I watch the neighborhood kids on the waterslide, their lithe, lean bodies glistening in the spray. And there is Clayton with his round face and tubby belly, looking on as they climb and splash, climb and splash. The peditrician hesitated at his last doctor visit when I asked if we needed to be worried about his weight. "Aware, yes," she said. "Worried yet, no." But of course I worry. I don't want Clayton to be one of the fat kids. Even as the number of overweight children grows, I can't imagine that those kids are any less ostracized, ridiculed, or teased than the fat kids with whom I went to school. I never want my son to experience that.
I told my sister once that there was no excuse for letting a dog become obsese, since we humans are in complete control of what and how much our dogs eat. I suppose the same is true of children, although of course it's harder. A dog has a limited repitoire for cajoling more food out of us: snuffing around the kitchen floor for crumbs, laying his drooling muzzle in our laps, licking the bottom of his empty bowl. Clayton, on the other hand, threw a twenty minute tantrum yesterday when I refused to put more strawberry jam on his PB and J. When I tried to scimp on the cream cheese on his bagel this morning, it did not escape his notice. "I want more cream cheese, Mama," he insisted. I almost refused but then I looked at his bagel-- one half of the extra-thin, whole wheat, low cal variety-- and thought, I wouldn't want it like that, either.
Plus, he's not even three. And it's not like he eats junk. Sure, he gets the occassional ice-cream treat. He usually has one low-fat graham cracker as an afternoon snack. He, gasp, had french fries with his quesadilla when we went out to dinner last night. But in general he eats like we do-- healthy, vegetarian fare-- without the bowls of ice-cream we enjoy when he's already in bed, the sugary Corn Pops Don eats for breakfast ("That cereal's for grown-ups," we tell him), the chocolate I sneak out of the cupboard when he's not looking.
Don is convinced there's nothing to worry about, that the weight will come off sooner or later. But I love Clayton so fiercely that I want to protect him from everything. I couldn't stand for him to have to endure the stigma of being fat. So the other day when he wanted a third piece of toast after his two egg breakfast, I told him no. And then I explained, "If you eat too much, you get fat. And then you can't run fast, or ride your bicycle fast." Running and riding fast are things Clayton really cares about; I could see him considering this. He dropped the request for more toast, but later I wondered if I'd done right. At this age, so much of his understanding of the world is based on what we tell him. I'd never even heard him use the word fat, and already I've helped create for him exactly the kind of negativity around the concept that I want to protect him from.
When I talked to Don about all this, he said, "I don't want him to look at his belly and feel bad about himself." He's right, of course. I woke up the next morning feeling ashamed, as if the poisonous drip of our beauty culture was already seeping into his world, and that it was I who had let it in.
So many of my parenting concerns are fleeting. Today Clayton jumped on the trampoline, raced around the house pretending to be the three blind mice, ran up and down the hill behind our neighbor's house again and again after dinner. So he's got some persistent baby fat-- so what? I feel silly for having worried, and yet I'm saddened, too, that our cultural obsession with beauty could reach so deeply into childhood.
As adults, we feel its claws daily. My friend was recently outraged and embarrassed when at a pre-wedding pedicure, everyone but she got the typical leg massage. "I was the only one with un-shaven legs," she told me, "and I didn't get one." At brunch last week, I looked at my friends' perfect toes and wondered if I, too, should shell out the thirty something bucks on a pedicure. Is this something grown-up women are just supposed to do? I've had attending to my toes on my to-do list for over three weeks, but somehow it's not a top priority when I have a few moments to myself.
Don likes to joke that if you wear sweat pants out of the house, you've "given up." Often these days, that’s how I really feel. I lug the kids to the grocery store without changing the stretched out, spit-up stained t-shirt I'm wearing, my unwaxed legs exposed, my toenails dirty and my hair in its perpetual ponytail. I look at my friend's taunt stomach and wonder if maybe I should join a gym, or sneak a little less chocolate. I envy my neighbor's stylishly highlighted hair. My own hasn't been washed in days, the greasy roots hidden under a baseball cap. Every evening I step on the bathroom scale, try to let the numbers reassure me that, even though my stomach bulges beneath my tanktop in a way that even after eighteen months of pregnancy and postpartum I'm still not used to, I am not fat. I'm not stupid, nor anorexix. I can see the outline of my ribs beneath my collar bone. I weigh less now than I have since high school. I know I'm not fat. But that did not stop me from weeding the figure-hugging dresses out of my closet, does not stop me from asking myself and my husband almost daily: "Do I look fat?" Because even if I'm smart enough to know that I'm not, it sometimes feels like the looking is all that matters.
I remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally when Billy Crystal runs into Meg Ryan after not seeing her since college. "Did you look this good then?" he asks her, and she laughs and shakes her head. As I've gotten older, I've learned to appreciate that line. Not only do we gain distance from our younger selves' fashion disasters, but younger doesn't always mean prettier. Maybe it takes some good long years before we figure out how to really shine in our own skin. Sometimes I haul the kids to the grocery store and I feel good. I'm lucky to have gotten my figure back so quickly; my arms are toned as they haven't been in years from hefting carseats and babies. Plus, I've got three kids, so it doesn't matter how I look. And maybe that's what makes me feel so good.
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