A 33-Minute Diatribe on Childhood Body Image

I don't have a lot of time to write this down.  I'll be quick.  But I'm never quick, so it's basically a moot point.

I grew up in a home with two very active people.  My dad coached baseball, golf, track and field, and refereed basketball.  My mom went for long walks every day.  They both lifted weights.  Dad ran for miles after work.  Mom did weird butt-walking exercises from one end of the house to the other and back again.  They stretched.  They biked.  They took hiking classes.

I remember sitting down to dinner as a kid and feeling very, very hungry.  Dad cooked 1 cup of peas for the whole family because he hated wasting food.  Then we'd get a small piece of some kind of meat, or a scoop of casserole, a half-glass of milk, usually bread-and-butter.  I don't remember them ever talking about finishing everything on our plates, but they served small portions so I'm sure it wasn't an issue.  After dinner Mom always waited until we went to bed to clear the table, so I'd make the rounds one plate at a time, munching on anything that was left.  I was ALWAYS hungry.  I drank everyone's unfinished milk, iced tea, water, finished off cold veggies or noodles, the last crust of bread and butter. 

Our family wasn't poor, necessarily--Dad worked as a science teacher and Mom stayed home with us--but I'm sure money was tight.  They both came from children of the Depression and everyone their age wore it like a scar: don't waste food; don't throw away leftovers.  And I wasn't an overeater.  In fact both my sister and I were always told to gain weight at our check-ups.  "Too skinny" the doctors said, and recommended vitamins and more milk.  We were just built that way, and for me at least, I was just busy.  Busy climbing trees, jumping off our roof, building cardboard box forts or homemade robots and drum sets in the back yard.  I ate everything but I also never stopped moving.  So yeah, I was a pretty skinny kid.  A late-bloomer.  A tomboy.  It never occurred to me that size was a "thing."

My parents put me in ballet class in the 5th grade, 11 years-old and perpetually clumsy.  My friends were all took classes, too, so I wanted to dance, but I'm sure there was also an element of fixing at play, hoping I'd coordinate those two left feet that always seemed to knock me down on flat, even surfaces.  And it did help and I wasn't half-bad, but all of a sudden I'd entered a new world full of skin-tight leotards and middle-school chatter, talks of pounds and inches.  It still didn't occur to me to think that I had a problem.

I danced, blissfully ignorant of my hips, or chest (or lack thereof), or anything else, until one day something happened that changed my teenage life forever.  I watched Clueless.  Best movie on the planet, and I'd probably seen it 100 times before my 14th birthday.  But the very first time I popped in the VHS I came away different.  I saw the clothes, the shoes, the attitude.  They were nice.  I wanted them all, of course.  The remote-controlled fireplace.  Sure.  Paul Rudd.  Definitely.  But the credits rolled and I sat there wondering something I'd never considered before.  Wait a second.  Am I fat?  I'd always heard my parents talk about other people gaining weight, getting fat, letting themselves go.  They complained about their size and shape all the time.  But I just assumed that was normal household conversation.  But suddenly I felt more a part of that conversation.  And the mirrors, yes the mirrors had all changed, too.  My skinny little freckled no-nonsense shape suddenly looked a little fluffier.  Are thighs supposed to touch like that?  My belly button has a little tilt.  When I smile my cheeks puff up under my eyes.  Is that fat?  Hmm.  I'm sure I was skinny yesterday.

Puberty didn't help.  But beyond that I began to realize that this idea of body shape had enmeshed itself into every conversation around the dinner table, every circle of chatter in the dance school dressing rooms, and now I could hear the finger-pointing at school.  It's like I spoke a new language.  I'd eaten the forbidden fruit and my eyes were opened.

Dad said I should run more, so he got my sister and I jogging every day.  He said I looked better now, not like I had earlier in the school year.  He bought a NordicTrack ski machine 2nd-hand and I found myself up before school at 4am, skiing for 45 minutes every day.  Then off to school, then 3 hours of ballet after.  Sometimes I'd go for a jog when I got home if the weather was nice.

I liked being in shape.  Mom and Dad seemed pleased and commented about how good I looked, how hard I exercised.  As a people-pleaser this worked for me.  I was the family entertainment, the peacemaker and comedy routine.  It helped when everyone was happy around me.  Being in shape made them happy. 

