SassyBlonde’s post got me thinking about my parents… she often inspires my posts. Thanks, girl!
Growing up felt like a competition to me. It was just me and my mother and my step-father and there were constant weight comparisons. As a four-year-old, my step-father often told me that I weighed more than he did – while he was an overweight, full-grown man. Of course, he was full of crap.
He often equated fat with being lazy, being ugly, being sloppy and being undisciplined. When he spoke of my mother, he’d always talk about how little she was and then he’d go on to say how organized and cultured she is, as if these qualities are linked to thinness. If he wanted to put me down, he’d do it in the form of fat-talk and implied that I was “worse” than he was in many ways, simply becaues I weighed more than him (which I didn’t anyway). It was just nuts. At the same time, if I didn’t eat all of the food on my plate (and there was generally way too much), I was punished severely. I was told I was ungrateful, because I didn’t like french fries. He would often pressure me and sometimes force me to eat way more food than I wanted or needed. And, yet, it was some crime that I wasn’t a waif.
When I graduated eighth grade, I decided everything would be better if I just lost weight. And, you know, unfortunately, I was right. My parents were still abusive, but I got far more respect as a thinner me. My step-father stopped speaking to me all together – which was a huge relief at first, as he was a really scary rageaholic. Finally, the constant comments about my weight stopped. He stopped implying I was undisciplined and lazy. He stopped comparing me to my mother. My mother stopped using me as this ugly foil that proved her hotness. My step-father stopped putting me down in comparison to my mother to show her how much he loved her. Ew. But, yeah. It happened.
In grade school and high school, it felt like weight was the measure for everything. This, of course, reinforced what my parents had already taught me. During high school, I rebounded from my temporary anorexia. I gained 100 lbs. As I gained the weight, I lost friends, my parents started in on me again and I took to spending lunches in a secluded bathroom in a quiet building. I felt that my weight had made me unacceptable and the best thing for me to do was to hide myself away from the world. Sad, eh?
I wonder how many other people out there in the world grew up with parents (or guardians) like mine that made fat a moral issue? I wonder how many girls were groomed to be the foils of their mothers, so that their mothers can feel “sexy”? Do any readers have any experience or thoughts on this?
In my hometown, I saw this dynamic far too often between mothers and daughters. Granted, I know the place I grew up in is unique in some ways. It is very economically depressed (always has been) and the culture is very insular. I hope that other rural communities in other regions are healthier than the sad cornfield village I grew-up in.
However, I don’t hold out too much hope. I check-out that blog now and then – Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder… and I agree with what the writer says about all American women having an ED to some extent due to all the brainwashing we’re exposed to from birth about weight and beauty and the “virtue” of being thin.
I have also noticed that we Americans tend to have a scarcity mentality. In other words, we behave as if most important things are scarce and that we should be defensive and horde them and be jealous of others. I wonder how our culture would change if we had more of an abundance point of view. What if, we appreciated our own bodies and celebrated others’ bodies at the same time? What if my mother’s success didn’t have to come at my failure? What if people could be appreciated for who they are and the strengths and talents that they were god-given?
What a beautiful world that might be…
A challenge to friends and readers – take time out to appreciate your fellow human beings today! Be happy for their successes and celebrate your own as well! And, women, (cuz I think it’s extra hard for us) let’s try treating other women more like beloved sisters and less like competition. You might just like it!
–AngryGrayRainbows
Angry Gray Rainbows 
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