When You Hate On Your Body, Does It Hurt Your Mother’s Heart?

Tonight I was nursing Aubrey before putting her to bed, and like I do every time while she is eating, I silently observed every perfect little feature on her tiny body. As I look at the curves of her ears, her adorable little button nose, and the long lashes that line her eyes, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that every part that makes her, her, was knit to perfection in my belly. Pregnancy is a miracle, that’s needless to say. But tonight, I focused in on her super long eyelashes.

They are so long that they end up bent every which way from her sleeping on them. And with her eyes closed , they make her look simply angelic. Admiring her natural beauty, the random thought of her curling those amazing eyelashes popped in my head. I envisioned her as a teenager, struggling to find the self security that for some reason eludes us during that fragile time in our lives, standing in front of a mirror, all but torturing those eyelashes I can’t get enough of, trying to curl them to her idea of perfection, before coating them with unnecessary layers of dark goop. In her eyes, enhancing the drab features she is forced to work with…but in mine, covering up something that I will only ever see as beautiful, just the way it is.

It hurt my heart to think about. To think that one day my little girl will look in a mirror, and instead of admiring all the beauty wrapped up in her unique self, she will pick apart all those features I love so much.

Then I wondered if my mother ever felt the same. When I complained about my boring brown eyes, did it sting knowing that when she looked into them, she saw her own? When I fussed over my stick straight hair that would never do what I wanted, did she remember waiting all that time for hair to actually grow on my head (I was pretty much bald until I was two) so she could finally secure it with a tiny bow? When I hated on my body, did it hurt her heart as she thought about carrying me for all those months, and being speechless the day I arrived as love filled her, and she laid eyes on a person she already knew she loved, and who looked like perfection sent from God above?

I hope I am able to teach Aubrey to love herself. From every hair on her head, to the wrinkles on her toes. I hope she hears her Dad when he tells me repeatedly that I don’t need makeup, because he truly believes I’m prettiest without it. I hope she focuses on health, on kindness, on compassion, on caring and love, so much so that she never finds one second to hate on the body that I love so much. I hope when she looks in the mirror, she see the reflection of perfection that I do, every time I look at her.