In my mind, they hear my patient tone and see my love of reading. But reality is more complicated, and they don’t just see the things I like about myself, the things I want them to see. The girls ask why I am drinking Diet Coke and the boys ask why I am eating salad for lunch, and I offer vague and unconvincing answers about the rest of the baby weight and trying to stay healthy (as if diet soda is healthy).
I did not enjoy pregnancy, and I never got those euphoric breastfeeding feelings that people tell you about, and the pounds did not melt off like the lactivists promise. But I tried to think of my body respectfully: Look what it did. It grew this little person and nourished him for a year. The softness shows what it can do, what it has been through. It is a badge of honor. Working out jeopardized my milk production, and so I willingly chose milk production over weight loss. When my pants did not button, I remembered what Anne Lamott said about her thighs, how she called them the aunties and rubbed lotion on them. How every part of us deserves care. I got pedicures and bought new clothes.
It was easier to be tender with my body when I was still nursing. After we were done (13 months and 7 days, if you are counting, which I was), my hormones were crazy and I got all puffy and the pounds still did not melt off like it was suggested that they would once Atticus weaned. When I looked in the mirror, I could not summon any kindness for myself.
Atticus is the kind of kid who falls and bumps his head and keeps on going. For all of his toughness, he touches Big Bunny with the same reverence that I saw on others’ faces when Atticus himself was a baby. He rubs her fur the same way that people touched his head and marveled over his toes.
And sometimes he gently rubs my hair that same way. He pats my tummy and giggles at my belly button and hugs my thighs. He delights in me the same ways that we marveled at his tiny perfect body almost 17 months ago.
I did not expect to learn about being tender to my body from a rough-and-tumble toddler. But he is strong and sweet, and he reminds me of my own strength and helps me to be kinder with myself.
The truth is that I don’t get a free pass on this body image thing just because I’m raising a boy. The boys at school talk about weight and food and struggle with their appearances, too. I want to teach Atticus to have a healthy attitude about his body and to have respect for women’s bodies, and that means that I have to model both of those things myself.
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4 Comments
Oh my, I read your post and thought, “I have the same body image issues, only I can’t claim the amazing feat of having given birth.” So I appreciate you naming that boys have body image issues, too.
Also, what a gift it is to see our bodies the same way our children see us. This morning, Andra ran her hands with fascination over my chest hair. I certainly love the way my spouse runs her hand through my chest hair, but there’s a completely different kind of tenderness and wonder in the way our children love our bodies. What a blessing that is for us as parents to accept.
I love this. I love the concept of being tender with our bodies. We tend to be so hard on ourselves forgetting what our bodies have been through and what they are doing. Even after all the sacrificial body giving is done, we still need some grace. These little eyes that watch us are learning from us. You have added pressure of students as well. Thanks for sharing.
I was over at a friend’s house recently and a girl in her daycare told me that she couldn’t eat anything because she was too fat. friend of mine recently overheard her neighbor telling her 6-year old daughter that they were going to change/limit the things she could eat because her daughter was “too fat” and “need[ed] to lose weight.” These things break my heart. That’s not how that conversation should have gone at all, and this is not the way we should be talking to our children about body image. We should be talking about health, taking good care of ourselves, about respecting our bodies and what they were made to do, eating good food to fuel our bodies so they can work best, and so on.
Thanks for posting this.
My mother, whom I love, was a constant critic of all things physical, skin, weight, taste. I swore that would I not be a critical mother, and for the most part, I think I have not been. I have grown children with healthy bodies who run and bike and play and generally take great pleasure in physical use of their limbs. But I have always criticized myself, never imagining that it hurt them. I have been perplexed by my daughters’ comments and worries about their bodies because I knew that they did not hear negative comments from me (the wonderful mother) about them. Recently though, we were enjoying an evening with my parents and my mom – at 81 – was berating herself for an extra cookie and talking about her renewed resolve to make it to her weight watcher meetings. It was stunning to think that Mom and I have passed our negative body messages to our daughters, not entirely through critical comment to them – but also our apparent distaste for our own bodies. I am currently resolved to quit asking my ever patient husband – “Am I as heavy as she?” – about women at church or downtown. And to quit refusing to be in photographs with my grandchildren because I don’t like pictures of myself. Messages are sent to our children in unlikely forms!