No Idea What to Call This One

Three things popped up on my Internet feeds yesterday that made me think.  First, after the kids took off for school and Marcus played with blocks, I rocked Becca to sleep and watched "Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Image of Women [Trailer]" which talks about the flawlessness of the women in advertising photos.  Then, later that afternoon, I read a friend's blog post about Mormon mommies going to "visit relatives" for a few weeks and coming home with tummy tucks, facelifts, and whatnot, and the worst part, really, is that the person who was sharing this information was supposedly sharing LDS women's "secrets to keeping our lives together and perfect."  And then I read a news article about one of my friend's art exhibits, titled "Princess Religion."  The exhibit is about how the Disney princesses and other princesses shape our young girls' expectations about what they should look like and what they should do with their lives.

And all of this got me thinking throughout the day, which made me fully prepared to respond when we sat in the doctor's office and Alyssa looked at a picture advertising some skin stuff and said, "I just was to be perfect.  I want my skin to be flawless like hers."  Honestly, she truly said the word, "flawless."

I told her that even the lady in the picture wasn't flawless.  The picture had been sent through the computer to make the lady look the way she does in the picture.  I hope she listened to me.

Now here's my thoughts on it all.  I'll take them one at a time.

Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne

I love that this woman is speaking out against this issue of portraying women as being prefect and skinny, and using women's bodies as objects to sell products.  Photoshop wasn't as common when I was young, and I had no idea that the pictures on magazines weren't just taken and simply put on the cover as is.  I would look at the pictures on grocery store magazines and think that I was abnormal, because I had faint stretch marks on my outer thighs from growth spurts.  I wondered why I still had cellulite, even though I exercised.  And, yes, Jean Kilbourne comments that the ladies in pictures have no pores - I thought my pores were huge and wondered what these models used to get their skin to be so perfect.

I remember the first time I saw a before/after picture of a model.  The lady in the finished picture looked nothing like the lady coming in to get her picture taken.  The computer specialists shaved off fat, smoothed wrinkles, deleted bags under her eyes, even changed the color and brightness of her skin and hair.  I discovered this picture a little after Alyssa was born (when my body was baggy and stretch-marked) and I remember how shocked and relieved and empowered I was to have that information.

I have since come across a couple of websites that show real pictures of naked women.  I know it sounds bad - "I've looked at websites that show pictures of naked women" - but the purpose of these websites is to show teenage girls what real women look like.  I applaud the people who run these websites.  I think they need to be used with extreme caution(?)  I don't know what word I'm looking for, exactly.  They need to be used with sober judgement, but I do think that these websites have their place, and I'm sure they've fulfilled their purpose of helping teens and women feel better about their bodies.

Makeover? from NaDell's Blog

Okay, if you don't have the time to skip over to NaDell's blog to read her post, I'll sum it up for you.  She was talking to someone who is not LDS, who used to have LDS friends that let her in on a little secret of how Mormon moms always looks like they "have it together."  The secret that was shared is that these moms use plastic surgery to shape their bodies after having babies.

I guess my gripe with the whole thing is not the plastic surgery bit, because, really, it's their body, they can do what they want with it, and it's not my place to judge.  And I know that my information is coming from a third party, so who knows how much this lady fudged on details while talking with NaDell or how much of NaDell's opinions that I'm mixing in with the actual story while I'm remembering it.  My gripe is that if people actually do this, and go around toting it like it's the Mormon Mommy Secret to Happiness, it makes me mad.

Anyway, here's what I commented on NaDell's post, a little bit edited.

"Wow. Really - wow. I didn't even know we are like this. It makes me very sad that someone took a missionary opportunity to share something so shallow. What about "Mormon moms are happy because they have Family Home Evening" or something like that? That is very sad.

I'm kinda on the fence about plastic surgery. I do agree with Kori that sometimes it can be beneficial, and in some cases even necessary, but obviously that's something that is hard to judge (and not our place to judge). On the other side: my skin does not stretch AT ALL and I have tons of stretch marks and loose skin from being pregnant. I would love the magic that a tummy tuck would do to that. But does that mean I'll ever get a tummy tuck? No. My body is the way it is, because I've had children. My body is the way it is, because of the lifestyle I chose, meaning I CHOSE to be a mom, and the body I've got is just part of the package deal. I want to teach my daughters to love their bodies despite imperfection, and how could I do that if I don't accept the body that I have?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to improve your body by eating healthy and exercising, but that should be with focusing on living a healthy lifestyle and having a healthy body, not with how good you look. And definitely not changing your body in a competition to be better than others.

