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Exposed by my children for what I really look like

Flipping through the pictures on my phone, I see it.

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My first reaction is shock. Who took this hideous picture of me?

Self-loathing and disgust swell up and threaten to bring me to tears.

Just as I am about to hit delete, my boy walks in the room.

“Do you know anything about this picture?” I ask him.

I turn the screen so he can see it. He smiles huge.

“I took that of you in Tahoe,” he says. “You looked so beautiful laying there. I couldn’t help it mom.”

“You need to ask me before using my phone to take pictures,” I say.

“I know,” he says. “But mom, seriously, look how pretty you look?”

I look at the picture again and try to see what he sees.

My daughter walks over and takes a look.

“That could be a postcard mom,” she says smiling. “You’re so beautiful. I love it.”

I take a deep breath.

This is exactly what I needed.

My default mode is to see and focus on the flaws and imperfections. I’m starting to see a bit more.

I still see my dimply, fat thighs.

I also see a mom collapsed on the shore that just explored the lake for hours with her children.

I still see chubby arms.

I also see the arms of a mom that just helped her kids across the rocks and hot sand so their feet wouldn’t hurt.

I still see a fat woman wearing a black dress bathing suit to try to hide her weight issue.

I also see an adventurous mom that loves her children something fierce.

Like many women, I have struggled with my weight most of my life. It’s not something that will ever go away for me. I don’t have a naturally slim body. Never have.

Right now I’m the heaviest I’ve been in 10 years. Yet…

I have not let my weight stop me this time. I am wearing tank tops, sundresses and bathing suits in public. I’m running around playing with my kids this summer and I sometimes even feel attractive.

Yes. You heard me.

“I feel pretty. Oh so pretty. I feel pretty, and witty and bright.”

Well…not exactly. But something like that.

Is it because I’m getting older? Is it that I have more to worry about than just how I look? Or maybe it’s because my kids look at me with such adoring eyes.

Really, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t hate my body anymore.

That’s huge for me to admit and hard to even wrap my mind around.

I’m not giving up on exercising and getting healthy. Those are things I will continue to strive for because I want to be around awhile.

Right now though, I just want to love my body where it is. I want it to be OK to see myself the way my kids do.

Thank you kids.

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* Here is another “secret” picture the kids took of me on our day trip to the beach.

587 thoughts on “Exposed by my children for what I really look like”

  3. Glad you took the time to really see how others see you! Change what you want to change and accept what you do not. Also, keep in mind that if what you are doing does not bring the results that you want to see talk to someone for another perspective, insight, knowledge, or program.

    As your children pointed out what you see is not what the world sees.

    Regards,
    Clifford Mitchem
    Advocare Distributor
    Nutrition + Fitness = Health
    http://www.AdvoCare.com/13087657

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  4. Oh, your children sound lovely. Isn’t this what we all need? Someone we love more than anything telling us we’re beautiful. Thanks for this post! ❤

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  5. Don’t be so hard on yourself, you have two legs to get to where you want to go, you have two arms so your kids can hold your hands. You’re doing fine. Listen to your children
    at times they know more than you do.

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  7. The truth is you’ve accepted yourself for what you are,regardless of your looks or anything that matters. Trust me,that’s the best thing. Being slim-trim or being pretty never always matters. What matters is how good at heart you are,which you are. *winks*

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  9. Body image’s can stifle the mind. What is visionally seen does get pretty into the door fast than average, yet we are somehow intrigued by a great paragraph of words. You admit to have body issues yet you stripe yourself bare in this post and expose a more interesting side of you. It’s nice to see someone with the courage to walk through a door they wanted to close. I great to see a parent that allow their children to inspire them to Love self regardless of the perception. I don’t believe everyone is good looking; I actually only cross a few a day but as I look into someone’s eyes and explore their heart, it captivates me in a way that refines my vision.

    I enjoyed your post….

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  14. It’s not because you’re getting older. It’s because you’re getting smarter. We all have this notion of what the perfect body should look like. But go ask many women that have great bodies and even they themselves cannot appreciate the beauty. They, like many of us will always judge ourselves the hardest. Until our children bring us back to reality as to what true beauty is. And you listed them all above. Your strength, your energy, your sense of adventure and fun. When we get old and look back on things we don’t want our fondest memories to be of how much time we spent worrying about the perfect body size. Loved this post and loved the picture of you laying out on the beach. Your kids are right. They are wise beyond their years. Bravo to you for teaching them what true beauty is.

