Body Positivity Is Getting Out Of Control
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What You Might Have Missed At Classically Abby…
Mark Your Calendar: Book Club Is Tuesday, August 29th
This month we are reading fiction (we switch up month-to-month) and the book we will be reading is…A Gentleman in Moscow! I have heard amazing things about this book, so I’m really looking forward to reading it with you all.
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Quote of the Week:
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” – George Bernard Shaw
Classic Style Inspo
I only had a few minutes to throw on makeup for this video, but I still wanted to feel my best. With that in mind, I have learned that if I just take some brown eyeshadow on an angled brush and draw on a smudged wing, it makes my eyes look bigger in about a minute flat!
Things I’ve Been Loving: Indoor Fly Trap
This is a gamechanger! If you have flies or gnats in your home, this plug-in bug light makes a huge difference. It attracts bugs and has a sticky back, so as soon as the bugs land on it, they get caught. You can then replace the sticky sheets when they’re full!
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Body Positivity Is Getting Out Of Control
Hello classic crew and happy Monday! How was your weekend? The past week was fun but busy! While my husband was out of town, Mr. Baby and I got a ton of things DONE. We played together and visited different play gyms, as well as tried new foods (waffles, anyone?) and made messes. I also spent quite a lot of time with my sister which makes me so happy, and I am hoping to maintain that facetime with her even now that Jacob is home.
As well, baby #2 has been making his presence felt, kicking and moving around which I’m absolutely loving. The nesting instinct has been STRONG this time around and all I want to do is tear apart my house and throw everything away. I’ve already cleaned out Mr. Baby’s closet, the linen closet, and our guest bathroom. I still have to organize my closet, the kitchen, random junk drawers around my house, and the big kahuna, the GARAGE. I want to get everything sorted out and clean so that I can find all of my newborn stuff and have it ready to go! I want to have our whole bedroom tidied and organized before the new baby makes his appearance. Because we’ve moved three times since Mr. Baby was born, I don’t know where everything I need is - and that makes me edgy!
But today, I wanted to share the weirdest experiences I’ve had during this pregnancy. Let me tell you - body positivity is getting out of control.
To be clear, at this point in my pregnancy I am very CLEARLY showing. It’s not a secret. Now, I recognize that when you meet a stranger, asking her if she is pregnant is incredibly rude. You don’t know what that woman’s body has gone through and it’s only likely to hurt someone’s feelings if you ask when you don’t KNOW. But I have a slightly different opinion than the mainstream on closer acquaintances and friends. If you know someone who you see frequently and all of a sudden they’re sporting a baby bump large enough to be out of the first trimester, I don’t think it’s bad to assume they’re expecting. For example, I see my friends at synagogue every single week. They know what I look like not pregnant, so they can easily assume from my sizeable bump that I am currently pregnant (even though no one has said anything to me unless I bring it up first, just to be clear).
In any case, I have had two conversations during my second trimester that I have found to be weird, sad, and totally misguided. First, I was talking to a woman at a farmer’s market who asked me if Mr. Baby was my only child. I mentioned that I was expecting my second, and the woman responded by saying, “Well, you look amazing! I can’t believe you’re pregnant!”
Again - I am very clearly pregnant.
The second conversation was with an acquaintance of mine who I hadn’t directly told I was expecting. I mentioned it, assuming it was obvious from my body, when she responded with, “I would never guess that you were pregnant!”
It has become so clear to me that body positivity is outweighing the importance and beauty of pregnancy. People keep trying to tell me how good I look, that I don’t even look like I’m pregnant, that you would never know unless I mentioned it. And even though I appreciate the sentiment, I’m somewhat offended by the underlying message. I look pregnant because I am pregnant. I don’t need to be told that I still look thin or as good as before because I am currently growing a child in my body. On the list of things that are important to me during my pregnancy, whether or not I could pass for not being pregnant at 21 weeks of pregnancy is pretty far down my list.
On top of everything, I DO look pregnant, which makes comments like these even more odd. No one has to pretend that I don’t look like I have a human in my uterus - I know what I look like. I know what clothes fit me and what clothes don’t. I wish the response when I’ve mentioned I am expecting baby #2 was excitement about motherhood and bringing another baby into the world rather than assurances about my appearance. I don’t need body positivity to save the day when my priority in growing this child is my health and his. The way I look should only be a reflection of how healthy I feel.
Pregnancy is beautiful. Are there days that I don’t feel so confident because I have to gain weight in order to go through this process? Of course. But I don’t need other women fibbing to me about what I look like to make me feel better. You can tell me I look beautiful, you can tell me I’m glowing, and I’ll accept those compliments with joy. But telling me I don’t look pregnant, when I so clearly do, is not the answer to my problems. And when the priority to look hot is more important than the priority to have children, I feel sad for us as a society.
Body positivity can be a problem when the focus becomes all about people’s appearances. Everyone is so worried about looking good all the time and needing to maintain a certain level of sexiness that we are losing the thread of what our bodies are for. And when we care so much about our bodies and what they look like, it can distract us from what our bodies are capable of doing. No matter how much body positivity seems like it makes everyone’s bodies equal, we are still focusing on the way everyone looks. If we simply accepted that there are different body types, that cellulite is normal, that bodies change over time - we could stop making the way we appear the end all be all.
I’d love to know your thoughts - drop a comment down below!
It is quite weird that people say 'you look amazing, you don't even look like you're pregnant!', as if looking pregnant and looking good are mutually exclusive. Very odd. Personally when I've approached a friend or relative about their pregnancy my comments tend to be along the lines of 'oh I hope the symptoms aren't being too harsh.' or 'what are you most looking forward to when the baby is born?' I hope those are better!
Hi! Do we have a date for book club? Depending on when you host it I may or may not be able to come, so just need to decide if I need to get the book! I read the Arthur Pepper book and really enjoyed it, such a touching story! Shabbat shalom!