Why Couldn't She Have Taken After Her Father??
Everyone...and I mean EVERYONE says that my daughter Adrienne looks just like me.
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And everytime I hear it I cringe for her. Who wants to be told constantly that they look like their 323 pound mother?
I wonder if she lays in bed at night and worries that she'll end up as fat as me? She had a bought with depression last year, and part of that was a near obsession with her weight. She told me that she'd look in the mirror and see someone so ugly, she wanted to throw up. (I made her an appointment with a psychiatrist that day, and she's better now.)
The thing is, she does look like me. Enough to make me want to cry for the little girl that I once was. The little girl who wore a size eight and felt like a huge cow. I don't want that for my baby. She's the same size I was at her age (shorter, she's 5'5" where I was 5'9" by 13...and she's not as athletic as I was...but the same general size.) I want her to look at herself and see how beautiful she really is.
How do I do that when everyone under the sun keeps telling her that she looks like me? Because she's a smart girl. She knows what I think of myself. How can she really know how beautiful she is, when she knows she looks like me and I think I'm so ugly?
How do I help my daughter see that not everyone is supposed to be teeny tiny? That she's lovely exactly as she is? That looking like her mother doesn't have to doom her to a life in a fat suit? That taking care of her body doesn't have to mean deprevation and dieting and trying to look like Lindsay Lohan?
posted by Shaunta @ 11:21 AM
2 Comments:
Your doaughter does look like you, and she's a cutie. The strange part of being a woman is that dicotomy of thought: My kid looks like me and she's beautiful, but I'm ugly. If it were one of those horrible math truth tables that I had to do in high school, it would be false and illogical.
You are not ugly. You may not be please with what you have become, but that does not make you ugly. You have the power to change that and are taking steps to do so. You are a good-looking woman, don't give into the negative talk that you're feeding yourself. It won't help you get where you want to go.
Hi Shaunta, I just stumbled across your blog and this post really resonated with me. My son is almost thirteen and he's been "tubby" for the last five or so years .. I really fear for him. I think the best we can do is love them, be positive - about them AND ourselves, teach them by example. Take your daughter for a walk with you, or a bike ride .. try to schedule some "healthy time" together and try your best not to put yourself down and not to make it about weight. She learns how to be a woman from what kind of woman you are. I really feel for you.
Best of luck, Louisa
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