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  18. I have a nasty backside photo of me hula hooping–compliments of my third daughter. Turns out we’re not all heading to the runway, but it’s all good cause I ain’t giving up anything permanently. Carpe diem!

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  19. I think it’s a nice picture 🙂 Mom’s are more than models will ever be. Lol. I know how you feel though. I can’t get rid of my cellulite or my stretch marks. Sigh.

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  21. I seriously just cried! My kids don’t usually sneak pictures of me but they blow me away with some of the things they say. When they give you a little insight to what THEY see. They never see the vain flaws we see in ourselves.

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  22. Reblogged this on A Blue Box of Thoughts and commented:
    This is the first time I reblog something. I wanted to get back to writing and well, that’s a step. That’s something.

    Self-image was and is a problem for me. I would like it to stay in the “past” zone, but I have to be honest with myself, it might always be somewhat of a current problem.

    I am guessing in my case, it all started with puberty and that unspoken, even unformulated, desire to be recognize for what you look or might look like, to be appreciated for it. After a year or so of eating five meals a day, I had gained a few pounds and much needed height to my small complexion. I wasn’t exactly fat, obese, or “big”. I was just a girl who wasn’t only skin and bones. Yet the 47 kilograms on the scale, for the 154 cm of height scared me.

    You can see it on almost every picture taken of me on my 15th year on earth. I am wearing big sweaters, jeans and big sneakers. I was rejecting the body shape I only figured I had. I spent that year breakasting on yucky yogourts in the morning, so it would refrain me from eating the rest of the day. The following meals I would systematically cut in half of what I would have eaten, making the smallest portion I could endure. My parents were somewhat concerned by that, but it was the only part of that struggle they could see.

    After that year, I managed to tip the scale with only 40 kilograms. And I felt better about myself, somehow. The pictures tell a different story. Big sweaters are gone, I could wear my hair tied up, I didn’t felt the need to hide in it anymore… Yet the trip was far from over.

    Retrospectively, I feel like 40 kgs was not healthy. I slowlily started to gain weight, naturally, to finally stabilize around 45 kgs after turning 18. I didn’t feel good about myself. I didn’t feel good about my image. But I wasn’t really seeing the truth when I looked in the mirror (I still have that problem to that day). Then I got into my first relationship, I finally got to have a boyfriend. Or at least, enter a relationship with someone who liked how I looked like, and probably who I was, to a certain extend.

    We had lots of physical fun, not that many conversations, but we certainly had food contests. I was happy, I liked eating, and we were doing lots of it. It didn’t come without consequences, even though I only realise it later, I gained weight, and a lot of it. I weighed around 55 kg when the relationship came to an end. I still wasn’t obese, or fat, or big. I was chubby.
    I didn’t feel too good about myself and I went through a dark period of grieving about the relationship and not eating as much. Lost about five kilograms. But there was still more to come.

    I got into a relationship with someone who was concerned about image, because he had a skin disease. So he was very neat and careful about his clothing, what he looked like, and what I looked like. I changed my own style of clothing, going from all black clothing to almost all white. I didn’t realise it at the time but my body looked quite fit. In my eyes, it was always ugly, fatty (would you look at those thighs? ugh), I would only see my belly big and flappy because I would look at it as I would be sitting…

    I am always shocked to look at the pictures of me from that period, my eyes see a nice looking young girl, not skinny but not fat either, who looks embarrassed to look somewhat good. And part of my brain remembers how bad I felt about what I looked like at that time. I wasn’t confident, and my boyfriend’s concerns about image did not really help. Since I wasn’t too happy, I started eating too much again, and therefore, started once again packing weight.

    I got into a new relationship. That one started through internet and wasn’t aimed at what people call romantic relationship at the beginning. It was a casual gaming relationship, I would play with him for hours in my day, and we bonded over that. Then came the exchange of pictures, I came up with a picture he had actually already seen, one taken by my earlier boyfriend. The new boy didn’t like that picture. To him, I looked like a self conscious person, who would fit in the regular stream of superficial people too concerned by their apparence. To me, I looked as embarrassed as ever, but since I was wearing high heels on the picture, my thighs didn’t look as big as I thought they were.
    For the sake of remembering, the first image I got of him was him passed out next to a big pool of his pink vomit. I could even see his face on the pic.

