For as long as I can remember, body image has been an ongoing struggle. I started going through puberty, and I worried about not being as curvy as other girls… and then, a year later, I started worrying about being too curvy. I grew up worrying about everything that went into my mouth and participated in sports in the hopes that I would stay slender. A large part of this was the culture I grew up in, that we all grew up in. There was always the newest fad diet in the news. Celebrities would be on the cover of magazines talking about their secret fitness tips. Growing up in an image-obsessed society was not easy, and it had lasting consequences.
Nevertheless, as I got older, I got to a point where I was able to be more confident in how I looked. I was never a size two, but I worked out and was healthy. There were no stretch marks or sagging boobs or widening waistlines. Then, of course, I had kids. And with each pregnancy, the weight got a little harder to lose. The stretch marks got worse. And it became harder and harder to accept the way my body looked.
As moms, there are a lot of messages about faux-acceptance out there. We’re implored to love our stretch marks — oh, wait, no, our tiger stripes. Our soft tummies and thicker hips are proof that we grew life within us, nurtured and carried it for nine months, and then birthed it. There are countless saccharine-sweet memes about this on social media, trying to convince us to love our bodies even though they’ve changed so drastically.
And I can’t always do that.
Can I just be honest? Can we all just be honest? It isn’t easy adjusting to a body that you don’t always recognize. There are times when I look in the mirror, and it’s almost painful. My once perky boobs now are… well, not. My stomach, which once upon a time was flat and smooth, is larger and rippled with stretch marks from four pregnancies. C-section scars mar my bikini line. My waistline is thicker–my hips are larger. It can be hard, especially when I make the awful mistake of comparing my mom bod with that of another mom’s. This mom is so much skinnier than I am. That mom is in such good shape! Wow, how did she have three kids and still have such amazing abs? It’s soul-crushing, really. And I struggle with it. I’m tired of having to pretend that I don’t, because it’s OK to not always love my body! Where are the memes that talk about that? Sometimes those memes about loving our tiger stripes or extra weight are inspirational, but other times, it just feels condescending. It feels like a lie.
But the good news is, I’m getting there. For every bad day, there’s a good day where I can accept that time, age, and pregnancy have changed how I look, and that’s OK. There are the days when my husband will put his hands on my waist and tell me how beautiful he thinks I am. My children will cuddle into my lap, and I’ll be grateful that they have somewhere to lay their heads. Whether I love how my body looks or not, it has accomplished amazing things. Four tiny humans are alive right now because of it. Each stretch mark was placed there because of them, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. It’s something I have to remind myself sometimes. You had four kids. It’s OK for your body to be different. And I have to work on accepting it as it is, for my children’s sake if not for my own.
What will they remember when they look back on their childhood? I don’t want my kids to remember a mom who was always on a diet, or afraid to take off a swimsuit cover-up lest people see my mom bod. I want them to remember a mom who shared ice cream with them, played with them in the pool. I want them to remember a mom who lived her life fully and who loved her children. That’s so much more important than what size clothes I wear.
So when it comes to accepting my mom bod, let’s just say… it’s a work-in-progress. But I’m getting there, one day at a time. Slowly, I’m learning to live in this new skin of mine. All I can do is try to be healthy, and the rest? The rest is out of my hands.
