Spread the Word
I struggle with how I feel about how I look. I know that I am not supposed to be down on myself. And I try not to be. I try to celebrate the wonder of a body that grew two human beings, that fed them and carried them around, both in and out of the womb, that runs around doing the daily business of this life. I try not to succumb to some odd ideal of womanhood that makes it hard for me to feel beautiful. I want to be a person free of these ropes. I want to be powerful enough to shrug carelessly about such minute trivialities.
I don’t always manage.
Very little has made me feel more hopeful than this new blog and all the amazing women sharing their bodies and their scars and their fears and their fire. I have believed for a while now that the laddered stocking my stomach had become was odd and extreme. That most women went through pregnancy with fewer marks and less “damage.” That my inconsistent application of cocoa butter was to blame. Well, phooey to that.
I am a mother. This shape I have become is beautiful and honorable.
Go here and look. Tell everyone. Spread the word. Real is beautiful.
I love love this post. Thanks for sharing.
What wonderful gifts this link and this post are!
Beautiful!
Just wait til you’re a grandmother and the precious little tots look at you as if you were the most beautiful creature that ever walked the earth – and while you’re with them, you believe it. And after a while you ARE the most beautiful creature…
Real is beautiful. Always!
I still have the remnants of an overpriced Body Shop cocoa butter pushup stick thingie and two large bottles of lotion, so lack of cocoa butter surely was not the cause in my case at least.
I used to kind of like cocoa butter, but now the smell of it makes me feel pregnant again.
that is an awesome site
and could not have come at a
better time…
the height of bathing suit hell,
i mean, season.
thank you for sharing it,
it made me feel much better
knowing that i am not alone…
in feeling proud
and strong and yet,
still sucking it in a bit…
I’m definitely going to add this AWESOME site to my blog…
Thank you Stuntmother!
Well, that’s just an amazing site. I actually feel better. Aren’t we all silly, to ever believe all that Hollywood crap anyway. This is what real women look like when they’ve given birth. Hmph.
Thanks so much for sharing it with us!
Wow that site is amazing. I so admire the bravery to expose oneself to help others.
How do you find such wonderful sites?
I really wish one of those Hollywood mothers who flaunt their taut bellies in magazines would ‘fess up and admit that they had a tummy tuck directly following their C-section, and that it took 12 hours of photo retouching to get the picture to look like that.
Some women are just blessed or cursed with more natural beauty than others. And some women seem to come through the amazing changes of motherhood with much less damage than others do. Sometimes I envy them and wonder what it must be like to be them, but for the most part I’m comforted by the knowledge (and now the images) of regular women, like me, tempered by time and nature and (sigh) gravity.
what wonders our bodies do.
it amazes me how cruel women are to bodies. myself, included.
we are the receptive part of all things sexual. we take a lot and keep on going. we are passive in labor. we have no ultimate determination in delivering. many times, doctors ignore us when we say something isn’t right. women. we’ve got it tough.
at first, i get scared when i see these photos. what a sacrifice we make for children. it’s not just vanity, it’s something else. something timid and girlish and innocent. when we grow these stretch marks and deal with excessive skin, we are ultimately marked–MOTHER. there’s no going back, is there?
and then, there are the children. what a testament to our strength. what an unbelievable witnessing.
i’ll rub my belly today, and bless you and all the other mothers.