    To cut back to the subject at hand, we got together and finally met. I was living near Paris, he was living in Brussels, and we maintained the long distance relationship for about a year, and slowly lost our minds in it. He wasn’t too confident about himself, and acted with strangling jealousy towards me. I used to work in a male dominent environment, so I would regularily be hit on, people would talk about what I look like… most men weren’t indifferent to me. Boyfriend didn’t like that. At all. My response to that was not too great, and not too conscious either. I started eating more (but it was also due to the fact that I lived alone for the first time in my life and had problems fixing boundaries when it came to food portions) and packed kg once again. My scale tipped to 65 kg. Yet I knew I was feeling better about myself. Even though it was a difficult relationship, he helped me come to terms with my body, and what I really looked like.

    A year ago, I was still weighing about 68 kg. It’s too much. I know it, he knows it, yet he would only sometimes say it would be nice if I lost a few of them, and only when I would comment them. I didn’t feel pressured to lose the weight, I was finally in a sort of stable happiness, where my weight would also be stable and stop yoyoing around.

    Then, last December, we learned that we would be parents. I got pregnant. Our lives started changing. My eating habits drastically changed. Thinking healthy and variated, clean meals. I don’t have immunity for toxoplasmosis, so I had to cut risky food out.

    Today, I reached the 37th week of my pregnancy. I weight over 80 kg, I am heavier than my loving daddy-to-be, yet I have never felt better. I still wince when I see myself in a mirror, but mostly because of my big belly, I almost never expect it to look that huge 😀 Our baby boy should come to this world on the fifth of August and I believe and hope I will be able, with my family’s help, to lose the extra weight and carry on having a healthier body life.

    I can’t wait.

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  23. Beauty as they say, lies in the eyes of beholder and kids have that tendency to see only beauty when it comes to dear mommy 🙂 My mum was so like you and whenever I use to see her relaxing like this, I use to sleep next to her. As a child, I never had a teddy bear because my mom was my fluffy teddy 🙂

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  25. I don’t happen to hear that a lot. However, I am so happy that you see yourself as beautiful because you really are. Do not be discouraged, and always feel pretty and gorgeous.

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  39. I love this!! I’m going to reblog this because I want everyone to see that beauty really is found within I think it’s beautiful that your kids can see your beauty when you can’t!! Precious!!

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  40. I never let anyone take my picture because I don’t like what I see. What are my kids going to see after I’m gone? Not me. I don’t exist, I wasn’t there. Will my grandchildren or great-grandchildren know what I look like?

    We don’t pose for our pictures anymore, pictures are part of our everyday-mundane lives. We’re bent over picking up dog poop, we’re doing laundry, we’re not always sucking it in with a nice smile and a clean shirt. I’d like to be that person who didn’t care and I’m really trying – I want to show that I lived too. High-fives to your kids for seeing the real you!

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  42. Beautifully written piece!!! They’re right you look amazing!!!

    As women we get so stuck on what we see that we forget that someone else may see something more… Something you’ve down played for so long!!!

    You’re amazingly beautiful!!! Those thighs are everything!!! Xo!!!

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  44. This brought tears to my eyes because this is a beautiful picture with the sand and the lake and a beautiful mom who looks like she’s wiped out and basking in the summer day after an adventure. No wonder your kids love it. Thank you for sharing this.

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  46. Yes, listen to those kiddos of yours. They are far wiser than the societal influences that fuel your first reaction to the photo. It takes real courage to love yourself – body and all – these days, no matter what one looks like on the outside, and particularly if your body doesn’t confirm to the ever-narrowing concept of “beauty” that’s thrust on us by the media. Your commitment to see yourself through your children’s eyes, with their intuitive understanding of real beauty, to love yourself as you are now, and to choose to live an active and joyful life, is a beautifully inspiring life-affirmative act of courage. Thank you for sharing your story with the world. Your children, and all the beings they touch with the life-loving spirit you’ve taught them to lean into, will be grateful to you for this as well.

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  47. I just saw this on the Stop the Beauty Madness website and I just had to come over and say thank you! You have made me feel 1000 times better because you reminded me of how my boy sees me and that is just precious. And also, congratulations, you are beautiful inside and out and your children sound like the children of a beautiful mum!

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  48. Phenomenal, open and beautiful. Loving your body where you are is the most precious gift you can give yourself. You, sweet Bridgette, just gifted yourself and the world something special.

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