{I Can Only Be.Me}
From the category archives:
The question was asked by OHMommy, and it’s about my religious beliefs and how they affect my parenting. Yes, I am resting my chin on her head for most of the video. I know it’s supposed to be pronounced ‘vee-log’ but I REFUSE to say that. It’s stupid and I hate it.
P.S.Read this. It explains why things look so different around here.
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Although I have not and will never do the same, I don’t have a problem with people who have accepted their larger shapes and have decided not to beat themselves up over it. More power to you, but I don’t believe in the Fat Acceptance movement. I don’t believe that we should let our children believe that it’s fine to be overweight or obese. The obesity rate in children here in the states is ridiculously high. They learn that at home. It’s not okay – we are jeopardizing the lives of those we swear to love the most with the examples we set and the standards we’re attempting to lower.
Is it alright to teach a young girl that it’s okay to be comfortable in her own skin, no matter her shape or size? Of course, definitely so. It is not alright to teach a young girl that it’s okay to be comfortable being overweight or obese, be out of shape, eat nothing but McDonald’s, to put her health at risk for sake of being alright with who she is. There’s a fine line there, but I’d rather cross it than not approach it.
We teach them to strive to be the very best that they can with everything they do, right? School, social relationships, extra-curricular activities. That should also extend their outward appearance. Not solely for the sake of vanity, but for their quality of life as a whole. We should tell them to strive to be healthy, not thin or skinny, but to be healthy. It they are healthy at an above average weight, fine. If they are not, we should not coddle them. It does them no good, and much harm.
My younger sister is fat. She’s 13 years old and weighs a significant amount. She’s at high risk for diabetes, and her pediatrician has suggested to her and my mom that she lose weight. Neither of them take heed. She eats nothing that doesn’t come from a microwave or a paper bag. The most walking she does is getting from class to class in school. She is growing, every day, width wise more so than in height, and my mother is so concerned with not making her feel self concious about it that she won’t address it.
That’s not what my sister needs – people tiptoeing around the topic of her weight. She shouldn’t like herself the way she is. She is unhealthy. She should be aware, if some rude child at school hasn’t already taken care of that for her, that she’s too big. How is she being taught to love herself if she’s not being taught to take care of herself? Those two things seem to go hand in hand, if we’re talking about teaching them to a child. I don’t want her to be huge and happy. She should be average, normal, healthy and happy. If that means that she can’t have anymore Hot Pockets and Toaster Strudels, and that she’s miserably riding her bike around the neighborhood, so be it.
She’s about to enter high school. High school is hard enough without being the fat girl. Soon, there will be boys. I’d hate to see her crushes crush her because of her size. Yeah, sure, that makes the boys assholes and shallow and all of that, but they’re teenage boys. That’s what they are. She’s going to be in the thick of it, and I don’t understand why my mom is willing to send her into that den of hyenas with a bullseye on her front. People don’t want to accept or acknowledge it, but the truth is that looks matter. They shouldn’t – sure – but they do.
Now, it’s time for me to practice what I preach. I’m not going on any weight loss journey, but I’ve got set a better examples for my girls. I know that I’m not going to sit idly by while they get fat. It’s never going to happen. We have some serious genes in this family to combat, and when they’re old enough to know/do better, I’m going to encourage them to be their best, both inside and out. People may think that’s a bad thing, but I think it’s a wonderful thing. I think it’s bad to do the opposite, and I realize that if I’m pushing them to join the volleyball team or not eat a triple whopper with cheese while sitting here 80 pounds overweight, unable to resist that last donut, that they’re not going to take me seriously and they probably shouldn’t. How am I supposed to tell them to take care of themselves mind, body and soul if I don’t do the same? ‘Do as I say, not as I do‘? Yeah, no. I know my daughters, and that is not going to fly.
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Listening to: John Mayer – In Repair
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I don’t get to take my daughters Trick or Treating this year.
That may sound trite to you, but it’s not to me. It’s something I’ve done with them every year, usually just me and them. This year, their father’s one weekend a month includes Halloween. I’m not happy about it. But it is what it is.
Instead of looking at it like “it’s not fair, he’s pretty much completely disinterested in their lives but gets to have the fun days? That’s bullshit!“, I’m trying to see it as “well, he only gets them one weekend per month and they love it so whatever, it’s a good thing”.
Giving up my marriage was really difficult. I’m still working on doing it completely. Giving up my daughters, even temporarily, sporadically, is much more so.
I’m not really going to go into how I feel about how little their father is involved in their lives. How I have to instigate most conversations and interactions, how I have to make the phone calls and text messages or they don’t get made. How he basically comes across as an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ type of father except for paying his support twice a month. Bah. I could write a book on those things, but I won’t.
When Joey and Jason met the first time, Joey told Jason that he wanted to assure him that he didn’t want to overstep his boundaries or try to take Jason’s place in their life. Jason told him, pretty smugly, that he knew that Joey never could: that his daughters loved him and knew who their father was. It’s true, yes, but I wonder if he has any idea how that line between himself and Joey is being blurred in the girls eyes, by his own inaction.
