Looming motherhood has upped my capacity for feistiness.
I’ve been sending outraged emails to large businesses. And baby business is big business, let me tell you, as mothers-on-deck naturally want the best for their littles.
Yesterday I received an email titled: “Belly Button Blues,” telling me how upset I am about to be because my innie is to turn outie, soon. This was from one of the largest Baby apps with millions of women as subscribers. Oh, is that right? The miracle of nourishing my child is about to upset me? Pardon my French, but **WTF?**
A couple days ago, from a site that I thought was less mainstream or medical, and whose business has the word “naturally” in the company NAME, a dedicated email selling me on a hip binding tool that I had to use “immediately” for 8 weeks (time is of the essence!) after having my baby, to get my hips back to “proper” shape.
Yeah, because when I’m dealing with zero sleep, a newborn, the glories and poop explosions of new motherhood, that is exactly what I want to be thinking of: my waist to hip ratio.
BINDING MY HIPS? Are you kidding me? Is this 11th century China??
And the emails I am sending back to these giant corporations are a slightly more tactful version of:
STOP TELLING WOMEN TO BE UPSET ABOUT AND ASHAMED OF THEIR CHANGING BODIES.
Especially when they are carrying the miracle of life, for f***s sake, but really,
ANY and EVERY TIME AND IN EVERY INSTANCE OF LIFE.
What’s unbelievable about these emails is that most of them try to come across as well-meaning. As in: we’re just looking out for you, because we know what’s important.
They even purport to be from other women. “I feel your pain, sister.”
And there is nothing wrong with calling out our fears or anxieties to bring them to light. But we have to truly EMPOWER and SUPPORT each other, that we are perfect AS. WE. ARE. And that we will continue to be perfect, no matter what changes our bodies go through, regardless of whether we even want to care for them or not.
It is our job as women AND men, to say ENOUGH.
Enough to the idea that we need to look like this after giving birth or ever.
(This Fergie video was a giant step backwards for mothers everywhere. After so many uphill strides to #normalizebreastfeeding, all it takes is a gaggle of celebrities, their staff on standby in the sidelines, to sexualize it again.)
Or this model, whose absolutely despicable (not to mention illegal) snapchat of body shaming a woman in a gym bathroom made massive waves, because everyone told her just how wrong it was.
Her apology a couple hours later? Socially unaccepted and pretty much meaningless because people could see: the problem isn’t just that she did it. It’s that, that’s where she lives. That she would even think such a thing, not to mention publicly share it, is appalling.
We need to stop living there.
Believe me, if this model is thinking this way— what are other women thinking? What are men thinking?
Whether we want to admit it or not— this is a measure of our society’s consciousness.
And we are ARE thinking that way. Because America is a country, for instance, where no one seems to bat an eye when a male presidential candidate has had 3 wives, each one younger and (by his choosing) less ambitious than the last, and who talks about his daughter having a hot body.
But we look down at the female candidate for sticking by her cheating, President husband. As weak. Because loyalty and forgiveness aren’t as flashy. Or as sexy. Perhaps Hillary would have a better shot if she looked like a pinup. Her empowerment might be more palatable for us.
But the tides are turning. We see it everywhere, especially as a younger generation embraces a more natural way of wanting to look and feel in our skin. Yet let us not be lulled into a peaceful protest that “to love” means to be silent.
Love is loud. Love is out loud. Love is celebration and feistiness and cheering on and shining out. And sometimes standing up, or supportive snarkiness or satire. Love is ownership and repentance and forgiveness and loyalty.
Let’s put our money, our vote, our praise, our empowerment, our acceptance, and our LOVE to good use.
Let’s LOVE ourselves as we are.
all + always, love,
