Mama Love Junkie and Mothertougher: Help! I’m Dreading Being In A Bathing Suit With My Kids

Dear Mama Love Junkie and Mothertougher,

Now that Summer is here and I’m with the kids every day I have to admit it. I hate my body. I really hate it. I know I am supposed to love myself and feminism and everything, but I don’t want to go to the beach with my kids, what do I do?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Under the Umbrella

Dear Under,

Oh I know! I totally hear you.  I have always been a little rounder than my friends. OK, a lot rounder, especially since I squeezed those two little people out of me. In fact, just last summer, when i was on the beach and my tummy was rolling like dough over the bottom of my (still pregnancy) bathingsuit, my friend said to me, “I love how you just love yourself and go with it. It’s such a defining part of who you are.” I wanted to smack her clear across the face. But I didn’t. Because she was just trying to notice without being mean about noticing, which is what friends should do.

So I am going to be your friend here. Are you too round, squishy, cellulite-y, pudgy, to be in a bathing suit? No. Of course not. I could sit here and spew all the reasons why a post baby body is gorgeous and the extra flappiness and stretch marks are just your wings and tiger stripes and everything, but you aren’t going to listen. If you think you are, you are. There you go. I noticed.

I’m going to acknowledge it. Because yes, your girlfriends at the beach – and all of the other people who are seeing a lot of different kinds of bodies in less clothing than they usually do, and are surprised and mesmerized and a little turned on by all of it – they will notice you. They will. Some will like what they see, some won’t and you really will never know which is which.

But you will know what you think: You don’t like the way you look in a bathing suit.

OK, we noticed. You noticed. Now try to move on. Your kids are on the beach and they are fun and the couldn’t really care less what you look like in that bikini. I promise. If you don’t embarrass them by picking a huge wedgie or screaming their name as loud as can be when they hit a homerun in beach softball, they do not care. If you give them hot ginger snaps and cold watermelon and smile at them a lot and only take your phone out to take pictures of them, (and then quickly post them to facebook) they do not care. If you wear a t-shirt and pants every day on the beach with them, they do not care. But you might be hot.

Just go. Just love yourself (even if you don’t love your body) and go with it.

Yours in love,

Mama Love Junkie

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