Nice post, NaDell! You really got me thinking."

Right now I'm counting calories and trying to eat healthier and exercising to lose the pregnancy fat that's accumulated over the years.  I'm trying to do it in a healthy way, because I want Alyssa to see me making wise choices about what I eat to lose weight and be healthy.  I wouldn't want my daughters to see me starving myself to be skinny, and I definitely wouldn't want to teach my daughters that if you're unhappy with the way you look, then a trip to the surgery room will make everything better.

I also realize that my body is never going to look the way it did before having children.  I have wider hips, a thicker waist in general, loose skin, and I even have that bump of loose skin hanging over my c-section scar that will no never away, no matter how skinny I ever get.  And I'm okay with that.

One of my favorite things about going to the Great wolf Lodge water park last month was that while we were there, the place was mostly filled with families with young children, and all the moms and dads running around cared more about having fun with their kids than looking good in their bathing suits.  There was cellulite galore in that place, and nobody cared.  We all had the attitude of, "This is my body.  I have to put it in a swimsuit to have fun here.  I may not look good in a swimsuit, but I'm doing it anyway, because I'm going to have a blast!"

Princess Religion by Emily Fox

I really think Emily is onto something here.  From what I've read the art exhibit is focusing on the ideal that princesses create of what it takes to live a successful life, i.e. be beautiful, get the guy, live in a "castle", etc.  And I think it also ties in to one of the points that Jean Kilbourne is trying to make about physical appearances being the key to our happiness.

Have you ever noticed that when Ariel sits down, her stomach doesn't scrunch up and get thicker?  I used to think that that was normal.  I know, me taking a drawn cartoon character and setting her as the epitome of "normal."  I don't think the logic center of my brain had kicked in yet.  And because I had set that standard as being normal, I thought I was fat.  And then a little later I was at a slumber party saying, (and you have to say this in your head with a nerdy voice, 'cause it makes it more fun) "When I sit down, my stomach fat scrunches up.  I'm so huge!" and my good friend Bridget responded with something like, "Oh my gosh, Carrie, everyone's does!" (And for those of you who know Bridget, do that in her exasperated, how could you be so silly voice, and it will make it that much better.)  So that's when I realized that Ariel was not the body type I should be striving for.

But I don't think Emily is just talking about physical appearances.  I think she's also trying to make a point about the ideal that the only way to live a happy life is by finding your prince and living happily ever after.  Well, whether that's what she means or not, that's something I took away from her pictures.  I know several women who have said, in essence, "I wouldn't change who I married, I wouldn't trade my children for anything, but if I could go back in time and just push that wedding date back a couple of years, I would," and I feel the same way.  I wouldn't trade Brian or the kids for anything, but I wish I would have taken better advantage of the opportunities available to me before I got married.  I wish I would have gone overseas to teach children English.  I wish I would have gone on a mission.  I wish I would have concentrated harder on graduating from college.  I wish I would have done a lot of things, but the mission is a big one.

Sometimes I envy my friend Katie.  She found Prince Charming and told him, "I've always wanted to serve a mission, so you'll have to wait for me."  She probably said it a lot nicer than that, though.  And that's what happened: she went to Spain, he waited, and after she got home, they got married.  And the really cool part is that she continued to go to school, got her Masters, and studied Chinese so that she could teach it to her children.  

So even though I'm happy with my life, and I know that just because I'm married with kids it doesn't mean I can't stop learning and growing and experiencing, sometimes I wish I could just go back and change things, just a little.  I want to go back and make myself more content with my physical appearance - to be less concerned with what is or isn't normal, and to be happy with my body.  I want to go back and really take advantage of being young - trying new things, and learning new things.

But since I can't go back, I want to make sure that I spend the rest of my life not comparing myself to others, being happy with who I am, and pushing myself to try and learn new things. And most importantly, I want my children to know that what they look like on the outside doesn't equal their worth on the inside and that they can be happy with who they are, even if they don't match up to the ideal.