Please Stop Being Mean to My Mom
One daughter's plea to all women: be kind to yourselves.
“There’s too much extra me for an outfit like that.”
Sigh, here we go again. This is one of many comments my mom will throw out at regular intervals. Other greatest hits include ‘I need to stop my snacking,’ and ‘I have all this extra fluff that’s the problem.’ All of this self-flagellation because she isn’t a certain dress size. I get angry, but then I want to cry.
My mom teaches water aerobics several times a week. She eats a varied diet and sees a doctor regularly. Unhealthy, my mother is not. So why is she hung up on the number on her scale or her dress? The short answer is society, but you already know that. The deeper piece here is that if these comments are what my mom feels comfortable voicing out loud, then what is the monologue in her head?
My mom is one of the most incredible people I know. She is compassionate, hardworking, and a great friend to everyone. My common refrain to friends is that I got so lucky to have my mom as my mom. So when someone says anything negative about the mother I love, I am mounting a defense. From knights and cannons to structured arguments and a slides presentation. I am going to bat! But what’s a daughter to do when the demon you seek to slay exists inside the person you love most?
Unfortunately, you don’t.
You’re seven years old again, standing in the doorway, watching your mom get ready for a night out and listening to her lament that her ‘batwings’ don’t go with this outfit. You don’t yet have the words or knowledge to tell her that she’s beautiful, that bodies look different. Now you’re thirty-seven; you know better, and yet the words still elude you.
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that about my mom.”
She’s surprised. Hell, I’m surprised. I am sharp and wry on my best days, but deep and evocative? Nah, that’s my cousin with the Master’s in English. Mom comes back to herself with the usual disregard. The ‘Oh, I don’t mean it like that.’ And seven-year-old me is back, not knowing what to say.
This happens with many women in my life. They are self-critical and play off their body comments as flippant. I am here to say STOP IT. You are not being self-deprecating in a comical voice; you are tearing down a person I love brick by brick. I won’t take it anymore. This is my hill, my battleground, my magnum opus. You are beautiful, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you have let society tell you otherwise.
Do I understand that society places a ridiculous and quite frankly gross amount of value on the female gender’s youth and adherence to Western beauty standards? Yes. Do I also understand that women often have ideas in their heads about what they should look like because ‘I was this weight in college’, ‘Well, I looked this way before the baby’, ‘thirty years ago my skin was different ‘? Also yes, but my love, my light, my raging tigress of wonder, your body has gotten you through everything you have endured, celebrated, and experienced; let’s give her some grace.
Many women lament that they don’t look now how they did in their twenties. If a twenty-year-old said to you, ‘I wish I looked how I did when I was eight.’ You would be confused and rightly concerned. Your body is meant to change. We do not reach a perfect age and step into cytogenetic holding tubs to maintain our beauty for others to see. We age, and with it comes even more perfect experiences. You will build new things and make new memories. Do you really want one of those memories to be your seven-year-old family member recalling that ‘my aunt says you can’t wear shorts if you look like that ‘?
We would all like to think that what we say to the mirror doesn’t matter, but it does. When you talk down to yourself, both your brain and body feel it. So not only are you bringing yourself down, but you are also inadvertently telling more impressionable brains that your value is in your looks.’ I understand that this seems to gloss over very real issues like pretty privilege, but changing society isn’t the goal here. It’s to get you, dear reader, to pause when these thoughts come up. To give yourself grace.
Your vessel is the least important thing about you because when it is all over, I won’t remember how much my mom weighed or how she looked in a dress. I’ll remember her smile, her advice, and her presence.
So stop being mean to my coworker.
Stop being mean to my friend.
Stop being mean to my sister.
Please stop being mean to my mom.
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