Bodies, Babies, and Business
Life around here continues to evolve and change with each passing week it seems. We are making progress (for the most part) in our new way of life and are settling more into each other. Our lives changed instantly despite the fact that we had 39 weeks to prepare, and each day we make adjustments to accommodate to Nora and to teach her how to be in our lives.
Recently there have been a handful of blog posts that have been circulating that have discussed body image for women and their daughters. This topic has been floating around in my mind over the last few months mostly due to my previously protruding belly. Pregnancy is a slow progression of bodily changes, and to the outside observer these changes may only be physical. People watch a pregnant belly expand and may fail to realize the emotional adjustments that must be made as well.
During my pregnancy, I just didn't feel like myself. That's probably due to a host of things going on in my life, but I just didn't feel at home in my own body (something I didn't fully realize until after I had Nora). It was awkward for me to be trying to adjust to physical changes while other people watched. We live in such a physical world where people are always making note of others' bodies. People are generally not ill intended when they observe, comment, or make mental notes about a pregnant or postpardum woman, but knowing others are doing this about you can cause any amount of anxiety in a woman.
I wondered why it was appropriate to comment about a pregnant woman's weight gain when to do so about a non-pregnant woman would simply be rude. I wondered why it was okay for someone to reach out and touch my belly without asking when to do so previous to my pregnancy would have been awkward. And as I listened to others comment on the weight loss of another new mom, I quickly began to wonder if people would do this about me.
To be honest, I really have been lucky. My body wasn't too traumatized by pregnancy, my birth was as smooth as possible physically, and my body has bounced back without any real effort on my part. I can't complain (and after a year of trying to conceive, made a conscious decision not to complain) about my pregnancy and post pardum experience, but there has been a sense of anxiety knowing people were taking note about my body during this period of my life.
Truly, I have been rarely offended by things people have said or done, and I don't have any ill will over close friends comments and belly rubs. However, this experience has opened my eyes to another facet of our society's obsession with our bodies. In some ways a woman cannot win in this department. If her body bounces back quickly and the weight falls off, she hears "joking" comments from other women about how they hate her. And if the weight lingers and she's slow to resume her make up routine, she's a poor soul whose been swallowed up by her new role as a mother and isn't taking care of herself. At the end of the day, women, even women who have just expelled a human from their bodies for Pete's sake, are subject to expectation and critique in our world. As I step back from my pregnancy and the last 8 weeks of my post pardum experience, I am reminded that my body (and the body of others) is none of anyone else's business.
That may come off as rude or harsh, but truly it isn't meant to be. Really, any woman's body is her own. It shouldn't be subject to critique, discussion, or comment by the public. Simply because a woman is experiencing rapid and drastic changes for a 40 weeks period doesn't change that fact. We, all of us, are more than our bodies. They're just shells that harbor our spirits, who we really are, and we would all, including myself, be wise to pay more attention to person's heart, words, and development rather than her external self. We should spend less time discussing our external morphing and more time paying attention to the changes that our spirits are undergoing.
As we begin to raise a daughter in this hyper physical world, my deep desire is to spend more time learning humility than doing my makeup, invest more time practicing patience than doing my hair, and devote more time to loving people than making sure my butt doesn't look big in my jeans. There's no small amount of pressure in raising a daughter to be confident in who she is with the body she's been given, but I know that lesson starts with me. As I continue to put these lessons in my backpack, my prayer for Nora would be that she has an early understanding that her physical appearance is not society's business; that she has a responsibility to be healthy and take care of her body, but at the end of the day who she is inside is far more important than who she appears to be on the outside.
Recently there have been a handful of blog posts that have been circulating that have discussed body image for women and their daughters. This topic has been floating around in my mind over the last few months mostly due to my previously protruding belly. Pregnancy is a slow progression of bodily changes, and to the outside observer these changes may only be physical. People watch a pregnant belly expand and may fail to realize the emotional adjustments that must be made as well.
During my pregnancy, I just didn't feel like myself. That's probably due to a host of things going on in my life, but I just didn't feel at home in my own body (something I didn't fully realize until after I had Nora). It was awkward for me to be trying to adjust to physical changes while other people watched. We live in such a physical world where people are always making note of others' bodies. People are generally not ill intended when they observe, comment, or make mental notes about a pregnant or postpardum woman, but knowing others are doing this about you can cause any amount of anxiety in a woman.
I wondered why it was appropriate to comment about a pregnant woman's weight gain when to do so about a non-pregnant woman would simply be rude. I wondered why it was okay for someone to reach out and touch my belly without asking when to do so previous to my pregnancy would have been awkward. And as I listened to others comment on the weight loss of another new mom, I quickly began to wonder if people would do this about me.
To be honest, I really have been lucky. My body wasn't too traumatized by pregnancy, my birth was as smooth as possible physically, and my body has bounced back without any real effort on my part. I can't complain (and after a year of trying to conceive, made a conscious decision not to complain) about my pregnancy and post pardum experience, but there has been a sense of anxiety knowing people were taking note about my body during this period of my life.
Truly, I have been rarely offended by things people have said or done, and I don't have any ill will over close friends comments and belly rubs. However, this experience has opened my eyes to another facet of our society's obsession with our bodies. In some ways a woman cannot win in this department. If her body bounces back quickly and the weight falls off, she hears "joking" comments from other women about how they hate her. And if the weight lingers and she's slow to resume her make up routine, she's a poor soul whose been swallowed up by her new role as a mother and isn't taking care of herself. At the end of the day, women, even women who have just expelled a human from their bodies for Pete's sake, are subject to expectation and critique in our world. As I step back from my pregnancy and the last 8 weeks of my post pardum experience, I am reminded that my body (and the body of others) is none of anyone else's business.
That may come off as rude or harsh, but truly it isn't meant to be. Really, any woman's body is her own. It shouldn't be subject to critique, discussion, or comment by the public. Simply because a woman is experiencing rapid and drastic changes for a 40 weeks period doesn't change that fact. We, all of us, are more than our bodies. They're just shells that harbor our spirits, who we really are, and we would all, including myself, be wise to pay more attention to person's heart, words, and development rather than her external self. We should spend less time discussing our external morphing and more time paying attention to the changes that our spirits are undergoing.
As we begin to raise a daughter in this hyper physical world, my deep desire is to spend more time learning humility than doing my makeup, invest more time practicing patience than doing my hair, and devote more time to loving people than making sure my butt doesn't look big in my jeans. There's no small amount of pressure in raising a daughter to be confident in who she is with the body she's been given, but I know that lesson starts with me. As I continue to put these lessons in my backpack, my prayer for Nora would be that she has an early understanding that her physical appearance is not society's business; that she has a responsibility to be healthy and take care of her body, but at the end of the day who she is inside is far more important than who she appears to be on the outside.
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