There really isn’t anything shittier than hearing unsolicited commentary about your body, especially when you’ve just had a baby, and especially from people you don’t even really know. But it happens. All the time. There’s something about both pregnant and postpartum ladies that makes people think their bodies are open game for point blank talk...like because they are growing or have grown a human, their bodies aren’t really bodies anymore, their brains not really brains, but rather vessels for something more important than their own thoughts and feelings.
I get it. I’m guilty of it myself. I’ve said things to mamas-to-be like, “Ohmygod you don’t even look like you’re pregnant” or to new moms, “you don’t even look like you had a baby.” Most of the time these words just slip out before I know it and I want to reject their residue from my mouth like Tom Hanks ejecting the caviar in Big.
I know these statements dumb and cliché. And having been on the receiving end of such comments, I know how it feels to hear them. It sets you up for an extra helping of self-evaluation (Do I look too big or too small? Is my baby ok? Am I doing it wrong? I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that pizza.) And more self-evaluation is something no pregnant or postpartum women needs. Like at all.
So why do we do it? Why do we continue to say these things to each other? I mean, our intentions are good, right? What we’re really trying to say to our friends is, “Being a new mom is super hard. Like hard hard. And I get that you’re probably feeling like shit right now, but I think you’re amazing and you’re doing great. And I’m proud of you.” But somehow, the other stuff comes out. It’s like we are wired like weird lady bots to validate each other through “complimentary” body talk. But that word residue that talk leaves behind? It sticks to us like diaper rash cream to our fingers, even when we’re not pregnant. Because as this Romper writer points out, the subtext is:
Unless you are thin, the body you have and therefore the person it contains, is just not good enough.
There they are, those 2 little words. “good enough.” Body plumpness is sanctioned, even praised, during pregnancy. (“But you have a miracle inside you!” “Oh don’t you look so full of life!”) But once that baby is out, it’s back to business as usual. The luster has worn off, that glow is gone from your complexion and your once “big and beautiful” tummy is saggy, dimpled and rippled. And also, really...empty. (You’re not a home for majestic life anymore. You’re just...you. And who is that again, now that you’re a mom?) So your natural reaction is flatten it or tuck it in as quickly as possible—to make it look “better” or impossibly like it was before. Marry that inclination with the physical/emotional, internal/external scars of birth and, well, it’s complicated.
To insinuate that feeling or being good enough is purely a physical or external manifestation is not only harmful, it severely undercuts the profound transition each a woman goes through when they give birth. You can’t possibly see what’s going on inside a new mom—she may be grappling with all the things a new baby brings into a life or she may just be wondering when the fuck her next shower is going to happen. Regardless, the fact that her body meets some imaginary standard should quite literally be the furthest thing from her mind. She just had a human literally come out of her, for shit’s sake.
So while we’re all over here trying to praise each other with “positive” body weight and shape talk, we’re actually making ourselves feel even worse.
If we wanted to make people feel good, regardless of body shape, we’d send different messages altogether. Welcome to the belly club honey! Hold off on the planks and onto the baby-weight pounds, good for your bones, and no one’s business anyway. Inoculate yourselves against the tyranny of thin worship! It’s NOT like this everywhere in the world...
Yes. But I’ll even take it one step further and say, wouldn’t it would be better to just not say anything at all? Just leave the body talk out of it. Instead, bring her some truly delicious food without a word. Offer to fold a basket of laundry or take out the recycling because you know that other than sleep, she really wants to take care of her house. Bring coffee or a bottle of wine without any sarcastic comments about how they might affect breast feeding. Simply set the bottle on the table or better yet, pour yourselves each a glass and just sit there and drink them. In silence. Sweet, sweet silence.
The week after I came home from the hospital with my second baby, my sister in-law had an enormous amount of food from a local restaurant delivered to our door. Good, heavy, delicious tasting food: pasta and sauce and meat and potatoes and vegetables cooked in heavy cream and butter. And two huge slabs of chocolate cake. It. Was. Amazing. I may have even cried a little. Partly because I was starving and so fucking overtired, but mainly because she completely got it—without even asking. She knew that the best way to nourish was not with unsolicited commentary, but with damn good food. Because we deserved it. We feasted and still had plenty left over.
The day after that heavenly food arrived, I came home from a doctor appointment and a ritual post-birth weigh-in. Tired and in need of an effortless lunch, I opened the fridge, pulled out one of the leftover slabs of chocolate cake, stood over the counter and ate the whole damn thing—all while the baby peacefully slept. To this day, it’s still the best fucking piece of chocolate cake I’ve ever eaten. Yes, because it was decadent and delicious. But also because eating it as I did, carefree and without abandon, was also something I knew I wasn’t “supposed” to do. Every bite was a big “fuck you” to the standards by which we have allowed ourselves to measure “good enough.”
I guess I’m just saying, I think we could all use a little more chocolate cake. Don’t you?
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