Not pulling a shirt down to hide my belly for Me-Made May!
About six months after I had my daughter in 2010, I was shopping with a friend for some new clothes to fit my post-baby shape. I was feeling pretty awesome about having my waist back and rocking some more hourglass-style looks... until a salesman congratulated me on my pregnancy.
"I'm not pregnant," I told him. "I had my baby six months ago!" I was hurt and offended and he was apologetic—but why? Why was having a belly instantly lovely and wonderful the second I was publicly, officially, happily pregnant... but totally unacceptable the second I was not? (Also why do "old weird secrets for a flat belly trick" ads chase us around the internet?)
One of the reasons I love Me Made May is that it's an excuse to feel fancy and to think a little more about what I put on. And to dress every day the way I WISHED I actually dressed every day of the year. And to practice a little self-appreciation and feel good about my style and my body.
But as I go through and edit the photos I've snapped to find my favorites, I find myself wondering: why are women supposed to hate our bellies? Why do I find myself choosing what is "most flattering" by whether or not my belly might look as squishy as it actually is?
When I was pregnant, I remember feeling this huge sense of relief — a break from any body image anxieties that might have plagued me for the past 30 years. No sucking it in, no control garments under clingier dresses, no avoiding lots of front gathers or staying away from knit pencil skirts.
I've worked very hard to love my shape and not talk myself down (especially in front of my little girl—who is thankfully incredibly self-confident and pleased with her beautiful young self!) but why SHOULD that have to be such hard work? Why should I have to go look at photos of Christina Hendricks in her Joan outfits from Mad Men to calm down my nasty inner critic?
Your thoughts appreciated.
So my sub-resolution for Me-Made-May is to smile for my selfies, stop picking apart my appearance and stop taking SO many photos for each day, even if I don't LOVE how I look in each picture. And here we go:
Me Made May 1: Candy-Striped Tiramisu
Dress: Cake Patterns Tiramisu, me-made - blogged last summer
Necklace: red coral from a booth at Renegade Craft fair ages ago
Shoes: Tsubo Aftenia fashion sneakers (ignore the bad reviews, they are AWESOME)
Me Made May 2: The "Sewing Through the UFO Pile" Dress
Dress: Cake Patterns Red Velvet Knit Dress, me-made - blogged last summer
Necklace: 1928 Jewelry vintage inspired pen necklace
Bag: Vintage
Shoes: Camper Kim black Mary Janes (similar)
Me Made May 3: Stripes and Denim (with Photobomber)
Top: old ready-to-wear from fast fashion place I now avoid. Want to draft a copy though!
Skirt: Cake Patterns Hummingbird, me-made - blogged here
Necklace: made by a friend
Shoes (see top of blog post): Ahnu Karma flats (that won my comfy flat shoe showdown last year and are the BEST and comfiest shoes EVER)
Happy Me-Made May, everyone. LOVING looking through the Flickr group to see what you all are coming up with—so inspiring!
P.S. Edited later—I almost forgot to include this political cartoon I drew ages ago about this very topic when I read about plastic surgeons offering post-delivery "Mommy job" packages... "Your Yucky Body: Mommy Makeover Edition":
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I think you look gorgeous and your photo bomber is an awesome little girl! I totally get the belly thing too, if I could change anything it would be that. I also loved being pregnant as I could be proud of my belly. I think we've been conditioned to think a washboard stomach is the norm when it really isn't, it doesn't stop the self flagellation though or the expectations of others.
ReplyDeleteI love your outfits and the smile!
Yeah, what I'm working towards is NOT wanting to change the belly and NEVER find myself thinking "oh, if only this" or "if only that" about myself—just dressing in fitted clothes I love and feeling good. One thing that seems to help is avoiding women's magazines and fashion blogs and instead looking to real women for style inspiration (and style and sewing bloggers of all sizes).
DeleteWhoa! you have really long legs! So nice! I think we all have our issues we our bodies. Nobody is perfect...not even those models on the catwalk. So I really like your plan for MMM.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems like everyone has at least ONE thing about their bodies they hate, and it's infuriating ... because I really feel so much of it goes back to the fact there is a profit to be made off of women feeling bad about themselves so that companies can offer fixes and make money. There's no profit to be made on women feeling like they are already awesome and don't need X Y or Z product to be beautiful!
DeleteI consciously refrain from body-bashing myself and have re-trained my eye to a certain extent. I look at myself (and others) with a loving eye and a thankful attitude. I worked on this before I had a daughter, but now I think it's more important than ever to show her being a woman isn't about having slim thighs. This sounds holier-than-thou, but I used to be the very opposite, extremely self-critical and borderline eating disordered. It's the saddest thing that in our day and culture, we can't just enjoy our food, our clothes, our bodies but feel we have to strive for an unattainable ideal. You look happy and pretty, as should everyone!
