Oof. We are having what I am calling the "all in-law" Thanksgiving - my mom, my sister's MIL, and my former IL's. (Long story, but my ex-husband and I had a good relationship... and then he died suddenly of an undiagnosed heart condition a few years ago. His parents are local, so I work pretty hard to foster their relationship w/ our kid.) I sent out the reminder text about how not to talk about Thanksgiving eating in front of my 15 yo, who's in ED recovery.... the boomers all love her so much and also are SO attached to the way they have thought/talked about food all their lives. It is A Lot, especially for the first extended family gathering in a long time.
Your column today reminded me of a Thanksgiving I hosted several years ago that was impacted by the oldest guest's comments about weight to me, my niece, and the guest's daughter and daughter-in-law. Apparently none of us had acceptable bodies and none of us wore the clothing she deemed would be appropriate to hide said bodies.
"Dear Jane,
I've known you for a long time and I love you very much and I hope you will take my comments in that spirit.
No one appreciates comments about their weight, appearance, what they are wearing or what they are eating and I am no exception. After you made your comment to me at Thanksgiving I really had to center myself to continue to feel OK about myself and the dress I chose to wear. We are all much more than how we look and as I get older I feel increasingly that it is healthier to focus on who we are inside not outside.
My motto is to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full and most of the time I stick to that. I commute by bike most days and I have been running several times a week. I am sure I look different depending on what I am wearing and that is OK with me.
I refuse to diet and I refuse to be hungry all the time. I also don't find it necessary to wear clothing that hides my body. I am not ashamed of my body (I used to be and it made me miserable) and on a regular basis I help clients, friends, and loved ones accept their bodies.
I've decided not to entertain comments about my body....positive or negative...I know we can find other things to talk about and I'm sure there are other things we value about each other beyond appearance!!!"
It is worth noting that Jane made no more of those kinds of comments during subsequent gatherings. One caveat: As I reread it I do wonder about the part where I talk about running and biking; is that me justifying my size in some way? In any event I have shared this letter with clients, friends and colleagues and folks seem supported by it...and somewhat surprised that I was so direct.
It's my first holiday season without my partner. My parents expected/invited me to visit them, but that's what we (safely) did last year and previous years so I set a solid boundary of 'nope I'm not going to celebrate without him this year, I am staying home and no you cannot come see me here either.' I might eat some instant mashed potatoes and Stovetop from the comfort of my own home (the secondary relief of only having to worry about my own thoughts about food and no one else's is nice) but I will not re-create this family meal with a tragic empty chair at the table. Honestly, all of the "this is what I'm grateful for this year!" talk (online, at work, etc.) is already too much to handle. And setting boundaries is so hard because inevitably you are dealing with someone who is not inclined to respect those boundaries! This would be so much easier if the response was "OK, we understand" but instead it's days of negotiations over when I might be able to visit or have visitors, and loads of guilting over how long it's been since they've seen me or how much they'd really like to see me or ... All that is to say, I am bracing for some Thursday morning texts trying once more to arrange some sort of get-together. And I am gonna try to remain firm that the only contact I am willing to accept is someone leaving leftovers outside my door.
One of the things I am most thankful for every Thanksgiving is that I don't have to field any of this bullshit, for myself or my kids. Neither my family nor my in-laws body shame or talk about weight (there are very occasional exceptions, of course, but it's entirely in the form of the Boomers and their diets, which you taught me how to navigate) and it wasn't until I became a regular (okay religious) reader and subscriber of this newsletter that I realized how rare that is.
It's also startling to me how much diet culture I absorbed growing up -- even though *my* body was never a topic of conversation, my mom constantly dogged on hers, she and my dad were also on some diet or another, and I watched and learned from all of that. They had a balanced and healthy attitude toward Thanksgiving, by some miracle? but not so the other 364 days of the year.... What a monumental waste of energy. The more I unpack it, the less I understand it (and the more motivated I am to keep at it and NOT pass it on to my kids).
This so hard: "We are wired to show love through food, but also taught to apologize for loving food."