Over the past few months, his role has been taken on by Joey. Joey plays with them in the yard, he sits and colors and draws with him. He gives them piggy back rides, he takes them to the movies. He buys them toys and plays their games. He comes with me to pick Isabella up from school. He knows more about their current personalities than their dad does. They talk to him, they see him more than their father.
It’s been hard: Joey’s not their dad and I wish it was their dad doing all of these things with them, but it’s not and it is what it is. I am glad that someone wants to be there for them, in all the ways their father should be – that their father should want to be. Maybe he does want to be; maybe he’s got his reasons and justifications for the way things are.
Growing up without my father wasn’t a big deal for me because I had my grandfather to fill that role, and I’m glad that my daughters have Joey. As they get older and realize how little they see their father and why, I hope having Joey in their lives eases whatever pain those realizations might cause a bit, like having my grandfather did for me.
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One thing I cannot stand is a screaming, crying child. One thing that I cannot stand even more is a screaming, crying child in a public place. Especially when the child’s parent is not addressing the problem, either ignoring or gently and ineffectively trying to console the child.
I’m like dude - shut your fucking kid up. You may be used to that shit, but not everyone else is. Be respectful to others. Now I have sympathy for say, a mom trying to finish her grocery shopping with a screaming toddler in her cart. I mean she’s obviously doing something necessary. I have no sympathy for situations arising in places like movie theaters or restaurants. Get your lazy ass up and take your child home. Or outside and be a parent: calm them down however you normally do and bring them back when they are no longer pissing off everyone else in the place.
I can say this so freely maybe because it hasn’t happened to me. No seriously, neither one of my daughters has ever been that child. They’ve been to movies, they’ve sat all day with me in doctor’s offices, they’ve taken long car rides only to end up somewhere dull and boring in the eyes of a child. They’ve been tired and cranky and irritable but it has ever taken me more than a firm tone and a squatting down to their eye level and pointing my finger to straighten them up.
No wait, I’m lying: my youngest did that to me once, this past 4th of July. She didn’t want to walk and I didn’t want to carry her so she cried. And she wouldn’t stop. So I turned her around and I took her back to the car, and then home, even though we’d driven over an hour to get to the fireworks. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Granted it was like 2 miles we had to walk and she was also sick (I didn’t know until she shit her pants on the walk back to the car and it was an awful shit, the kind that chokes you with stink and seeps out of her clothes onto everything) so it was an odd occasion and not normal behavior for her, but regardless – I did what I wish all parents would do if they’re not in the midst of something necessary: remove their child.
It’s not fair that we all have to endure your unhappy kid. That’s YOUR kid. He’s YOUR responsibility. YOUR problem. Don’t make him everyone else’s. That isn’t fair. Stop being selfish.
All that being said, if I do run across a screaming child and a parent not doing anything to make it hush, I ignore it. I place myself as far away from it as I can. I damn sure don’t take it upon myself to intervene – I don’t need to be an asshole: apathetic mommy and Chucky Jr. have that covered. And if it was my child being that child and some rowdy old man came up took it upon himself to handle the problem, I’d crack his ass over the head with whatever object was heaviest and closest.
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Listening to: Maxwell – Bad Habits
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Bella got her first shipment of jeans in last night. They’re all sizes 7 & 8’s and since she’s always worn true to size and she’ll be 6 in December I figured that was perfect, should last her the 1st 1/2 of Kindergarten at least. I tried a pair on her and while they fit at the waist (what am I feeding this kid?!) they are way too long. The sevens not that bad but they have no room to grow at the waist and the eights are waayyy long with the normal amount of growing room, how they usually fit.
So, I wanted to know what to do because she couldn’t walk around like that.*
I tried to solicit advice on Twitter, and Betsey, Tara and MomBabe all tried to talk to me as if I knew how to operate a sewing machine, or even thread a needle, or had walked into a home goods store since the last time I went to visit Jason at work when he was over a Linens N’ Things.
What I was more looking for was like, should I return them and get her the plus versions of the jeans in smaller sizes (which doesn’t seem like a good thing to do, I don’t even know how plus jeans fit and it’d be my luck that she’d get taller and not gain weight and end up in high waters and there’s no fixing those), or should I take the jeans to a tailor and have them like…hemmed some sort of way that they can be released when she’s taller?
And, also, those are not all the same thank you very much which was what my mom said. As I explained here – my girls and I do not do frilly hems and butterflies and shit on our pockets. We like average, normal jeans that an adult would wear, only child sized and that’s why all of them are from Gap. Shirts and dresses and shoes are for crazy designs and frills not jeans! And as anyone with a pair of eyes can see, those jeans are all totally different! Different fits, washes, colors, etc.
Totally different. Here’s hoping her teacher has a pair of eyes and doesn’t think she’s wearing the same pants almost every day.
Alright, so what do I do?
*I would have shown you a photo of her wearing the jeans, but she’s sick and said “no pictures for the internet!”
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