The F-Word

During the summer after Nancy turned 4, I had my first truly complex parenting moment.  It was astonishing to me how quickly SO many thoughts flooded my head in the mere seconds it took me to react and respond, and how that response would come nowhere near encapsulating all the complexity that went into making it.   

Nancy has letter dice, and we were creating words with short vowel sounds. We had "at" on the floor, putting different starting letters down and sounding out the new words. M-at, C-at, B-at... and I put down F. "F... at. FAT! (big gasp of realization) Mommy - you're fat!"

{gulp}

This child worships the ground I walk on. She is also saying this to me at age 4, not age 14... I tell myself not to take it personally. Because I realize: I haven't taught her that being fat is "bad." To her, being fat is the opposite of being thin. It is how Dr. Seuss portrays fat - it is nothing more than a descriptor. Society has assigned judgment to that descriptor, but she is not aware of that yet.

However, at the same time, I recognize that I am expected by society to introduce her to the social morays to which we are expected to adhere. At some point, she has to be told that "we don't say that about people," or else she'll observe someone (and believe me, she observes...), and state that observation loud and clear, and that person may not be as prepared as me to shrug it off.

So if I decide to instruct her in this moment that we don't tell people they are fat, how do I do that without A) making her feel like she just did something bad or hurt Mommy's feelings, and B) without starting the mental conditioning that being fat is something to be ashamed of. Hopefully, she'll metabolize like her dad, but what if she got my genes? If I could wave a magic wand and guarantee one thing for her, it would be that she would never struggle with self-image as badly as I did. And when I was growing up, there was no internet...  Now there's cyber-bullying, social media, people's ability to say cruel, dismissive, hurtful things with a few keystrokes behind the protection of anonymity... How amazing would it be if she could just continue to accept herself just the way she is her whole life. If weight IS just another descriptor, with no judgment.

Why couldn't it have been ANY other descriptor? She could say I'm tall, I'm brunette, hell, even that I'm pale - this ONE thing about me has a stigma. And she did nothing wrong. By comparison, especially to the other moms she encounters, yes, I am fat. According to the health insurance company that rejected me for coverage, I'm obese. But through many painful years, I somehow reached a place of self-acceptance, hence my daughter not knowing being fat is supposed to be bad. But of all the things converging on me at once, what won? Social morays.

And I said, "Honey, we don't tell people they are fat." And she burst into tears. 

She looked around frantically, and quickly said, "Mommy! My big toe is fat..."

Seeing her sensitivity broke my heart.  Hearing her try to justify that it was JUST a descriptor made me feel terrible.  I was mad at society for allowing weight to be an "acceptable prejudice" necessitating this kind of teaching moment, and I really contemplated what it meant that social conditioning won the battle in the moment.  I reassured her that everything was okay and she hadn't done anything wrong.  And we branched into creating sentences with our letter dice.    

I remembered back to the Christmas when she was 1 1/2 years old, and without hesitation, she had recognized me in two photographs that were a good 75 pounds of weight variance.  Not only was I recognizable to her at both sizes, she saw me with the exact same love and enthusiasm: "Mommy!" and "Mommy!" not (skinny) "Mommy!" and (larger) "(tsk) mommy..."  Weight being just another descriptor with no judgment is how we all begin, and it is conditioned out of us, and that "us" as a group becomes Society.  Each member of a new generation has the power to change that equation.  Which made me realize: the teaching moment here today was not me teaching her.  It was the other way around.

Making sentences with our letter dice.