Sunday night I was on the phone with my mom and in the same conversation she talked about all the food she was making and freezing to bring us for everyday meals (meatballs and sauce for my kid; the meat part of mapo tofu for all of us), and also when I said we were thinking for Christmas we would try to move from a big complicated meal to an afternoon of grazing followed by a smaller, simpler meal, she said "But when you graze, you end up eating more." (This was the universal you, not a specific thing about my eating habits.)
Post-Thanksgiving check-in. For reasons I still don't understand, my SIL, who was hosting, became very excited about some low-calorie ice cream treat and pulled it from the freezer and began showing it off to people, talking at length about how few calories it had. My daughter, who's only 11, wasn't nearby, so I let it go. But later, when I was with my immediate family, I reminded everyone: We do NOT talk about calories, ever, we don't talk about diets or bodies or weight loss or weight gain. In the same vein, I was seeing some people I had not seen for a long time because of the pandemic and there were some comments on my body that I understood were intended as compliments, but, again, I don't want that kind of talk around my kid. I told people the way that I looked was pretty much just genetics and maybe HRT.
Meanwhile: A friend, someone my age, just made a comment on social media that reminded me that not all my peers (boomers) are getting it. Having a regular-sized body is a form of privilege. It might not feel that way if one is a size 10 instead of a size 0, but then -- some white women don't see their privilege, either. And I am reluctant to "instruct" her because I don't think people respond to instruction. The pandemic provided me with the opportunity to focus on my HEALTH, which led to lots of walking (not for fitness or weight loss, but for mental wellbeing) and that led to discovering podcasts such as Maintenance Phase and then I somehow found Burnt Toast and, well, I'm grateful. Sorry if that's sappy.
"You might say upfront: “We’re trying not to [food-shame/body-shame/talk about dieting] in front of the kids. We’d love it if you could help us out with this.” Then, reinforce as needed because this may not stop the comments. People are who they are. But: Your child will see you advocating for them, and that’s powerful." LOVE THIS
Oof. We are having what I am calling the "all in-law" Thanksgiving - my mom, my sister's MIL, and my former IL's. (Long story, but my ex-husband and I had a good relationship... and then he died suddenly of an undiagnosed heart condition a few years ago. His parents are local, so I work pretty hard to foster their relationship w/ our kid.) I sent out the reminder text about how not to talk about Thanksgiving eating in front of my 15 yo, who's in ED recovery.... the boomers all love her so much and also are SO attached to the way they have thought/talked about food all their lives. It is A Lot, especially for the first extended family gathering in a long time.
Your column today reminded me of a Thanksgiving I hosted several years ago that was impacted by the oldest guest's comments about weight to me, my niece, and the guest's daughter and daughter-in-law. Apparently none of us had acceptable bodies and none of us wore the clothing she deemed would be appropriate to hide said bodies.
"Dear Jane,
I've known you for a long time and I love you very much and I hope you will take my comments in that spirit.
No one appreciates comments about their weight, appearance, what they are wearing or what they are eating and I am no exception. After you made your comment to me at Thanksgiving I really had to center myself to continue to feel OK about myself and the dress I chose to wear. We are all much more than how we look and as I get older I feel increasingly that it is healthier to focus on who we are inside not outside.
My motto is to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full and most of the time I stick to that. I commute by bike most days and I have been running several times a week. I am sure I look different depending on what I am wearing and that is OK with me.
I refuse to diet and I refuse to be hungry all the time. I also don't find it necessary to wear clothing that hides my body. I am not ashamed of my body (I used to be and it made me miserable) and on a regular basis I help clients, friends, and loved ones accept their bodies.
I've decided not to entertain comments about my body....positive or negative...I know we can find other things to talk about and I'm sure there are other things we value about each other beyond appearance!!!"
It is worth noting that Jane made no more of those kinds of comments during subsequent gatherings. One caveat: As I reread it I do wonder about the part where I talk about running and biking; is that me justifying my size in some way? In any event I have shared this letter with clients, friends and colleagues and folks seem supported by it...and somewhat surprised that I was so direct.
