I may be fat, but you're a @#%&*

People can be such assholes.  Sorry to be so blunt, but tell me you don't agree.  Kids especially.  I know I shouldn't get so wound up about it, because even when I was a kid kids were mean.  It's the whole "I'm ok, you're not ok" phase, or whatever psychological label we want to give it, but let's face it...kids are mean, always have been, always will be, world without end Amen.


The problem is when supposedly grown up, know better adults perpetuate the meanness.

My middle daughter, my Sunshine, is plus-sized.  She's 10, almost 11.  She has always been plus sized.  She's also incredibly smart (like, gifted smart), an excellent writer of stories, an avid reader, and excels in math (the first two come from me.  The math part I don't know about.) She has the most gorgeous long blond, curly hair you have ever seen.  Her face is stunning.  Classical beauty.  She's also a rock star.  When it comes to plus sizes, her personality has it going on.  When she was three, we stopped in a family style restaurant one night on the way home from a long day at a kiddie amusement park, and Sunshine climbed up on her chair and entertained the rest of the diners by singing "God Bless America," to thunderous applause.

She's been above the 100th percentile for weight since she was a baby.  I used to get looks from other moms, and those off-hand comments every one seems to feel entitled to make.  "Wow, she must be a good eater!"  Like I'm stuffing my 9 month old with formula and Ho-Ho's.  Actually, it was hard to get her to transition to solid foods, because she gagged on everything.  It was really cool when friends and extended family members came over to watch them freak out every time she threw up in her high chair.

I actually have three daughters.  They all eat the same things.  We don't do junk food here as a rule.  Fast food is an exception, like a blue moon, or winning the lottery.  Guess what?  Only one of them is plus sized.  The conversations at the ped's office used to go something along the lines of "You need to see a nutritionist, obviously you aren't feeding her properly.  Maybe a few consultations will teach you the right way to feed a child."  Really?  Because when I was here last week with my youngest, you couldn't praise me enough for her diet, and the fact she's in the 50th percentile for weight.  So what, you think I've got it in for this one, and I'm secretly feeding her separately from the rest, just to see how fat she can get?  I know, maybe I really am the witch from Hansel and Gretel, and I want to fatten her up....

What do we do, we moms?  Everywhere they look, our daughters are bombarded with images of what perfect looks like.  They are told that if they aren't skinny, trendy, slender, svelte, they are somehow unworthy of love and appreciation.  We get the same thing.  Three kids and you don't wear a size two and look fabulous in a bikini?  Well, hell, you better cover that body up and work on those pilates.  There is nothing sexy about stretch marks, dear.  Really?  Hmmm.  Because I have three kids, and I have stretch marks out the wazoo, and a kangaroo pouch to go with it.  Can't afford a tummy tuck, and if I could I'd probably spend it on something I really want, like an above ground pool that doesn't have to be taken down every year.  But I'll tell you what, I can out sexy anyone when I'm in the mood.  Because I am beautiful and and I am goddess and I am smart and I am a goddamned glorious woman and you can bet your ass I can roar when I want to.

I see it every day, with the women who come to my store to shop.  Mostly plus sized, and so beaten down in body image that they refuse to buy anything that doesn't hang on them like a tent.  Won't wear a horizontal stripe, and won't even think of trying on a bathing suit.  Even women who wear a size six are so concerned about how fat they look.  Why?  Why do we spend so much time beating ourselves up, instead of building ourselves, and each other up?  At the end of the day, what matters more?  How you looked, or what you did?  Why, as women do we allow others to erode our self confidence in our inherent sensuality so much?  And why do we turn a blind eye when other people make those off-hand remarks that seem so breezy, so acceptable, and yet are ultimately so dangerous? 

People come in all shapes and sizes.  They also come in different colors, and often have different sexual orientations.  So what, it's no longer PC to harbor biases against people for the color of their skin, but it's ok to be bigoted about their size, or sexual preferences?  What is with the human race, that we have to have something other, something outside, something or someone "different" to make fun of, to look at and say "I may be "x," but at least I'm not "y?"  I refuse, refuse to allow my daughters to grow up to believe that they are "less than."  But, it's like fighting against the tide, and I am only their mother.  They expect me to love them, to think them beautiful no matter what.  How am I to convince them of the truth of it, if everywhere else they look they are made to feel differently.  It's going to take us all, folks.  Teach your children that it isn't alright to be mean.  Period.

Today, one of Sunshine's besties called her fat.  They were sitting on a park bench, and the friend was scooched over too far toward her.  So she asked if this friend would move over a bit.  The friend, someone who has been at our house almost daily for six months?  "Why should I have to move over, when you're the one who's fat?"

I heard the story second hand from my oldest.  So I, tactful as ever, asked Sunshine.  "I hear Joy called you fat today.  Did you punch her in the face?"  Not the best mommy moment, I'll admit, but I never said I'd win any Mother of the Year awards.  Turns out my second is a better person than I, because all she did was get up and walk away.  But that shit hurt.  It takes dignity, and a lot of poise, to be able to walk away.  To cry in private, where the ones we care about, the ones we thought cared about us for more than what we look like on the outside, can't see how much their words hurt.  To become the person who quietly realizes that nothing else about you matters, that if you want friends you have to be or look a certain way....oh, hell no.  Over my dead body will my daughter be made to feel that way.

So we had a chat, my Sunshine and I.  About people, and what really matters.  And I told her that if anyone ever called her fat again, she needed to make sure there were no adults around (I'm not a total idiot, after all) and then she needed to look them right in the eye and say,

"I may be fat, but you're a stupid bitch.  Which do you think is worse?"