I’m Okay as a “Flab Mom.” Stop Shaming Me for Not Being Fit
As a single mom, I have valid excuses for not having a perfect, sexy, celebrity body.
My day starts at six a.m. I drink coffee, shower, then wake up my two boys. I feed them breakfast, get them dressed, prepare their snacks and lunches, then drop them off at school.
Their school is a half-hour away. At a minimum, it’s an hour round trip back and forth. By the time I get home, it’s time to work. More coffee.
I’m at it until three p.m. when I have to pick up my sons again. I bring them back home, feed them snacks, help them with homework, then continue to work. Dinner still has to be made. Baths and bedtime. When ten p.m. rolls around, I’m bushed and also ready for bed.
This is my reality. I’m a single mother who gets nominal financial support from my ex and little help with child care. I’m on my own and am doing the best I can.
I get a couple of hours off a week that I spend with my boyfriend. I don’t have time left over for working out.
I could probably find the time, but my priority is to get back on my feet financially after my divorce. That means the majority of my time is spent sitting at my desk, working.
But unfortunately, this isn’t enough in today’s world.
As a mother, society expects so much more of me. It doesn’t matter that I’m a single mom. That may even make it worse. I’m not married, so I must stay fit, be beautiful, and remain attractive to men. I must still be sexy.
I have to be a MILF and a “yummy mummy.” It’s not enough to be a loving mom and the breadwinner.
We see it everywhere in the media, as Janice Min wrote in her New York Times op-ed, “Can a Mom Get a Break?”
“On TV, June Cleaver and Roseanne have been replaced by Sofia Vergara’s Gloria on Modern Family, Courteney Cox on Cougar Town and cocktail-swilling, Botox-frozen Real Housewives.”
Mothers are no longer allowed to just grow old. We’re pressured to stay fit and be sexy.
I can’t. I won’t. And I don’t want to be shamed for it.
Yes, I have an excuse for not working out.
This doesn’t stop fitness coaches like “Fit Mom” Maria Kang from shaming mothers who don’t stay in shape. Kang became a viral hit in 2013 for taunting “lazy moms” like me for not working out.
In a photo she posted on Facebook, Kang flaunted her perfectly toned body while surrounded by her three small sons. Her tagline asked: “What’s your excuse?”
Kang reared her abs of steel again recently after Jennifer Lopez posted a selfie of herself in a white bikini on Instagram.
Kang immediately followed suit (literally), posting her own bathroom selfie in a white bikini with the caption:
Create your own accountability. Don’t make excuses for your inaction. If she can do it, if I can do it, if thousands of working moms who come in all sizes, shapes and ages can do it — then YOU CAN DO IT!!!”
Kang tagged the photo #jlochallenge, leading other moms to do the same.
Kang justified her post, claiming she was promoting body positivity. While I appreciate that other mothers have posted photos of their not-so-perfect bodies in white bikinis, I take offense at the hashtag that goes along with these posts: #noexcusemom #whatsyourexcuse.
I have valid excuses for not being fit and I don’t want to compare myself to Jennifer Lopez or Maria Kang.
Sure, Lopez is fifty and the mom of two, but she has millions, personal trainers and personal chefs.
Even Chrissy Teigen warns moms not to compare themselves to celebrities.
The model told TODAY :
“…we [celebs] have nutritionists, we have dietitians, we have trainers, we have our own schedules, we have nannies. We have people who make it possible for us to get back into shape. But nobody should feel like that’s normal, or like that’s realistic.”
It isn’t. And as Janice Min wrote in her New York Times op-ed:
“If our livelihood depended on wearing a swimsuit in front of millions, we’d probably put down the doughnut too.”
Sorry, but I’d like to eat the doughnut and I don’t want to be shamed for it.
I think Kang’s point is lost. A better use of this challenge would be to celebrate moms’ bodies as they are instead of asking us to stop making excuses for not being fit.
Instead of self-loathing, self-acceptance is a better choice.
In Min’s opinion, the idea that moms must also be in shape just leads us to self-loathing.
“We play into the conflicts of Madonnas versus Whores, Working Moms versus Stay-at-Homes, Bettys versus Veronicas. And now we have Fab Moms versus Flab Moms.”
Flab Moms — yup, that’s me. Sure, I can accept that description but I’d prefer not to have to hate myself because of it.
As such, I welcome campaigns that aim to honor mothers as we really are.
UK retailer Mothercare did just that. Last March, the baby and child products store plastered London tube stations with an ad series that showed women of all shapes, sizes, and colors proudly showing off their postpartum bodies in all their stretch-marked and cellulite-ridden glory.
The purpose was to do away with the notion that mothers must have perfect bodies.
Along the same lines is the work of photographer Jade Beall, who photographed more than seventy mothers for her book, The Bodies of Mothers.
Beall’s aim was to recognize mothers’ bodies without make-up, touch-ups or airbrushing.
Of her work, Beall says:
“I want people not to have to react as ‘You’re gross,’ but instead ‘Oh, that’s a woman who is incredibly human, or that’s a woman who has scars and lines with stories to tell.’ My goal is to help these mothers feel worthy of being called beautiful.”
I believe that Beall is doing a better job of celebrating the diversity of our forms than Kang is.
#nofilter #nomakeup #nohairbursh #justme
If I’m asked to identify with any particular celebrity mom that would be Serena Williams.
Just a day before Lopez posted her bikini photo, Williams posted her own photo to Instagram.
Williams captioned the photo:
“Working and being a mom is not easy. I am often exhausted, stressed, and then I go play a professional tennis match…we keep going. I am so proud and inspired by the women who do it day in and day out. I’m proud to be this baby’s mama.”
She also used the hashtags: #nofilter #nomakeup #nohairbursh #justme.
That’s a breath of fresh air from #noexcusemom #whatsyourexcuse.
Becoming a mother is an opportunity to love our imperfect bodies.
As moms in this era, we might indeed feel pressured to live up to unrealistic expectations, but we shouldn’t. We don’t have to be fit and sexy. We just need to be good moms.
Even still, becoming a mom is an opportunity to develop more self-love for our bodies.
Blogger Caitlin Houston discussed doing just that in a post on her blog entitled The Postpartum Body Shaming No One Is Talking About:
“I used to despise my body before I had children, but I know I should appreciate every inch with the utmost respect. My body carried two beautiful little babies safely for nine months and helped me bring them into this world. For the sake of my daughters, I want them to know I’m comfortable in the skin I’m in. So what if my stomach isn’t perfect, my boobs have disappeared and my butt is flat. Isn’t that what motherhood is all about? Learning to love the imperfections?”
Our children need moms who feel good about themselves. I’m a “Flab Mom” who’s working on that. I want to feel good about my imperfect body. I’m not all the way there, but I certainly don’t want to feel bad because I’m not fit.
I want to feel okay with being me. I owe my kids that.