3/27/10

Post baby bod: keep it to yourself!

I don't get the paper news anymore, haven't for years. I get 90% of my national/world news from the internet, the other 10% from the snippets of t.v. news that my DVR records before and after my shows. I look forward to catching up online every morning, right before I check my email and right after I check my facebook. Over the past couple of years, I've noticed a small but extremely annoying trend: various "celebrities" donned in bikinis or tiny dresses, smiling beatifically whilst cradling a semi-new baby. The headline will invariably read, "XXX shows off her Post Baby Bod!!". Ok.

Yes, there is a smidgen of bitterness when I grimace at these willowy vixens showing off their washboard abs and perky funbags just weeks after popping out Junior, but mostly I am just bugged. Bugged for several reasons, but mainly because I hate the message that is being trumpeted with every magazine cover or newsclip featuring a new mom who is either so insecure and desperate for validation or else so hopelessly narcissistic that she'll take time out of the first weeks of life with baby to oil up, put on the g-string and smile for the camera. Yes, I know "it's their job" but what is that telling their kids? Young girls? Other new moms who are already feeling pressure to be "perfect"?

I have had four babies. Gained exactly 70 lbs. with each one. I had upper arms that looked like Easter hams, an ass the size of a bus..even my nose got bigger when I was pregnant. I wasn't the poster girl for The Perfect Pregnancy but my babies were big, happy and healthy. I vaguely remember the first several weeks after the birth of each being a blur of diapers, nursing, coddling the shocked, new older siblings and trying to pretend that I was just as excited about the magical 6 week point as my then-husband. If you had suggested that I drop all of that and put on my skirted tankini to show the world my Post Baby Bod, I would have laughed and probably squirted milk on you. I know, I know, it's all about priorities, but at that point in life my priority was my family. Not reassuring the world (and myself) that even though I was a mother I was still hot and want-able. The only people I cared about wanting me were my kids and (at the time) my husband.

Maybe it's just my opinion, but I don't think Mother Nature ever intended someone to walk down the runway of a Victoria's Secret fashion show while still expelling lochia. If what you're doing is solely for YOU to feel good about yourself, fine. But why does the rest of the universe need to see it?

3/5/10

can you hear me now?

Guten tag...just a brief introduction and hello from me, the happy hausfrau. I'm a 43 year old woman from the glorious suburbs of Minneapolis. Fate and some catastrophic life choices have resulted in me being a single mom to four kids, whom I love with all my heart despite (or maybe because of) their having inherited many of my tiny yet frightening OCD personality traits. I also have a dog named Walter. I am madly in love with him and not ashamed to admit it.

Anyhoo. It's a pleasure to be here....my friend has been telling me for a long time that I "have to start a blog" so Whitney, here's to you. If this is half as therapeutic as Facebook it's all good.

Jenny
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