Some kids got to go to the State Fair yesterday to enjoy their day off of school. My kids got to make the rounds at check-ups and chiropractor adjustments. It’s hard to be a kid in our family, right? Especially with two full-day field trips this week. They’ve got it rough, I tell ya.
But at least there’s a positive out of all of it.
We found out how much they weigh . . . together. Thank God for a very patient nurse who obliged them when they thought it would be funny to send their cumulative weight to her computer instead of their individual weights. She had a good laugh, and so did I.
I noticed something interesting about that though.
They were very curious and excited to find out how tall they were, and how much they weighed. They weren’t ashamed or embarrassed. They weren’t trying to make sure no one saw the results. They are growing and they’re very happy about that.
So much so, that they even wished to combine their efforts.
I realize that weight, specifically, is a tough one for us as adults. There’s so much pressure to be “healthy”. We’ve attached a lot of images and paradigms to that word that can make us feel ashamed or just not quite good enough. But there’s something even deeper for women. At times it might be tied to the scale, but it’s really less about weight and more about growth.
There’s a lot of pressure on women to stay small.
Not only do we feel pressure to keep our bodies small, but in many ways, our minds and our voices too. There’s a still stigma around women getting too big. For hundreds of years women have been socialized to be quiet, polite, and pretty, to keep our personalities and our strengths at bay. I’m so grateful that has changed significantly in our generation. But we still fight it. It’s still engrained in our history, even when we think it’s a thing of the past.
Only when we acknowledge it, can we change it.
What if we took a lesson from the boys, and embraced unashamedly, that growing is good?
What if we took it a step further and decided it’s even better when we’re growing together?
That’s the kind of world I want to leave behind.
to more love,
Crystal
