Kalki Koechlin, Bollywood star and host of My Indian Life, joins the Dear Daughter podcast to read the letter she has written for her young daughter.

She chooses to pass on advice for navigating beauty standards, after her daughter came to her admitting that she didn’t feel pretty. Kalki discusses the expectations on women to conform to a certain appearance, particularly as they age, and the pressures she has faced in her acting career to remain youthful. What advice can she give her daughter for navigating a world obsessed with beauty?

Dear Daughter is an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service about love, life, family, and raising children. It is the brainchild of Namulanta Kombo, a mother on a quest to create a ‘handbook to life’ for her daughter, through the advice of parents from all over the world.

Each episode, a guest reads a letter they’ve written to their children (or their future children, or the children they never had) with the advice, life lessons, and personal stories they’d like to pass on. Expect extraordinary true stories, inspirational advice for parents, and moving accounts of families, relationships and raising daughters.

In the current season, Dear Daughter: Stars, Namulanta hears from parents who are all ‘stars’ in their field. Why did TikTokker Mama Seebz go from telling her children to stop scrolling to becoming a content creator herself? What can The Receipts podcaster Audrey Akande teach her daughter about friendship break-ups? And why exactly did Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh lurk around building sites while pregnant?

For more episodes like this one, search for ‘Dear Daughter’ wherever you get your BBC podcasts or go to www.bbcworldservice.com/deardaughter

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