I have a major issue with some phrases that we like to use and I want to tell you about it. What is this business about a "post baby body?" I am so sick of this I could vomit. My ears cringe when I hear someone say to me or someone else, during the postpartum phase "Oh my gosh! You look soooo amazing." To which the subject of this compliment usually tries to pretend that they are terribly modest and don't deserve such a compliment.
Really? This is sooooo amazing? What about when you had an entire human being growing inside you? When you were a partner with God in creating a mortal body? What that really repulsive to look at? Isn't there something far more amazing about that?
But, in our culture, or society, or in our own brains, we think that there is something far more beautiful and attractive and definitely "AMAZING" about how you look when that little life comes out. Like there was nothing beautiful about the miracle that just took place. Oh, but now... .you look amazing!
I really think we should walk up to pregnant women and tell them how amazing they look. Because if we are being truthful at all, that is the amazing thing. Not how fast you can fit into you skinny jeans after giving birth.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we never try to get our "baby weight" off. I think that's fine and probably the most healthy thing to do for our bodies. We generally carry more weight around when we have a baby growing inside us for survival purposes. I am all about working out and eating right. But, what I can't handle is people saying they are "healthy" when they are really just vain. We can do sooooo many things in the name of "health" that arne't healthy at all. But everyone loves and agrees with being "healthy" so we can go on all sorts of weird diets and lose all sight of being "temperate" because we are trying to be "healthy."
You might just all think I am saying this because I am a rather robust pregnant women. If I lived back in the day when famines struck, my body has evolved to survive. It's quite miraculous. Only now that we don't seem to have much of a famine, people aren't into survival of the fittest kind of bodies. Ha! I understand what it is like to carry more weight around during this time and how that can affect you psyche. I think it is just good to examine what we value and our real reasons for "getting back in shape."
Lets all start telling pregnant women (and our pregnant selves) that they LOOK and ARE amazing because creating life is one of the greatest privileges and blessing we will ever have as women. It shouldn't be something we can't wait to be done with, so we can be "ourselves" again.
Amen!!!
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