Strong, not skinny

I've seen a lot of articles posted lately offering tips to mothers about how to model positive body image for their daughters. My only child is a boy, so my first instinct was to think, "Phew, dodged that bullet!" Frankly, one reason I warmed to the idea of raising a son was the knowledge that it was hard growing up a girl, and it was bound to be hard raising a daughter.

Then I remembered a girl I went to elementary school with who was mercilessly teased by the boys in our class. As I recall, she didn't have a particularly pleasant personality, but that's not why she was bullied. Boys made fun of her because she was "fat."

Even as third graders, boys knew that the worst thing you could say to a girl, the most offensive insult you could fling at her, was that she was fat.

I remember two things about recess in the fifth and sixth grade: playing Chinese jump rope and standing around with a group of other girls complaining about various body parts that we felt were our worst feature. The implication was that in order to be humble, a true girl's girl, you had to feel bad about your body, or at least dissatisfied with it in comparison to someone else's. "But your stomach is so skinny," you might say, grabbing your own love handles for comparison. "Not me, I'm fat."

I'm sure there are a lot of women who bounce right back from childbirth to their pre-baby bodies (Maria Kang, the famous "No Excuses" Mom," for example), but I am not one of them. Nearly two years after Eli was born, I'm still a good 10 pounds over my pre-baby weight (which in turn was a good 10+ pounds over my slender college weight). It's like a second adolescence, where the instinct is to look in the mirror, grab at my love handles, and moan, "Ugh. I'm fat."

A few months ago I got tired of thinking of myself as someone who used to be thinner, or someone who might be thin again someday if she stopped eating so many cookies, or someone who was thin until she had a baby and hypothyroidism. I decided that instead of getting skinny, I was going to get strong. (In fact, if I wanted to continue lifting Eli, particularly in the throes of a toddler tantrum, I needed to get strong.)

I started lifting heavier weights at the gym and doing pushups in my office. I swung kettlebells and I held planks.

As summer approached, I started buying those Spanx-ish bathing suits with generous ruching. I loved this article from the Huffington Post: "Moms, Put On That Swimsuit," in which the author writes:

I refuse to miss my children's giggles because of my insecurities. I refuse to let my self-image influence my children's. I refuse to sacrifice memories with my children because of a soft tummy.

When I push Eli in the jogging stroller, he doesn't say, "Mommy, be skinny." He says, "Mommy, be runner." He doesn't say, "Mommy, thinner." He says, "Mommy, faster."

He knows I can do it. He knows I can run faster, push harder. In fact, besides "Mommy," that's the primary way he identifies me.

I'll never, ever be 110 pounds again. But I'll always be Eli's mommy and, God willing, I'll always be a runner. I'll always be strong -- not skinny. And that's the body image I want to model for my son.