So, I have never been momfluencer-thin, but after my kid was born, my body kinda did just ... go back. Like, I have a hazy memory of the midwife commenting on it *in the delivery room.* (In some kind of medical sense, though this was also the same midwife who referred to my "perineum of steel," to give you a feel for the tone.) Which I'm telling you in order to say that all those creepy Instagram comments? They happen in real life, too. Over the maybe two months after, when he was still kind of visibly a newborn, I got a series of comments from other women about how I looked. I don't mean my friends. I mean a woman working the McDonald's drive-through when I stopped to get a McFlurry. The cashier at the grocery store. That kind of thing with random strangers talking about my body during our 90-second interactions. Strangers commenting on my body actually happened more postpartum than it had happened while I was pregnant, and it was never not awkward and uncomfortable. And I hadn't done anything intentional to make this happen! It just did, and yet I felt complicit in all the kind of "getting your body back after baby" headlines on magazines in the checkout line.
I think it's worth noting that these women actively contribute to a toxic internet culture that causes real harms and they are rarely held accountable because hey, women have to support other women and they're just sharing their truth, right? This topic brings up ALL the feelings for me.
Thank you for this. Here’s an uncomfortable confession~I did believe that, because these women put pictures of their bodies on the internet, I had the right to judge and speculate about them. I don’t follow any momfluencers, but I figured the judgement and speculation was just part of the gig. That’s why I love this newsletter so much. It is blowing apart all the ways we are unfair to each other.
So, I have never been momfluencer-thin, but after my kid was born, my body kinda did just ... go back. Like, I have a hazy memory of the midwife commenting on it *in the delivery room.* (In some kind of medical sense, though this was also the same midwife who referred to my "perineum of steel," to give you a feel for the tone.) Which I'm telling you in order to say that all those creepy Instagram comments? They happen in real life, too. Over the maybe two months after, when he was still kind of visibly a newborn, I got a series of comments from other women about how I looked. I don't mean my friends. I mean a woman working the McDonald's drive-through when I stopped to get a McFlurry. The cashier at the grocery store. That kind of thing with random strangers talking about my body during our 90-second interactions. Strangers commenting on my body actually happened more postpartum than it had happened while I was pregnant, and it was never not awkward and uncomfortable. And I hadn't done anything intentional to make this happen! It just did, and yet I felt complicit in all the kind of "getting your body back after baby" headlines on magazines in the checkout line.
I think it's worth noting that these women actively contribute to a toxic internet culture that causes real harms and they are rarely held accountable because hey, women have to support other women and they're just sharing their truth, right? This topic brings up ALL the feelings for me.
Thank you for this. Here’s an uncomfortable confession~I did believe that, because these women put pictures of their bodies on the internet, I had the right to judge and speculate about them. I don’t follow any momfluencers, but I figured the judgement and speculation was just part of the gig. That’s why I love this newsletter so much. It is blowing apart all the ways we are unfair to each other.
I always cringe when I hear the word "mama," and this conversation helped me think more about why.