It’s time for a shift. It’s time for women to shift their thoughts away from the idea of the “pre-baby” body. It’s time for women to stop comparing and beating themselves up over how they look. It’s time for women to change the way they talk to themselves and to other women. It’s time for a perspective change.
I think to some extent many women wrestle with what having children will do to their bodies at some point and time in their lives. I also think it’s completely normal to have these feelings. Working in the fitness industry, this has been amplified for me. The uncertainty and questions constantly roll around in my head. What if I don’t bounce back? What if I don’t look the way I did before? What if I never get back to my “pre-baby” body? What if it just doesn’t happen for me? Would clients start to question my knowledge and expertise? Would they want to find a new trainer? Would they seek out other sources of information? Would they start to look at me differently? All of these questions and more have crossed my mind at least once.
Because I’m a curious person and I like to be fully transparent I googled “pre-baby body”. That was it, just those 3 words. I wanted to see what information was out there and what women were seeing when they googled the same thing. To my surprise the first 2 articles that popped up were about why you shouldn’t strive for your pre-baby body back. This made me happy. But then I continued to scroll…and the headlines quickly changed. They promised multiple ways to get your pre-baby body back. The related searches section at the bottom produced things like how to get your body back after pregnancy and getting back in shape after pregnancy. Keep in mind the search term I used here was neutral…it didn’t skew posts one way or the other. So this is the information that is out there. This is what women find when they are in sleep-deprived, hormonal and emotionally charged times in their lives where so many things are changing. They are reading things like the 10 ways to get your pre-baby body back. It’s being put in front them that this is what needs to happen, this is what they should striving for and this is the normal. Are you starting to see the problem here?
Just to share a little something about me, I’m the kind of person that before I encounter a challenge I like to have as much information as possible. So although I don’t have any children yet, I’ve done all kinds of research. I’ve learned what I can because I want to be prepared when that day does come. I will share that what I have learned has challenged me. It has challenged me to change my perspective, to change the way I look at things and to change the way I talk to people, especially moms (no matter where they are in their motherhood journey). What I also found was that this perspective and this outlook is not the norm. As I illustrated above with my google search the expectation is often for new moms to get back to their pre-baby body and do it as quickly as possible. This is what society pushes on women and on new moms and personally I think it needs to change.
I want you to stop and think about the comments you make to new moms (whether you’re a mom or not). We often say things to these special women in our lives like “there’s no way you just had a baby” or “you look great” or “no stretch marks, how’d you do it”. You get the idea. Do you notice how all of these comments are based in appearance? Trust me when I say I’m 100% guilty of this and we don’t even think about it as being negative because it’s coming from a place of good. We don’t say these things to hurt our friends or family, we say these things to help build up their confidence and make them feel like rockstars (because news flash..they are). But they still all revolve around appearance, and that’s what I believe needs to change.
So why is this? Why as women do we make comments that often boil down to appearance, looks or our bodies? We have been trained by society to do this. I’m guessing that a lot of you have never even realized that you do it. Hopefully, you will now. But that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy thing to change and we can’t change it over night. But, there are things that we can do about it.
Try this. The next time you’re talking to a new mom instead of making a comment like the ones above, try just asking “how are you really doing?” If they are a good friend of yours, they are likely going to be honest and tell you what they’re struggling with, or what they really love about being a mom or both. See something they are struggling that you can help make easier…good do that instead of making comments that revolve around appearance.
This is going to take time to get used to. You might even reflect back on conversations you’ve had with friends or family when your trying to avoid making these comments and realize you did it anyways. It’s okay…this way of thinking has been so ingrained in us because it’s what prominent in the media, it’s what we see all the time. So it’s going to take time to change, but if you can start to challenge some of your beliefs or behaviours around this topic we can start to change this perspective and conversation. This change is what we really want to strive for.
Have a mom or friend in your life who might benefit from reading this. Share it with them today and I will see you next week!
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