the belly, the body and aren’t you huge

I’ve been trying for a little while to get my thoughts organized on the matter of growing larger, particularly in light of being told every day I’m huge (no shit – I’m 6 months pregnant and 5 feet tall, exactly where does the weight go?) and the ensuing media storm around Jessica Simpson’s pregnancy weight gain with such vile descriptions as “fat”. Getting bigger I can handle, when one is a Turducken it is to be expected as the baby needs somewhere to go. With my kids, it is straight out in front of me, at least by a foot and that is where all the weight I gain throughout this pregnancy will stay. From behind, I do not look like a turducken. At the market a couple of weeks ago, a wine seller came to ply his wares to me … until I turned around and nearly knocked him over because he was standing too close. What I cannot stand is being told constantly that I’m “just soooo big”, accompanied by gestures usually reserved for describing the girth of Santa Claus. The incessant comments about My Body. The words can be couched around “the belly”, making it more of an inanimate thing, rather than a significant part of my body. The fact remains that when you are pregnant, you are public domain and ought to accept the comments with more tact than the person giving them.

At no other time in a woman’s life is it appropriate to comment so intimately on a woman’s body than when she is pregnant (obviously, I mean to her face – we can all be a catty bunch). There is a certain degree of decorum surrounding our public interactions and one of those is that it is rude to point at someone’s body and give your opinion, unless you are a medical professional, and even then a doctor has tact.

My thoughts have been a jumble lately around why it bothers me so much to have someone, from across a room or other public space, point and exclaim, “The belly! IT’S SO BIG! LOOK AT YOU!” or actually call others to come and look at me as if I were a damn sideshow freak. I take care of my lady ‘stache, thank you very much. Oh, maybe because IT’S MY BODY YOU ARE STARING AT, so thanks.

Women’s bodies are constantly under scrutiny, for being too thin, too fat, too beautiful, simple, mousy, flabby, pasty, too dark, too light… anything and everything (check out this post). I do not know why it changes from passive aggressive talking around the woman where she may or may not hear to when you are pregnant and it is said to your face, perhaps because people have this concept that a pregnant body belongs to the community because it is not just the woman but also a future generation in there. This has as much to do with norms as our own beauty insecurities. By pointing out that I do not have the body I used to have, and will likely never have again (only a proximate guess at it), the commenter and myself are fitting ourselves snugly into established beauty rules that are archaic, crappy and ought to go, but that also dictate that there is a standard and neither one of us is fitting into them, so we might as well be miserable about it.

There is a beauty standard and not one of us really knows what it is, but we sure as hell can tell you what it is not. Everyone.

on moral reasoning

Recently, I had a post featured on BlogHer (this is the link for the BlogHer article), a very interesting experience that garnered many responses, some good and some bad, at least from whatever your vantage point may be. The post had the misfortune of being renamed in (what I think) is a most inflammatory manner in order to drum up controversy and snag more readers – hoo boy, there were certain people who missed the point of respecting other’s views and that I don’t believe fierce religious dogma is for children because they could only focus on the fact that the children were not going to other’s churches. There was a small contingent who wasn’t quite sure how we, as non-religious parents, could hope to teach our children tolerance and morals (my favourite from the Facebook feed was the “I’m so tolerant I’m calling you closed minded and will name-call”).

Miss N has reached an age where we have started talking about the “why” of what we do, we are making connections between the rules and why they exist. Every morning we walk together to the bus and it is a time just for us, mother and daughter to talk without little brother distractions or the call of kittens. One morning this week she was admiring the newly formed buds on the trees, gently poking at their edges and pointing out the flowers she recognized (there are many – her green thumb would make my grandfather proud).

Miss N: It’s a lovely morning, Mommy. I like that tree the best. (And she pointed at this gorgeous tree that I think is a Hot Pink Crabapple tree.)

Me: It is, honey. I think that’s my favourite, too. Why do you suppose they grow, the trees?

Miss N: Well, I know the builders make the roads and houses and stuff. The trees and plants grow because we need them for oxygen.

Me: But what if we weren’t here? Why should they grow? A super long time ago there weren’t people living here in Canada but there were trees and all kinds of plants and animals.

Miss N: Hm. I know that one day this baby tree, (she pointed at a young Maple Tree), will grow up to be really big and that’s what it’s supposed to do if we let it.

