I have a lot of things buzzing around that I want to write about - extensions, work, writing, etc., - but moods in our house have taken a downturn (again), I'm working on little sleep for two nights running, and both Nick and I are battling digestive issues. So I'm taking the cheap way out and using a prompt from someone else.

The Shape of a Mother is a fascinating and, if you're expecting for the first time, slightly terrifying website. I saw it while pregnant and was reminded of it recently in a Flickr pic, and I re-visited. The website is out there to show that women don't look like Hollywood stereotypes after you give birth, that many (most?) of us don't ever regain our figures. It tries to celebrate where we are, though, instead of bashing us into a shape that people expect women should be, and there are not enough sites like that in the world.

They have a recent assignment, which is to discuss body issues as a daughter instead of as a mother. Basically, what can we do to ensure that our daughters love themselves, ostensibly so that a website like Shape of a Mother isn't really needed? How can we help prepare our children to feel good about their shapes and figures in order to prevent a lifetime of self-hatred and shame?

If you've been visiting my site for any period of time, the one thing that you'll have captured is that I struggle with myself. A lot. And always have. Years of anorexia and purging have taken their toll on my mind and body (ergo some of my current digestive issues). I have long ridiculed, hated, and abused myself based on my appearance, and more to the point, based on my figure.

On my mother's side I have several generations of women shaped to pull plows. Large women, sturdily built, with shoulders a mile wide and thighs the size of hamhocks. On my father's side are the delicate Asians, built like little birds and with limbs to match. Naturally the genetic roll of the dice gave me the sturdy agricultural build, although I luckily escaped the large thighs and instead inherited the ability to gain weight on my stomach when I gain. I am tall and sturdy, hurricane-bracing sturdy, and always will be. Do I wish this weren't the case? Yes of course. But I do accept that this is my build, as even when I went anorexic it didn't change the obvious - I have shoulders a mile long, even if you can make out the individual bones in them. I gain weight on my stomach, even when I have only eaten 16 crackers a day for a few months. My face is round like an apple, even when I have ingested a box of laxatives and spent two days in the bathroom.

Like global warming, Paris Hilton, and rising interest rates, some things just don't go away because you want them to.

The Shape of a Mother mentioned a story in which the author started feeling bad about herself. I think we all have a similar story.

Mine started when I was 13, with Helen Squared. I was living in Arkansas at the time, and Helen Squared, whom I had been BFF - with pinky swears, of course - with in Washington and now had met up with again in a little town in the middle of nowhere. She was over at our house, hanging out in a small above ground pool my mother had bought for the family to use. My whole family was chilling at the pool. Helen Squared was in a red and white striped bikini which I was deeply envious of - so brave, so daring! There I was in a peach colored one piece, amazed at a bikini in the pool. My dad looked over at me and told me I should suck it in. I looked down - I did have a small, rounded pot belly. I sucked it in. Then I went inside and got a T-shirt on, so that no one could see my pot belly, so that all one could see was the blinding hot Arkansas sun and the red and white stripes of a chick who didn't need to suck it in.

I started to wonder about myself then. Prior to this, I'd simply been a kid. Now, did I maybe have a weight problem?

Forward to some months after this. My parents had split. We were living in a rental house in Arlington, Texas. Born with a deviated septum (yes really. I really am one of the few who honestly did have one, this wasn't code for having a nose job) I had just had the final of three nose surgeries designed to try to fix my nose. It was a particularly rough surgery, as they'd cut cartilege out from behind one of my ears to try to repair the two previous surgeries. I was home after a few days in the hospital recuperating, feeling pretty rough and very, very tired.

My mother drew me a bath. Feeling weak and dizzy and as though I'd been hit by a mack truck carrying a load of Christmas trees, I gratefully shed my clothes and hopped in. My mother stood there, by the sink, looking critically at me.

"You need to do some sit-ups," she said flatly. "You could use some toning up."

I had just had surgery.

I was 14 years old.

And I had just had surgery.

I looked at her, unclear what was happening. Her expression was cold, calculating. She was putting me under the microscope. I knew that my father had spent a lot of time in their marriage criticizing her and her weight. I knew he was often having a go at her, and that my mother had struggled with her weight for most of her life. I knew that she hated how she looked and battled with her self-esteem.

And in that bathroom that night in Texas, she passed that battle on to me.

It led to all kinds of things - at the children's theatre and dance school I went to after school I found a body leotard in the lost and found. I took it home, and I used to wear it. Shiny and black, in the quiet of my bedroom it highlighted my every flaw, my every bulge. I made myself exercise in it constantly to try to critique how I looked, how I needed to improve, what I could do better.

Here I am today. 20 years have passed since that all started and when I look back on my body image all I can see is hatred, and although I have moved on a lot, I still have my setbacks. We all do. But I would spare my daughter that.

Or the hell with that. I will spare my daughter that.

Melissa is getting on the chunky side but we don't say anything to her. We encourage her to eat well and we ourselves are also trying to eat better. We ask a lot of questions about the physical activities she engages in without poking at her to do more. We don't say anything because she's 15, and at that age where self-hatred sets in faster than a love of Orlando Bloom. While we want her to be healthy, we want that health to be of all kinds. She could do with losing some weight, yes. But at this stage it's not a danger to her health, and it's important that she feels valued, that she feels beautiful, that if she wants to lose weight she does so of her own volition, and not driven by guilt or self-loathing.

Nora will be handled similarly - encouraged to be active and eat well, she will be told things about herself to make herself feel good. But I don't necessarily advocate telling our daughters constantly that they are beautiful from an aesthetic side - while it's important to address how they are feeling about themselves from a physical perspective, I think it's just as important to tell them how clever they are, how good with animals they are, how great they are at making birthday cakes or how lovely they are when they're happy.

I think our daughters don't just need to feel good physically.

They need to love themselves all the way around.

Any other suggestions gratefully received, because this is a difficult topic, because it's not like I'm not operating without a parachute here.

-H.

PS-many thanks to my anonymous benefactor - two books showed up on my doorstep yesterday, one for the babies and one for me. There was no sender information on it, but thank you so much, I love them and can't wait until the babies love their book, too!

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:35 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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