What you can do to help a woman you love stand tall.

There’s a woman I see in my neighbourhood every morning who walks with her daughter.

Whether it’s a bright spring day or in the briskness of winter together they walk deep in conversation.

From behind you could hardly tell the difference. Both of them walk tall and straight – though they aren’t particularly tall women.  Their hair slightly different shades of golden curls, one a little whiter now.

They hold themselves with that confidence some women just naturally have. Do you know it?

The daughter looks so much like her mother it’s like looking into a time machine – you just picture exactly who the elder woman was 30 years ago.

For eight years now I have lived here and seen them. Occasionally they miss a day, sometimes a week in the holidays but they always return.

Lately I have noticed a change, I have noticed the mother falling a little behind her daughter as she strikes her usual brisk pace, but each and every time the 30-something woman stops, angles her head towards her mum and pauses, waiting for her to catch up.

Often she reaches out and touches her hand for moment and they continue on - just like her own mother would have stopped for her when she was little girl and held her hand and carried on.

The cycle of life.

It would be easy to look through the older woman and focus on the radiance of her daughter. It would be easy to see those golden curls and bright smile and ignore her mother, but for the fact the younger woman is always waiting – always there making sure her mother isn’t left behind.

It’s a sad fact of aging that women can become an invisible force in society. Research by NIVEA has found that 68% of women feel invisible as they age.

More than three quarters of women feel they need to adapt their style to become more conservative and a striking seven in 10 women feel they are expected to be less sexy as they age.

This isn’t just a perception - the reality is that ageism is common place in our society. Younger women are valued for their looks – just look at Hollywood. Older women fall through the cracks.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

More of us can be like the daughter I see with her mother. More of us can lift the value of older women. More of us can help them stand firm together and we can boost each other's confidence.

This is what the Stand Firm campaign from NIVEA is asking us to do. It asks us to be more mindful of helping women feel visible – to help our mums, our aunties, our neighbours retain that confidence they had when they were younger.

It’s easy to Stand Firm with these women. Take your own mum for instance: all you have to do for her is what she has always done for you – build confidence, helped you be yourself.

Typographic artist Georgia Hill said that as she was growing up her mum, Judy, encouraged her to be comfortable in her own skin. She says her mother always reinforced how important it was to be yourself.

Georgia and her mother Judy have appeared in a YouTube campaign encouraging other women to #StandFirm.

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Georgia says these days there has been a shift in her relationship with her mum and she has found herself remembering the confidence and the words her mother used to help her grow into a confident woman. She now uses these positive affirmations to give her mum a much needed boost.

Georgia and Judy are encouraging all women to #StandFirm together.

Georgia says: "I love that this campaign recognises that as a society we tend to change how we value women as they age, even though they have done so much for us in their own younger years. It's about turning that around by reconnecting mums and daughters and having them remind each other of just how strong and important they are at any age."

It’s about paying it back, about Standing Firm together and helping the women we love be seen, not invisible.

What’s the positive affirmation you would give your mum?

Here's some more of Georgia's work: