{Originally Published on This Woman’s Work}

I am blurry on the details. Both my parents were home, which makes me think it may have been a weekend. (My dad traveled most weekdays.) Also it was summer. I know this because I was in my underwear and a t-shirt. We were not a walk-around-in-your-underwear kind of family (not like my kids who regularly streak down the hall in little else) and I remember feeling quite daring for wearing a t-shirt and underwear to bed like my friend said she did. So I know I was already feeling a little over-exposed. And it must have been evening since I was (un)dressed for bed but I’m not sure how old I was. I want to say ten, maybe. Maybe eleven. It was before the divorce (because my dad was there) so let’s say ten.

I can’t remember — did my parents call me downstairs? Or did I come down to tell them something on my own? I also don’t remember exactly what they said but I do remember their worried, compassionate wrinkled brows and their assurances that they loved me. And I remember something vague about my dad having been a fat kid and how he didn’t want me to suffer the way he’d suffered. (But this adds to my confusion — maybe my father wasn’t there. Maybe he left it to my mom to tell me and I remember him being there because I remember my mom saying this. Or maybe she said this after this initial confrontation. It’s all a blur.)

I know they told me I was putting on a little too much weight, that maybe I needed to watch it a little because I was getting, well, I was getting chubby.

This is what stays with me: The cold, cold shame freezing my stomach and making my vision turn wide then small. My awareness of my physical vulnerability in my t-shirt and underwear. My want to disappear, pull a blanket over me. And my shock because no one — NO ONE — ever told me I was fat. No one had ever said these words to me. So the irony is that my parents wanted to protect me from the cruelty of other children but the only people who had ever told me I was fat were my parents who were telling me now. And this is also what stays with me: that spinning, empty feeling around my limbs as I realized that I did not know myself or my body. That my legs and arms and tummy were no longer close and familiar but were enemies bent on fooling me. Where I had felt strong and pretty, I now knew I had been mistaken and then I realized I had been a fool walking around in the world feeling good about myself because it was a secret from me, the way that other people saw me. And that was the shame that has, frankly, never left me. And this is a shame that I still feel around my family more than I feel it around anyone else because they were the ones to tell me.

It sounds like I’m damning my parents and I’m not. My parents really were trying to be helpful. I believe their intentions were good and loving because the bulk of my experiences otherwise at that time in my childhood were good and loving and supportive and encouraging. So I forgive them for doing their best even though it ended up causing me harm. My father was a fat kid and he carried those scars. On the other hand, my mom was always a skinny, skinny kid and likely didn’t know what to make of her sturdy, stocky daughter. Perhaps I was getting too chubby although pictures I have of that time show only me at my most Dawnest self — neither big nor small. Plain, sturdy, short of limb and stern of face.

I do wonder though what they thought I would do as a ten or eleven year old. We already ate well because my mom controlled the food in our cupboards and on our dining room table. We had lots of fruits and veggies; we had few sweets or processed food. I was one of the few kids who never had Hostess cupcakes in my lunch and when we drank kool-aid, she made it with a fraction of the sugar. I rode my bike a lot, too, although truth be told, I was more of a bookworm. My body at that age (I say, gazing at the pictures) was simply a sturdy, stocky body and this I already knew. My best friend was younger and a full head taller with long, long legs and her tummy never curved out in her bathing suit. But that was how she looked and this was how I looked and it didn’t occur to me that one was better than the other until I heard it. Until my parents told me directly and until I overhead adults talking about Annie’s body and how they envied her her legs, shaking their heads in rueful admiration.

What happened after this momentous day is that I quit walking like I was the person inhabiting my limbs. I felt self-conscious as I moved through space. I doubted the me I saw in the mirror and no longer trusted my ability to know what I looked like. I began to look at other people with suspicion and self-consciousness. In short, I became less likely to want to run or ride or dance or be active anyplace people might see. Which is obviously what my parents were trying to avoid. And this has never left me. Nor has the feeling of powerlessness over my body, this sense that it will do what it wants and I am disconnected — body separate from soul. This is a disconnect that feels like I am a poorly dubbed movie with a body that will not co-operate with my thoughts.

I think about this so much lately because I am now a mother to a sturdy, stocky daughter and I feel like high-kicking the world under its collective chin when I think of anyone — ANYONE — visiting any of this on her. I know she is beautiful like I knew I was beautiful. Because looking back, I can see that my parents were wrong. They were wrong to tell me and they were wrong in their assumptions in the first place because I wasn’t fat. I was lovely. And strong and sturdy and exactly how I was meant to be. I know this because my mom fed me well and I rode my bike and ran around the neighborhood and so the body I carried was the perfect body for me. But I can’t get back to that place and so I’m deathly afraid that someone with the best intentions will steal Madison’s sense of self.

So I will tell you now: My daughter is perfect. And so is my son. They are exactly who they are meant to be. They own the ground they walk over. They own the air they move through. They are grace even when they stumble. They are strong and free and masters of their beings. Their bodies will change — filling and stretching — and the change will be perfect even during those awkward times when their knees don’t seem to work right and their elbows knock into things. I feed them well, they run around — they are nourished and active and so I won’t let anyone else’s worries come to visit them.

When we talk about health, we don’t talk about weight. When we say “diet” we mean “food you put in your body.” We mean vitamins and minerals and diversity in your menu. We get off the elliptical trainer or back home from a walk or a run and say, “Wow, that really helped my stress levels! That made me feel strong! I’m going to sleep well tonight!” Because that’s the equation that will build the bodies they are meant to have and those bodies may be slim or round. They may be heavier or lighter or taller or shorter but they will be perfect and my children will never ever ever (god willing) have to lose ownership the way I did when I was ten.

Editor’s Pick by Amy Turn Sharp of Doobleh-Vey:  Dawn Friedman is a writer that has a fabulous personal blog that deals with writing, adoption, and women’s issues. Her writing about body image is tough and real and I cave right in and fall into her words and understand. I read her daily and I know you will come to love her wit and intelligence. Some of her published work can be found at Brain, Child Magazine, UTNE, Yoga Journal, and One Big Happy Family. Visit her today and subscribe here.