You're Beautiful, Baby

Catherine, over at Everyday Life as Lyric Poetry, has started a bit of a discussion on Postpartum body image. So I thought I would contribute what I can.

I was always the skinny girl. Not slim or petite. Skinny. Now, you may not realize this, but the skinny girls get their share of flak when it comes to body type. "You're so skinny - it makes me sick" and "I hate you, you're soooo skinny" aren't exactly compliments. Yup. I was skinny. and flat chested. I rejoiced the day I finally hit 100 pounds.

So, when I got pregnant I was excited to finally gain some weight. This didn't happen at first, due to my lovely friend NVP (aka Morning sickness. aka 24/7 sickness). But, eventually I stopped losing weight and started gaining. I was thrilled to see some shape in my arms and legs. I outgrew my bra. I lovingly watched (and photographed) my growing belly. I felt, well, like a woman.

Now, six months postpartum, much of my new found "womanly" shape has remained. My Husband loves it, and doesn't fail to tell me so. I feel good in my new body. Granted, I had no trouble losing most of my pregnancy weight. If that had been an issue perhaps I would feel differently.

The problem is, I think, the two standards of beauty that exist side by side in our culture. On the one hand the tall, slim-yet-voluptuous magazine beauty (the standard that we as women tend to hold ourselves to) and on the other, real-life real-body beauty (the standard by which we measure the beauty of our friends etc.). A lot of the women that I think are very beautiful tend to be more on the shapely side of things. Most men like some curves. We don't expect anyone else to look like they stepped out of a magazine, so why do we expect it of ourselves?

So, what can we do about it? This, I don't know. But we can start by telling the women in our lives how beautiful they are to us.

ps. Check out Bub and Pie's post about mirrors for more on Body Image