But turns out there was more I could do.  Because Mom and Dad had always taught me to eat small portions, that it's okay not to be full after meals.  Mom drank weird concoctions of orange juice and brewer's yeast for breakfast.  Dad usually ate nothing or drank a cup of black coffee.  I saw him with apple slices and cheese for lunch, some iced tea.  I was used to the light eating, so this was no diet.  Maybe I could slim it down a little.  I stopped eating breakfast.  Then I stopped eating lunch.  And at first I thought about food all the time.  All I wanted was a cold hot dog, or some string cheese, a glass of milk.  A feast.  But eventually I found that I could not only fool myself with several glasses of water, but I could make it until about 6 o'clock before sitting down to eat.  My grades didn't even suffer.  Bonus.

But don't get me wrong, I knew what I was doing.  I knew all about eating disorders.  Anorexia was nouveau chic and all the rage at summer camp.  Some girls took it the extra mile and could throw up, though I'd never considered it.  No, I could just forego the food completely and avoid feeling sick and messing with my teeth.  I happily played competing-pants-sizes with my friends at school, who was in a 2, then a 0.  Size 4?  Gross.

But I had a friend who didn't participate.  She was bigger than I, which bolstered my ego and burgeoning ribcage, and allowed me to go places with confidence in my size 2s, then 0s.  She was smart though, and a little more grown-up.  Her parents ate whatever they wanted, and swore around the kids, and talked about things like abortions and politics.  She grew up in a household of extraverts and big personalities.  She knew what she wanted.  So she noticed before anyone else and outed me.

"What's up with your leotard?"  She danced, too.

"Nothing, why?"

"It's baggy."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is, it's baggy."

Hmm.

"My mom washed it in cold water and stretched it out."

"Okay."  She totally knew.  But instead of calling me on it she just bought me more food, tempted me more, encouraged me to try lattes and Brocklesby's fries (it's a Peninsula thing).  And for a while she got me eating again.  And still, she never said a thing.

Over the years I've battled with this conversation.  My parents still talk about weight once in a while, still go to the gym most days.  My mom still comments on her own body a lot, and has a love-hate relationship with shopping and trying on clothes.  “143 disgusting pounds,” she’ll say under her breath at the kitchen sink, the same weight I’d been pretty happy with until that moment.  My dad sometimes comments on helping size, raises his eyebrows as I scoop a heaping pile of mashed potatoes onto my plate.  They tell me how good I look when I lose a little weight and say I’ve stopped putting cream in my coffee.

I don't blame them, at least not totally.  They come from a mess like most people their age.  A lot of Boomers didn't have great childhoods.  Lots of relief post-war, parents out on weeknights, alcohol flowing.  So no, I don't place all the blame on them.  I don't place all the blame on dance classes or middle school.  I place a little blame on Clueless.

I still work out, kind of a lot actually.  Maybe that's my personality or maybe it's little shreds of long ago still woven through my psyche.  But having kids changes things and even if I did still struggle with the thoughts, or the mirrors, or the calories, I wouldn't have time to think much about it.  Little people need 90% of those thoughts, and generally 150% of those calories.  So at least for now I don't focus on that much anymore. 

Poor me.

Just kidding.  That's not why I wrote this.  The reason for my psychoanalysis (or verbal vomit, you decide) is because now I'm raising a daughter.  True, boys can have the same problems and I will always keep an eye out.  But I have a 13-year-old, and she goes to school, and she hears things.  She's comfortable with her body, but even so doesn't like to know what she weighs.  I made the firm decision to put her, and the boys, in soccer, and basketball, and track, but not in dance.  I've given them opportunities to try things, but always based on strength, and never on size.  We talk about health at our house, but only as a means to an end. 

"You get one body, so take care of it.  You're strong.  You're beautiful.  You were made perfectly you."  There are still, and always will be, things that I want to change about my body.  Having four kids did a number on every inch of it.  But I will never, ever comment on those things in front of my kids.  Little ears hear the doubts and will inevitably begin to compare.  "Is my nose like Mom's?  Mom doesn't like her nose.  Mom exercises because she wants to lose weight.  Do I need to lose weight?"  We don't say "fat" much either, because unless you're talking about cuts of meat you're inevitably hurting someone.  So we leave that part out.

In conclusion (as with all tidy essays), our kids are happy and healthy.  They're strong and beautiful.  And Mom's working on it, but a thousand steps further in that journey than in those pointe shoes so long ago.  Remember that your words will inevitably penetrate your child's personality and stick with them through adulthood.  If those words are kind and confident, they too will be kind and confident.  It's that easy. 

Okay, 36 minutes.  Damn.