Learning from our children

Hi! I am Kayti and I also will be writing and look forward to getting to know more of you! This is my first blog post for FGiF, but certainly won’t be my last! So here we go…

My daughter has spent her entire life with a fat mother, as I did with my Mother before me. My mother was not as fat as I am now by a lot, but she was fat my entire childhood.

I spent my youth watching my mother try to manage her fatness, struggling through different diets that didn’t move a lot of weight in one way or another. I always knew that she thought her body was wrong, and so as my body filled in I believed it to be wrong too. I didn’t have the language to convey that I was absorbing the self-consciousness, and Mom didn’t have the tools to appreciate her own body for exactly what it was.

Now I am a mother, and my tiny is 7 years old. I already experience body dysmorphia about her, and that pisses me off. Some days I see her as heavier than she is, some days I can see her as she is. The thing is, she is PERFECT exactly as she is and always will be no matter what her body ends up shaped like. She knows that in a way that I never could. My mother and I have worked through a lot of the bullshit that our heads and hearts were filled with about our own bodies and we are working to break the hate cycle. My child is perfect and the best part…she thinks I am too. She respects her friends of all body types, she is smarter and more worldly than I was at her age.

So I recently had to work through some feelings that I was having about a Kidlet-ism. When my kid gets hurt, even to a miniscule degree, if you ask “are you ok?” she says NO. SHE SAYS NO. See, I never really even considered that an option and have caught myself asking her why she does it…sadly probably with a side of judgement. Why do you always say no, I always say I am fine. This child looked at me and said “Mama, if I am hurting, it is not fine.” MINDBLOWN.

I could literally be set aflame and I would say I was fine. Fat women are not allowed to add to the burden that they already are. Half the time I am also just mortified that someone saw me make an error, because fat girls don’t get to take up space physically or emotionally. Now, I know that to be incorrect, but my conditioning is deeply anchored to my soul and it just is compulsory at this point.

Not so for my kid, she refuses to say she is ok if something is wrong. She knows that she is worth more than that and she holds her own space. It took me several weeks to get over myself about it and realize that I am really, really proud of her for it. Goodness knows that is not what I have modeled for her, but she has spent her life hearing me bolster other people including fat people. She lives in complete trust of her worth and that she is loved. This may be one of my proudest achievements in my life. My mother and I are working together to break the cycle for my baby and it…worked? She loves herself, she loves other people, she supports and cheers for people. She is nearly 8 years old and so far more advanced than I sometimes even feel in my early forties.

So, for today, I am going to try to live with the freedom of self-thought that I have taught her. She is empowering me through her unwitting lessons, and I have empowered her in her life.

Now I want to empower you. What messages to ourselves can we work on today? I would love to hear something really positive about you today, even if it takes some stretching to get through the brain murk to name it. You are worth it, and so am I. If we can do this together, we will make steps forward while loving the bodies that we have.

I am Kayti, I am fat, I am loved, I am funny, I am smart, I am worthy. Let’s hear about you. Leave me a mantra for the day in the comments, I may use them to help motivate more humans! No weight loss talk, we are not looking at that kind of goal. We want radical self-love about you right now, with no modifications. <3 You can do it, and I am excited to hear it!