I have a question. It’s not a snarky question. Or a bitchy one. It’s not an aggressive question or a sarcastic one or a question meant to subtly shame or humiliate the women I’m asking it of.
I’m not even going to name a single woman in this story because it’s not about any individual.
I have a genuine question born of wanting to understand a phenomenon I see as being an inherently bad thing for women. Here it is:
Dear Women Who Post Photos Of Their Post-Baby Bodies In The Days And Weeks After Giving Birth,
Why?
Why do you do it?
And who is it good for?
I know who it’s not good for and I want to take a moment to tell you a bit about those people because there are a lot of them…..
It's not good for new mothers to see the promotion and resulting fawning worship of a skinny, toned body (or any one kind of body) held up as a mythical ideal towards which all women must implicitly strive.
It's not good for girls or young women who are looking ahead to their imagined futures as mothers and learning about what they 'should' look and act like in future life stages.
And it's not good for mothers of any age who look at your post-baby-body photos and how soon you post them (One week after birth! Two months after birth!) and feel humiliated and ashamed and inadequate because we gave birth two or seven or 10 or 19 years ago and our stomachs don't look remotely like yours.
To us, your photos can feel like a punch.