Rick Goings, “Chain of Confidence is an unprecedented campaign for Tupperware and is a true reflection of our commitment to enlighten, educate and empower women around the world. We are thrilled about our partnership with Brooke Shields and look forward to hearing from women across the country as they share their stories with one another.”
Tupperware is also sponsoring Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s SMART Girls, a program dedicated to promoting self-confidence and healthy lifestyles in young girls ages 8-17. Tupperware will be donating $1.5 million over the next three years to the program.
To continue and encourage connections between women, Tupperware created www.ChainofConfidence.com, where women can link to ‘the chain’ and join an online discussion of how friendship effects their self-confidence.