ReplyDeleteUta that is an excellent way to put it -- re-training the eye so instead of focusing on some nonexistent "flaw" we can be loving and appreciative of ourselves and others. I love looking through the Me-Made May Flickr group and seeing so many gorgeous women with real messy lives and so many different bodies showing off their me-mades with proud smiles... so much more inspiring than a PhotoShopped magazine full of celebrities.
DeleteI've always thought you were beautiful! You have a figure women envy!
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of the 'women must be super skinny with big boobs' mentality. It's unhealthy and unattainable. I'd rather embrace a more Rubenesque figure and love me for myself. I've had a baby and I'm proud of my curves and my belly! This body brought life into the world and I deserve to be proud! I would much rather have Nigella Lawson's figure and enjoy food than be a starving skinny lady!
Thank you Sarah... but I wish women didn't envy each other's figures but instead could learn to appreciate our own. :) And you very much deserve to be proud of your body!
DeleteOne note though—I have done this in the past too but I think we should be careful to use terms like "skinny starving lady"—while I hate that we are bombarded with messages about dieting and being thin, I don't want slim women to feel bad about themselves either. There's nothing wrong or ugly with being skinny, except that it is promoted as a norm and most people are not that norm.
I think you are totally gorgeous and totally right. We do all beat ourselves up over our "perceived" flaws, and it's silly. The things that make us different from each other - like our bellies and our thighs - are the things that make us interesting. Just imagine how boring the world would be if we all looked like Barbie!!
ReplyDeleteAMEN to that!!!
Deletei think your stripes and denim combo is - possibly - the most sexy and "flattering" thing i have ever seen on you - and i love that you are proactively trying to feel confident in ALL of your clothes, not just the ones that "hide" or "conceal" or require less maintenance - because they can all be awesome outfits so long as you feel good and happy in them. wear what you like, and no one else's opinion need matter.
ReplyDeleteYou are too sweet! Thank you!
DeleteLearning to make clothes that fit me has got to be one the single best things I have done for my own body image. I am 6'0" tall and all about the curves - an outdated set of measurements (I haven't done them recently) is B:W:H 36:30:42. I have a massive swayback, an ever bigger bottom, and, it turns out, a proportionately long lower abdominal region. Is it any wonder that RTW makes me feel hideous?
ReplyDeleteAge 26 and on assorted medications which are classic for making people put on weight, I too am developing a bit of a belly and I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled. But it's really not the end of the world. If I have to chose between a flat belly and being mentally functional... well there's really no choice, is there?!
I completely agree—there's nothing like struggling in a dressing room with ill-fitting RTW to make you feel crummy about yourself, and nothing like making your own custom-fit size-YOU clothing to make you feel awesome.
DeleteAnd oh, yes—I forgot to mention the medications. I've had to be on repeated bouts of oral steroids over the last year and a half for my severe chronic sinusitis, and those things have nasty side effects, weight-wise--but when the alternative is lying in bed for weeks with a fever of 103 being unable to breathe out my nose, I'll take the squishier belly, thanks! :)
Loving all of these outfits, but especially the too-cute photobomber!
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point, at just the right time for me to hear it... I'm working on losing a little weight, and I keep putting off certain sewing projects until my body is "good enough" for them. It's the kind of attitude that I would never want to hear from my friends about their own beautiful bodies, but when the criticism (even well-meant) comes from my own brain it is somehow OK? This is something for me to think about.
I think we always need to love ourselves right NOW. Still, it is hard to want to make something super fitted and put all that effort in when our size is in flux... so I aim to try to make things that do fit NOW, but are stretchy enough to fit a bit in either direction!
DeleteTHANK YOU for posting this! I haven't been sewing much (or posting) for a while and realized that one of the reasons was all of the faff of having a baby and gaining weight and changing shape (and then weaning said baby 18 months later and gaining weight and changing shape AGAIN, and oh god we're thinking about having another one). So many changes, and lots of things to be self conscious about. I don't hate my body, but there's still a lot going on there.
ReplyDeleteI know I can make clothes that fit me better than RTW, but when my shape is such a moving target it can be hard to feel like it's "worth it". I'm trying to come to terms with my body as something that changes, and understand those patterns and work with them, rather than trying to make a whole new wardrobe every time. Belly and all. I feel a little weird about the fact that I can easily look 4-6 months pregnant after a big meal, but that's how it's going to be. The squishiness was well-earned!
