When I first found out I was pregnant I was so excited. I knew deep in my soul that I was going to be a boy mom.
I bought boy clothes, boy crib bedding, boy car seats. I had always been told that a mother’s intuition would tell you the gender of your baby. Somehow, my body didn’t get the memo.
Two months later, the results were in. Girl. How? I knew my whole life I would be a boy mom. I wasn’t cut out for girl things. I wanted the dirty messes; the scattered dinosaur figures and monster trucks; I wanted someone my husband could fix things with; that’s what I had imagined my whole life.
I was terrified
It took me the remaining seven months to come to terms with my child being a girl. I was terrified. I knew I would let this sweet, innocent little baby girl down, because I had no idea what I was doing as a girl mom.
But you don’t get to pause life just because you’re scared or confused. You just do the best you can until you figure it out. Personally, I didn’t figure it out until the moment I held her in my arms.
I became pregnant again, and guess what?
My whole world changed. She became my very best friend the second I heard that first cry. She was everything I never knew I needed. Three months later, to my surprise, I became pregnant again, and guess what?
It was a baby girl. At this point, all I could do was laugh. My dreams of becoming a boy mom had not only been thrown out the window, but violently chunked, and I had finally come to peace with that. That second baby girl stole my heart just as much as the first did.
This world devours women
It’s a lot of responsibility to care for girls, and I think that’s what I was scared of the most. This world devours women, and I couldn’t bear the thought of my children being torn apart by the world.
It’s our responsibility to teach our children how to be immune to the cruelty, the statistics, the judgment, and hatred, but how do we do that?
By example. Examples are the only way movements happen, trends start, and changes become implemented.
I still remember being made fun of in 5th grade for being too fat
A large issue in society is body image. This, in my opinion, is one of the worst mental injuries from society that you can possibly experience.
I still vividly remember being made fun of in 5th grade for being too fat. I remember where I was, who it was that made fun of me, and exactly what they said.
It’s been 12 years since that happened, and it still hurts me to think about.
I never stopped feeling fat, or ugly, or not good enough since those elementary school days.
It’s so hard to accept a postpartum body
Then, after having children, my body completely changed for the worse. But I vowed to do everything I could to prepare a life for my children to never have to feel the way I did.
It’s hard. It’s so hard to accept a postpartum body.
It’s foreign, it’s almost like it’s not yours, and it’s unrecognizable, but it was once a home for your babies – a warm, comforting, nourishing, perfect home.
Life isn’t about being a size eight with a killer body
I had been struggling with my postpartum body so badly. No one prepares you for the possibility of you literally hating the skin that you’re in. It’s been one full year since I had my last child and one year and 10 months since I had my first.
My body was put through hell. My body naturally pushed out, not one, but TWO seven pound, 15 oz children. I realized that my life isn’t about being a size eight with a killer body. That life wasn’t for me.
My life is about being a role model to my two girls who will one day go through body image issues much like me. My heart would shatter if my children ever felt the way I feel about myself.
So it’s my duty to accept who I am and open up a world for my children where they can be a size 0 or a size 30.
Teach your kids to love themselves whatever happens
They can have tiger stripes, they can have cellulite, scars, moles, birthmarks, imperfections, it doesn’t matter, because the world became more beautiful when they entered it, and that’s the most important thing they should know about themselves.
I encourage you, whether you have girls or boys, teach them to love themselves.
Teach them to love all of their imperfections, because they need to be strong enough to face the world when it tells your babies that they are not good enough.
Raise them to stick up for their friends when they’re being bullied
Raise your children to fight back to those who say you have to be a certain weight or a certain dress size.
Raise them to stick up for their friends when they’re being bullied about the way they look.
Raise them to be leaders instead of people with judgments.
It starts with you. Show them by example what it means to love yourself, and what it means to love others, regardless of how they look.
Being a girl mom has become the best thing that has ever happened to me.
They have inspired me to not only want to change myself but to change the world.
