My body’s on a journey, just like yours
I had seen this article (about the “Mom Job” trend in plastic surgery) in the NYTimes a few days ago and meant to write about it then, about how skewed it is that a woman’s beauty is so narrowly defined as a pre-procreative body, and about how the patriarchy is insisting in so many ways that women should mold themselves into an almost unattainable ideal (created by them) in order to be seen as beautiful and — here’s the kicker — worthy. To achieve this ideal requires more energy than most mothers I know have time for. Frankly, I feel happy if I manage time for a shower, never mind a shower in which I actually shave anything and forget moisturizing or tending or preening anything afterwards.
Then, Shape of a Mother wrote about it better than I could and you should all go look at the post here. I know I’ve sent you over to that website before, but go again. As the author writes, we need to learn to celebrate the art our bodies become as we go through our lives, whatever our life brings, whether children, illness, health, wealth, fitness, trauma, pleasure. Our scars are stories, our wrinkles, legends. Our hair is the magic carpet of our years, our hands the well-used tools of all our crafts.
I am not at peace with my body or what it has become. But I’ll be damned if I contort myself, punish myself and pay through the nose to put myself under the knife to erase what my life has made of it — in order to cling to some artificial ideal of female beauty.
My body is not what it was and it is not what it will become. It is what it is today. Its story is my story. Its life is my life, its strength, my strength, its beauty my own. My body is on a journey. So am I.
Unlurking here, a tired mother in Australia, to say your words raised a “Yes!” out of me. I love your writing, you helped me feel gladder in my flesh tonight.
That is so right what you have written. I wish I could express myself as well as you do. Thank you for the comment x
Such a fantastic point of view, stunts. I, too, could be happier with my body, but I’ll be damned if I am going to change it or feel ashamed of it. It took a lot of hard work to get here.
I am not at peace with my body, but I have always considered plastic surgery to be a form of cheating. These are the bodies we were given. These are the marks of life (that scar on my leg is from falling out of a tree as a child, those stretch marks on my belly are from having a child) and to be without them would imply that I have not really lived. But I hit the gym and count calories because there is no charming story about the cellulite on my thighs. Yes, I want a perfect body (I want a perfect soul), but I want it to be mine, a result of my achievements and efforts. I don’t want an asterisk (even if it is one only I can see) next to my pictures.
No one wants the pain of perfection, but I think, at the very least, we’d like to hang on to the image that has comfortably defined us.