Yes, well earned squish! And I hear you on the weaning... When I weaned my daughter at not quite 3 years old, I suddenly realized I couldn't just eat chocolate pound cake with my lunch every day... and I immediately went up a clothing size and have been there ever since.
Deletei have nothing intelligent to add, but i read this back when you posted and thought it was brilliant. our bellies should be botticellis.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I almost forgot to include with this post a cartoon I did on this very same topic of bellies long before I was actually a mom myself: The Mommy Job.
DeleteCutest photobomber EVER! Look at her face! Love it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, ugh, couldn't agree more about the tummy. I've got a nice squishy one after two kids, and I'm starting to come to terms with it. It's okay. I have a good body, that really gets me around without a whole lot of fuss and has delivered two fantastic children. Plastic surgery is scary as fuck and I hate that women feel like they have to do that. In the end we all get saggy and old, but with age comes the ability to really rock a Chanel suit, so it's going to be awesome!
Not doing Me Made May this year although I've been sewing a lot for myself I still just don't have enough items to really choose from ... but next year perhaps! What's funny is that I never would have noticed your tummy - we all focus on ourselves so much more than others focus on us, I think.
I think you're very right that we're often far harder on ourselves than others—and see "flaws" that no one else can even perceive. I don't think my tummy is visible in 90% of my photos, though—due to my obsessive photo taking until I find a shot where it's not that visible. :(
DeleteMikhaela, this post has been running through my mind for days now! I've never liked my body more than when I was pregnant - and a big part of that was because finally I was "supposed" to have a large round stomach. I am very "apple" shaped, and learning to love my belly - or at least not to continually try to hide it - is something that I have to keep working on. I have two daughters, and think that it is really important that I model positive body acceptance to them. I am getting there! This is who I am. Thanks for posting about this! And I love your outfits ;-)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! I know exactly what you mean about loving my body the most when I was pregnant for that very reason. And I love seeing your beautiful daughters on your blog looking so happy and self-confident.
DeleteHi, I happened upon this post via Thornberry's blog, so I'm a little late to the discussion. I agree that in today's society women are encouraged to perceive that having a tummy is a terrible tragedy; but a woman has a uterus, that's that, and it has to go somewhere! The design of the human body is such that tummies are never going to be terribly flat unless we can do away with gravity; and since that's what they say keeps us clinging to the planet, I vote with the rest of you that we ignore what people say about tubby tummies and just get on with loving ourselves as we are.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I admit to being one of the fortunate few whose GENETIC - I can't emphasise that enough,*GENETIC* - makeup must be responsible for the fact that, like my elder sister and probably our Mum before, quite soon after my son was born, I didn't really look as if I'd just had a baby. I was running about in skinny leggings and feeling fabulous! I was lucky enough to leave the hospital looking relatively "normal" (whatever that is; and by my standards, normal is with a tummy though not one that could be mistaken for pregnancy).
So keep up your positive role modelling for that gorgeous little girl of yours. And thank you.
Yep, definitely has to go somewhere, and that is exactly why this obsession with flat bellies is so very puzzling. But good for you for feeling fabulous right after you gave birth and running around rocking leggings! There's no shame in that either. It just shouldn't be the expectation for every woman post-birth.
DeleteThank you for this. I've gained and gained and gained after my second was born 4 years ago, and now I have a fertility goddess body at 210 lbs. It's hard on one hand since much of my childhood was body policed by both my mom and dad. My mom has "wasted" her whole life because "I'll do that/wear that/deserve that once I've lost weight."
ReplyDeleteI don't want to live like that. So what if my natural waist is now directly below my 36F breasts? I will hike my skirts up that high. My wedding band doesn't fit anymore. Screw losing weight just to be able to wear it, I'll resize it as needed. I am my body and I love me. Anyways, I have two young'ens watching and learning how to love themselves and women in general. I don't want to teach them body hate the way I was.
Oh, hugs! No, let's NOT live like that! Screw losing weight to be able to wear clothes or jewelry... let's make things that fit us the way they are. And it is SO important to model self-acceptance in front of our children!
DeleteYou look great, and that skirt is FAB on you!! And i'm with you on the belly shaming. My son is 14 months old now, and despite the fact that I'm pretty close to my old weight (actually under my pre-baby weight, now I'm working on those pounds I gained when I met my husband), I've got a little more pronounced lower abdomen. I've never really felt a need to have super flat abs (as long as my clothes fit I don't really care about my weight/shape), but it has taken a little getting used to the pooch. I have to say, though, I kind of like it. It reminds me of my little boy, and sometimes I have to admit it makes me feel a little more like one of the models for Rubens and the other old masters. I'd much rather look like a classical painting than a runway model.
ReplyDelete