Boys can be insecure too.
As you know, I’m a mom of two boys, 6 and 3 years old. They are brash, wild, energetic, beautiful beings that I feel the ache of love for. …and the ache of my body from them jumping on me, running into me and me chasing them across parking lots… I never thought that I’d have one boy, I mean statistically when we decided to have kids I realized that it might happen, but having two boys was never something I thought would happen.
I’m like most moms: I struggle with body insecurity from 2 births. The weight gained, the stretch marks and the 2 c-sections that changed me forever. I’m actually pretty fine with it now, I’ve grown to love myself for who I am and not how I look but there are still the days that I find myself comparing my body with an impossible image that I’ll never be able to achieve. The endless loop of chasing perfection is a weary one.
Also, when your 6 year old excitedly pats your stomach after a large meal and asks if there is a baby inside it kinda sends ya down a body image spiral pretty quickly…
I mean, I’m not an idiot- I knew what you aren’t suppose to do with little girls- talk negatively about your body… so it completely caught me off guard to realize I’d accidentally negatively affected my 3 year old in that very way.
You see, Ben and I joke all the time about muffin tops, back fat, guts and wishing we were 10-20 lbs lighter… We laugh about it, whine about it and almost every time we get off the scale we dramatically gripe about middle age. There is truth at the core, but we joke so much about it, making elaborate health goals that we know we’ll never live up to that we really didn’t think about who we were joking around. I mean, we are hilarious.
Eeeeeeeexcept certain little ears didn’t realize that we were joking (most of the time…).
–>
Earlier this week I dressed my precious 3 year old in one of my favorite outfits of his and he had his head hung down, not looking me in the eye.
I leaned in, eyebrows scrunched upwards, trying to figure it out. “You look so handsome! Go show Daddy, he’ll really like your outfit,” I told him.
Still nothing.
Perplexed I finally asked him, “Why don’t you like your outfit?”
He glanced at me, “Because I look fat in this outfit.” Flatly.
I fell apart inside. I felt myself shaking but controlled myself and smiled brightly. I said the right things and prayed they’d sink bone deep. I told him that who we are is more important than what we look like and that he was a handsome little boy.
It’s funny isn’t it- we try as parents to do things so right that sometimes our peripheral vision blinds us. Have you ever done anything like this with your kids? Parenting with the best intentions and efforts only to fail in a huge area that you didn’t even think to define as an area?
I’ve decided not to overthink this- simply to be aware and move forward. That’s the beauty of mistakes, the learning and changing from them. Every failure provides room for growth and change.
and it feels like I’m changing a lot these last few years. 