It's my first holiday season without my partner. My parents expected/invited me to visit them, but that's what we (safely) did last year and previous years so I set a solid boundary of 'nope I'm not going to celebrate without him this year, I am staying home and no you cannot come see me here either.' I might eat some instant mashed potatoes and Stovetop from the comfort of my own home (the secondary relief of only having to worry about my own thoughts about food and no one else's is nice) but I will not re-create this family meal with a tragic empty chair at the table. Honestly, all of the "this is what I'm grateful for this year!" talk (online, at work, etc.) is already too much to handle. And setting boundaries is so hard because inevitably you are dealing with someone who is not inclined to respect those boundaries! This would be so much easier if the response was "OK, we understand" but instead it's days of negotiations over when I might be able to visit or have visitors, and loads of guilting over how long it's been since they've seen me or how much they'd really like to see me or ... All that is to say, I am bracing for some Thursday morning texts trying once more to arrange some sort of get-together. And I am gonna try to remain firm that the only contact I am willing to accept is someone leaving leftovers outside my door.
One of the things I am most thankful for every Thanksgiving is that I don't have to field any of this bullshit, for myself or my kids. Neither my family nor my in-laws body shame or talk about weight (there are very occasional exceptions, of course, but it's entirely in the form of the Boomers and their diets, which you taught me how to navigate) and it wasn't until I became a regular (okay religious) reader and subscriber of this newsletter that I realized how rare that is.
It's also startling to me how much diet culture I absorbed growing up -- even though *my* body was never a topic of conversation, my mom constantly dogged on hers, she and my dad were also on some diet or another, and I watched and learned from all of that. They had a balanced and healthy attitude toward Thanksgiving, by some miracle? but not so the other 364 days of the year.... What a monumental waste of energy. The more I unpack it, the less I understand it (and the more motivated I am to keep at it and NOT pass it on to my kids).
This so hard: "We are wired to show love through food, but also taught to apologize for loving food."
Sunday night I was on the phone with my mom and in the same conversation she talked about all the food she was making and freezing to bring us for everyday meals (meatballs and sauce for my kid; the meat part of mapo tofu for all of us), and also when I said we were thinking for Christmas we would try to move from a big complicated meal to an afternoon of grazing followed by a smaller, simpler meal, she said "But when you graze, you end up eating more." (This was the universal you, not a specific thing about my eating habits.)
Post-Thanksgiving check-in. For reasons I still don't understand, my SIL, who was hosting, became very excited about some low-calorie ice cream treat and pulled it from the freezer and began showing it off to people, talking at length about how few calories it had. My daughter, who's only 11, wasn't nearby, so I let it go. But later, when I was with my immediate family, I reminded everyone: We do NOT talk about calories, ever, we don't talk about diets or bodies or weight loss or weight gain. In the same vein, I was seeing some people I had not seen for a long time because of the pandemic and there were some comments on my body that I understood were intended as compliments, but, again, I don't want that kind of talk around my kid. I told people the way that I looked was pretty much just genetics and maybe HRT.
Meanwhile: A friend, someone my age, just made a comment on social media that reminded me that not all my peers (boomers) are getting it. Having a regular-sized body is a form of privilege. It might not feel that way if one is a size 10 instead of a size 0, but then -- some white women don't see their privilege, either. And I am reluctant to "instruct" her because I don't think people respond to instruction. The pandemic provided me with the opportunity to focus on my HEALTH, which led to lots of walking (not for fitness or weight loss, but for mental wellbeing) and that led to discovering podcasts such as Maintenance Phase and then I somehow found Burnt Toast and, well, I'm grateful. Sorry if that's sappy.
"You might say upfront: “We’re trying not to [food-shame/body-shame/talk about dieting] in front of the kids. We’d love it if you could help us out with this.” Then, reinforce as needed because this may not stop the comments. People are who they are. But: Your child will see you advocating for them, and that’s powerful." LOVE THIS