In the News: Mom Selfies

There has been a couple of stories in the news lately about mom's posting pictures of their fabulous post-baby bodies. It's created quite the stir. Some feel like pictures like these cause harm because they give people unrealistic expectations about women's bodies.

Honestly, I don't have particularly strong opinions about this. Perhaps it's because when I see pictures like in the link, I think "Wow, that's kind of freakish she looks like that a few days after giving birth. This is probably hoax. Or she has an eating disorder." There is no "I feel bad about my body" or "I should work harder so I can look like that".

I have known enough women to know what 90% of women look like after they have had a baby. There are a few women that you see a week after and they look like they never were pregnant. But most of us still look pregnant for a couple of days,  (if you have a c-section you still look pregnant for even longer) and we have a tummy or pooch for months or even forever. It's not a question of how hard you work or how good you eat--it's genetics and anatomy. The uterus has to shrink, ab muscles have to return to their correct places, and  most women just aren't lucky enough to have the magic kind of skin that doesn't get stretch marks and goes back to normal after pregnancy.

How do I feel about moms posting pictures like? I like to ignore the vanity and attention-getting motives that are certainly and annoyingly there and think that they are really trying to motivate other moms to take better care of their bodies and I guess I have no issue with that.

So my final opinion about these kind of pictures: Annoying? Yes. Inspiring? Might be for a few women. Harmful? It shouldn't be because we should instantly recognize it as being so far from reality, it's not worth any comparison.

To balance out the other picture, here's a picture of me a few days after my daughter was born, still wearing my maternity clothes. (I'm wearing the maternity clothes, not my daughter.) (Of course I'm not wearing my daughter, who wears children? Curse you dangling modifiers!)