When your mother says she's fat

iiTTCii

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I read this last year and it has stayed with me since. I've just seen it again so thought is share. After reading it, it's made me determined to not stand infront of my daughter and tell her I'm fat and need to lose weight. Positive thoughts only.

Dear Mum,

I was 7 when I discovered that you were fat, ugly and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful -- in every sense of the word. I remember flicking through old photo albums and staring at pictures of you standing on the deck of a boat. Your white strapless bathing suit looked so glamorous, just like a movie star. Whenever I had the chance I'd pull out that wondrous white bathing suit hidden in your bottom drawer and imagine a time when I'd be big enough to wear it; when I'd be like you.

But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, "Look at you, so thin, beautiful and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly and horrible."

At first I didn't understand what you meant.

"You're not fat," I said earnestly and innocently, and you replied, "Yes I am, darling. I've always been fat; even as a child."

In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that:

You must be fat because mothers don't lie.
Fat is ugly and horrible.
When I grow up I'll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly and horrible too.
Years later, I looked back on this conversation and the hundreds that followed and cursed you for feeling so unattractive, insecure and unworthy. Because, as my first and most influential role model, you taught me to believe the same thing about myself.

With every grimace at your reflection in the mirror, every new wonder diet that was going to change your life, and every guilty spoon of "Oh-I-really-shouldn't," I learned that women must be thin to be valid and worthy. Girls must go without because their greatest contribution to the world is their physical beauty.

Just like you, I have spent my whole life feeling fat. When did fat become a feeling anyway? And because I believed I was fat, I knew I was no good.

But now that I am older, and a mother myself, I know that blaming you for my body hatred is unhelpful and unfair. I now understand that you too are a product of a long and rich lineage of women who were taught to loathe themselves.

Look at the example Nanna set for you. Despite being what could only be described as famine-victim chic, she dieted every day of her life until the day she died at 79 years of age. She used to put on make-up to walk to the letterbox for fear that somebody might see her unpainted face.

I remember her "compassionate" response when you announced that Dad had left you for another woman. Her first comment was, "I don't understand why he'd leave you. You look after yourself, you wear lipstick. You're overweight -- but not that much."

Before Dad left, he provided no balm for your body-image torment either.

"Jesus, Jan," I overheard him say to you. "It's not that hard. Energy in versus energy out. If you want to lose weight you just have to eat less."

That night at dinner I watched you implement Dad's "Energy In, Energy Out: Jesus, Jan, Just Eat Less" weight-loss cure. You served up chow mein for dinner. (Remember how in 1980s Australian suburbia, a combination of mince, cabbage and soy sauce was considered the height of exotic gourmet?) Everyone else's food was on a dinner plate except yours. You served your chow mein on a tiny bread-and-butter plate.

As you sat in front of that pathetic scoop of mince, silent tears streamed down your face. I said nothing. Not even when your shoulders started heaving from your distress. We all ate our dinner in silence. Nobody comforted you. Nobody told you to stop being ridiculous and get a proper plate. Nobody told you that you were already loved and already good enough. Your achievements and your worth -- as a teacher of children with special needs and a devoted mother of three of your own -- paled into insignificance when compared with the centimeters you couldn't lose from your waist.

It broke my heart to witness your despair and I'm sorry that I didn't rush to your defense. I'd already learned that it was your fault that you were fat. I'd even heard Dad describe losing weight as a "simple" process -- yet one that you still couldn't come to grips with. The lesson: you didn't deserve any food and you certainly didn't deserve any sympathy.

But I was wrong, Mum. Now I understand what it's like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalizing these messages. We have become our own jailers and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is crueler to us than we are to ourselves.

But this madness has to stop, Mum. It stops with you, it stops with me and it stops now. We deserve better -- better than to have our days brought to ruin by bad body thoughts, wishing we were otherwise.

And it's not just about you and me anymore. It's also about Violet. Your granddaughter is only 3 and I do not want body hatred to take root inside her and strangle her happiness, her confidence and her potential. I don't want Violet to believe that her beauty is her most important asset; that it will define her worth in the world. When Violet looks to us to learn how to be a woman, we need to be the best role models we can. We need to show her with our words and our actions that women are good enough just the way they are. And for her to believe us, we need to believe it ourselves.

The older we get, the more loved ones we lose to accidents and illness. Their passing is always tragic and far too soon. I sometimes think about what these friends -- and the people who love them -- wouldn't give for more time in a body that was healthy. A body that would allow them to live just a little longer. The size of that body's thighs or the lines on its face wouldn't matter. It would be alive and therefore it would be perfect.

Your body is perfect too. It allows you to disarm a room with your smile and infect everyone with your laugh. It gives you arms to wrap around Violet and squeeze her until she giggles. Every moment we spend worrying about our physical "flaws" is a moment wasted, a precious slice of life that we will never get back.

Let us honor and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs. When I looked at that photo of you in the white bathing suit all those years ago, my innocent young eyes saw the truth. I saw unconditional love, beauty and wisdom. I saw my Mum.

Love, Kasey xx www.kaseyedwards.com
 
I read this last year too and it really resonated with me too!
 
Wow, powerful article. I agree with what it says but I have to admit the most striking part for me wasn't about passing on negative ideas to our kids, it was what an asshole dad was in the anecdote about the dinner table. My mum has never been happy with her body but my dad has always, always been her number 1 cheerleader, reminding her all the reasons why she's perfect as she is. Likewise I can't imagine my husband leaving me crying over my plate. Perhaps this message should be written to mum AND dad because he also clearly affected the way she thought of her body.
 
I absolutely relate, my mother has said from as young as I can remember that she is a 'big fat frump'. She is far from it, dhe has a gorgeous face, and slim legs and delicate little ankles and feet which look beautiful in dainty heels.
and when my mum and nan get together to go clothes shopping, its like a contest over who can trash-talk their bodies more.
It makes me really sad that they feel this way, and how much it has affected their lives. My mum looks back on photos from 10 yrs ago and says 'I cant believe I thought I was fat there! I wish I looked like that now' .. I just think, what are you going to think in another 10 years?

Anyway, I do have a pretty abysmal body image & have survived an eating disorder but I am determined not to say anything negative in front of my son. He calls me beautiful and I never want him to stop thinking that :cloud9:

Agree with the why bird, the dad sounds like a right prick as well.
 
Oh gosh, I'm completely guilty of this. Thanks for reminding me to be careful what I say I'm front of Micah. After our holiday recently I said to OH that I felt fat, not thinking Micah was listening, and then a few minutes later Micah told me "you can't have lunch you're fat" I was shocked, I didn't know he had any understanding of fat and food being linked :(
 
This needs to be renamed: When your father systematically breaks your mother down over the years, leading to her weep at the table while all ignore her.
 

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