Age: 37
Numbers of pregnancies and births: 3, births 1
Child’s Age: 4
I spent my youth and 20’s overweight and hating my body. I was a size 18. During a bad break up I gained an additional 15 pounds and for the first time it looked like size 18 would be too small. I decided to try to loose enough weight to get back into my clothes. After I started loosing I kept going and went from 220 pounds to 130. I still hated my body.
I got married (and I hated the way I looked in my wedding dress). I got pregnant and felt huge (and then I realized that even in my 9th month I still weighed less than I had while overweight). I had my beautiful baby girl and felt pure joy. She would be raised to love herself. She would grow up knowing that she was beautiful. I was thrilled with everything about her, but I hated my post pregnancy body. I wanted to lose the weight. Most of it came off, but the last 10 pounds. I hated my body, I hated those 10 pounds. As a working mom I found less and less time for me. Those 10 pounds stayed and added 5 more friends. I hated my body. My mommy friends and I would both complain about how we needed to do something because we were “too chubby”. Yesterday morning my daughter woke up with an upset stomach. Her tummy was slightly bloated from gas. She rubbed her tummy and asked me “Mommy is this chubby?”
I thought I had been so careful. I thought I had only talked about my body when she couldn’t hear. I thought, I thought, I thought….All my thoughts about teaching my daughter to love herself and her body no matter what and I realized that I can’t do that unless I stop hating my body.
I love this.
As sad as it is, it is showing a reality. We always think we are speaking badly of ourselves out side of the earshot of our children, when in reality… they seem to hear everything.
I wish you could learn to love yourself again, we all deserve to love who we are, flaws and all.
Your story hits really close to home. I never ever wanted my daughter to question her beauty. To look and see a flaw that needed changing, or caused her distress. She’s only 7. I wanted to set a great example for my son, to have him value ladies as they are, and see the beauty everyone naturally possesses. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, my daughter, either from television,someone outside of the home, or more disheartening, myself (though I thought I had been careful every time I vocalized my personal displeasure)..has taught her about “fat”. The first time I explained that this was not a concern. She wasn’t fat, she was beautiful at every stage, every size. After our talk, I sent her outside and I cried.
Somewhere along the line, I failed in the greatest ideal I had for being the mother of a girl, and I have to now work even harder to show her by leading by example. It’s a harder charge than it should be.
Whether or not I inadvertantly gave her this idea or it came from antoher source, it’s important that I make her feel safe and beautiful in her own skin.
I just had a daughter 3 weeks ago. I am also worried that I won’t be able to keep her from not liking her body. My mother was wonderful and always told me that I was beautiful. She did everything she could, and i still hated my body. I have asymmetrical breasts and hated them from the time they started to grow. She helped me in every way she could. But having one breast larger than the other…is not the norm. I truly think that every girl will have her insecurities no matter what we do. I despise my pre-pregnancy body. But at the same time I want my daughter to know women are beautiful of all shapes and sizes. We create life with these bodies. We give birth to beautiful babies with these bodies. I hope she is able to see that. I hope by the time she gets older, the “motherly” look is more appreciated for the beauty that is it.