If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re a parent of small children, or you once were and can look back on these years with rose colored glasses (I’m jealous, when can I get me some of those?!) and so you know exactly what I’m talking about when I say that I’m constantly answering questions. Constantly. Sometimes I even have the answer to those questions.
“Mom, are you peeing or pooping?” Always in a public restroom…Always.
“What are you eating?”
“Why do you like coffee?” BECAUSE SURVIVAL, KID.
“Mom, how did I get out of your belly?”
“Will I see Meme again in Heaven?”
“When you met Daddy, was I already in your belly?”
“Where does God live? I know in our hearts, but where can I see Him?”
Always at bedtime…what is it about bedtime that turns our little ones into theologians and philosophers?!
And then, sometimes a lot of times, I don’t have the answers.
“What do hyenas eat?” Thank God for google.
“How does gas make the car go?”
“How do you do a cartwheel?” Ugh, don’t remind my 4th grade self, I never did learn.
“Mom, why is your belly so full and soft?”
Wait. What?
Gulp.
I know what I would have told her a few years ago. I know what answer came to my mind first, and it wasn’t pretty. Thankfully, and my only guess is by the Grace of God, I was gifted a rare moment of reflection and thought before I spoke. (Seriously. Rare. I far too often speak before I think. I’m working on it.)
And so, I answered her: Because I’m lucky, C. I have lots of friends and family to celebrate with cake and ice cream, and our family has enough healthy food to eat.
Almost 5 year old C responded: I want a soft belly!
Me: You may get one, because you eat lots of healthy food to fuel your body to grow and move, and you have lots of friends to eat and celebrate with. One of the best things about being a girl is that we can be soft and strong. We are strong enough to dance and hike but soft enough to cuddle. Want to know the other reason I like my soft belly? Because it reminds me of you and your sister. You both grew in there, and my belly stretched out super far and when it shrunk back down it went to being soft. Isn’t that cool?!
C: Yeah, that is cool! Will you read me this book?
And so we went on with our day, my daughter hopefully blissfully unaware of the significance of our conversation. I say blissfully unaware because she doesn’t know…she doesn’t know my lifetime struggles with my weight, PCOS, depression, and anxiety. She doesn’t know that I have not yet come to love my stomach, but I have come a long way from the years I spent hating it. She doesn’t know all the times I’ve been asked if I was pregnant, only to hold back tears and say no. She doesn’t know that this is the first summer in my life I’ve worked up the nerve to not only wear a bikini, but post a picture of myself in it.
She doesn’t yet know the pressure the world, social media, our culture, her peers and mentors may put on her to look a certain way, and only that way. She doesn’t know that some people exercise to be skinny, instead of strong and fast as we talk about. My daughters don’t know these things because I have worked very hard at sheltering them from it, but I can’t shelter them forever. One day, this great, big, wonderful, fascinating, ugly, scary, world we live in will send her the message that she isn’t good enough, thin enough, big chested enough, tall enough. And then, that’s when I want her to know - I want her to know that her mother loves her own body, that being soft AND being strong is beautiful, that eating both ice cream and spinach (maybe not together, but hey, to each their own) is good, and that our culture, that message, is wrong. We are beautiful because our wombs have grown life, our breasts have nourished babies, our arms have hugged children, spouses, and friends, our lips have kissed skinned knees, and our eyes have filled with tears of joy and pain, love and sadness. So that, mamas, is what makes us beautiful, and please let’s teach our children that. Wear that bikini. Hike that mountain. Eat that double scoop sundae. Wear that mascara. Or don’t. Do whatever makes you feel soft, strong, and beautiful and that…that is what they will know.
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