First of all I want to make it exceptionally clear that this post is not a dig at mothers at all. I applaud you all, you have the hardest job in the world and I have seen first-hand with my friends the strains and stress and pressure that mothers have.
But I have been thinking about this for a while and it seems to pop up more and more on Instagram as my friends and the people I follow get older and become parents.
There are so many posts I see that tell mothers to love their bodies because they have created a child and every stretch mark and scar tells a journey. They should wonder at what the female body can be put through and even though it doesn’t look like the airbrushed images we see in magazines, that’s ok because at the end of the day you grew a baby in there.
And yes, that’s wonderful advice and so true. But there are women such as myself that has a tummy with stretch marks, and scars and I have to accept this wonderful body even though I have not created a child with it. There are women who cannot have children, or do not want children but this does not make their body less wondrous.
I feel like these posts are a get out of jail free card. To me when I read them it screams: “my body looks like this because it’s grown a child… what’s your excuse?” It’s dragging us back to the times where women were seen as home bodies only good for making babies and that’s just so not true.
Women with children are mums, but they are so much more than that too, and if they hadn’t had children they would still be entitled to have a body that looks however it looks.
My body has grown and shrunk with me on my journey through life. During this life, it has not grown a baby but it has given me strength to do exercise, stay awake through endless amounts of work, supported me when I accidentally undercooked sausages (granted it got me back with 9 hours sickness). It works miracles every day and allows me to be me.
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