Me: So, it’s part of what it is? To grow and live?

Miss N: I think so, but I don’t know.

Me: Think about it, honey. Have an awesome day and have fun at school.

With that, we left it. Her schoolbus had arrived and she hurried away, oversized book bag bumping against the back of her legs and ponytail swinging. The idea of  intrinsic value is a pretty weighty subject for a six year old but at its heart is discovering that the world does not necessarily exist just for our use and benefit. The world can exist with our without us but because we are, in so many ways, straddling the border between being part of nature but also outside of it, I believe it is important that we do not take nature for granted or our position so close to it.

Later that night I was telling Mr about the conversation I had with Miss N and he smiled. That afternoon he was outside with Miss N and Boy when Boy found a slug he was intent on squishing, for no other reason than it may be fun to squish something smaller than him. It was Miss N who stopped him with a simple, “Why?”.

“Because I want to,” he said.

“But why? It’s part of nature. Everything is part of nature. Just like us, would you want to be squished?”

Through Twitter I’ve been having some very interesting conversations with other non-religious parents about how we teach our children when we do not have a religious framework to establish a moral structure. The common refrain has been “the golden rule”, that the most basic way for everyone to get along in the world is to think about how we want to be treated and extend that to others. The golden rule transcends many world cultures and beliefs because the notion of positive reciprocity is one that we can all identify with because it puts each one of us in the position of another. This is the basic essence of not just morality but also respect, that we can learn respect from something as inconsequential as a slug in the garden.

respecting other’s beliefs – life as an atheist family

There seems to be this idea that atheists are just wayward people without any beliefs or morals who just don’t know any better. A couple of summers ago Mr and I were walking with the kids down Spring Garden Road and a very earnest young man came up to us and started shoving pamphlets in our hands. In response to Mr’s “No thanks, I’m an atheist” he said, “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t believe in anything before”. There are a lot of things I believe in. Love. Family. Honesty. Gravity. Kindness. Nature. Science.

Recently, a few of Miss N’s friends have been sincerely inviting her to church. The one that made me angry? Not at the child, mind you. She is doing what her Sunday School teacher and parents have told her to do, but they added the clincher of a treat bag if you are new to the church. Yup. They’ll bribe your children all the way. It may be called a gift by the person who thought of it, but it’s similar to the toys given out by McDonald’s – it’s not enough to sell french fries, there is the extra bait of a toy that will break in three days. I understand why these children feel it is imperative to invite Miss N to church, it is a fun place where they sing songs, eat a snack and talk about the underlying fear of what happens after you die. These children love Miss N and even though they can’t quite articulate it in this way, they think we’re failing Miss N and her brother by not taking them to church.

This part will be touchy for people who do not believe the same as we do and I respect that, I’ll raise my kids and you can raise yours. I do not think religion is for children. I think that they should be exposed to the beliefs of all people and while I will tell my children “this is what Mommy and Daddy believe” I do not expect her to believe the same thing. I’ll ask Miss N what she thinks and she has some really amazing thoughts on the matter, but I will not tell her she is wrong if she disagrees with me about the big beliefs. I do not tell her she is going to hell if she does not believe as I do, that she ought to live in fear for the people in her life who do not because it is unfair to expect a child to live like that. It is not right to speak in absolutes with children because they will believe anything and everything you tell them and they are still developing the cognitive ability to sift through the logic of some claims. Case in point: Boy honestly thinks Batman is a viable career choice (after Miss N encouraged him to come up with a back up plan, he’s settled on police officer/Batman).

Many people don’t understand that atheists have a belief system and that we are just somehow lacking and need to be led to “the right way”. There are a lot of right ways in the world, it’s what makes our world so awesome and awful at the same time because so many of us are walking through the world with blinders on. I am very proud of Miss N that she tells her friends that she has her own beliefs and their church is not the place for her – it’s like school for people who believe in their god, it’s not really our place. Our church is in the museums, in our garden and at the art gallery. Our church is when we come together as a family at the dinner table (every night) and we talk about the world we live in and how we can treat one another with respect and kindness in our daily lives. Miss N asks a lot of big questions, about where humans come from and what others believe. As part of our “lesson in respect” I don’t say that people of other faiths are liars or wrong, I preface it with “Hindus believe… Christians believe… Some people believe…” because it is not my place to judge you for your beliefs. I only ask that you don’t do the same to me or my children.