Our culture has a nasty habit of setting impossible aesthetic standards for women.

 

Beauty in America is a constant cat and mouse game highlighted by airbrushing and shame. Be thin, be curvy, be muscular, be perfect. It is a constant changing game of chase and anytime we, women, choose to play, we lose. We lose our time. We lose our focus. We lose our passion. We lose countless hours perusing impossible goals. We lose years of our lives loathing our bodies. We trash our health and metabolisms dieting and overexercising. We spend our energy worrying more about the size of our thighs instead of putting our energy towards making this world a better place.

 

But, the most impossible and infuriating standard in my mind is the glorification of the pre-baby body.

 

Women have the PRIVILEGE of pregnancy. Despite all the heartburn, swelling ankles, waddling and having to pee constantly I'm so glad that it was ME who got to be pregnant. I got to hold my son constantly as he grew inside me. It was my voice that he heard first. I was the one who got to feel his first movements. Before he was even born, I "knew" my son.

 

This all felt like a freaking miracle to me! It was amazing and awesome! It made me feel light and proud and beautiful.

 

[caption id="attachment_2017" align="alignright" width="169"] My pregnancy in all it's glory the day I had Oliver[/caption]

And it was MY body that did that.

 

But our society does not honor mothers’ bodies. After pregnancy women are encouraged to get their body back. Make it look like it never happened. Stretch marks are evil. Wraps and creams and diet shakes are all marketed to women post-baby to “help” them return to “normal.”

 

This attitude is so damaging. Not just to us as women, but to the fathers of our children and our relationships. I deserve a relationship where I show up raw and honest and whole. And I have a responsibility to my sons to show them what a strong, empowered woman looks like.

 

Many women return to exercise far too early and push themselves too hard, risking injury. Many women diet at the risk of trashing their metabolism and reducing their milk supply. Women are taught to intrinsically feel bad and ashamed of their stretch marks, the saggy skin around their middle, the new curves of their hips that widened to allow for birth.

 

When I had my first son Dedrick I put a lot of pressure on myself to erase any evidence of the pregnancy from my body. Not just for me, but for my ex-husband. He just couldn't stand to look at my post-baby body. I was too big. Too wrinkled. I looked like a mom and moms just aren't sexy in our culture.

 

My boobs, while full and luscious just reminded him of how I fed our son. Yuck!

 

My belly, while curvy and sensitive also had stretch marks and sags. Disgusting.

 

Even my vagina, which hadn't endured the trauma of a natural birth had a scar just above it like a big sign reading "do not enter, mom zone." Ugh!

 

The worst part of my postpartum experience with Dedrick is not just that my ex found me repulsive, it was that I believed it, too. I believed that my sexy days were lost. I believed that unless I could erase the physical markers, I was doomed to the unsexy life of a frumpy mom. I believed “motherhood” and “sexy” were mutually exclusive.

 

I believed that I had been ruined.

 

Wrecked.

 

What I failed to see is how in reality this is just the opposite...if I would only change my own mind. My sexiness does not belong to anyone but me.

 

I can CHOOSE not to give my power away.

 

A mommy body is super sexy! This body has signs of doing a miraculous thing. That's pretty sexy. Why should other people decide what is attractive and acceptable for our bodies?

 

I do not look good DESPITE having two children. I look sexy BECAUSE I had two children.

 

I glow as a mother.

 

When my husband sees me coo at our son he falls in love with me deeper and deeper. My boobs don’t belong to him...or my son. They belong to me! When my husband sees me feed our son he is in awe of how I can support a life.

 

When I brush my teeth at night my husband often finds a reason to brush past me in the bathroom, grabbing and nuzzling my hips. These hips definitely have an extra layer of cushion right now. And that’s ok. In fact, that cushion deserves love because my body is doing exactly what it needs to right now.

There might be a time when my body doesn’t look like I just had a baby. My boobs might shrink. My body might firm up. My skin might tighten. I choose to honor my body, it’s beauty and it’s ability throughout all of it’s processes. I spent a lot of years hating my body even when it was young and nubile. I took it for granted. And now as it changes with childbirth, with age, I refuse to waste another moment not being radically vain about my body.

Cara