The Common Enemy

Good morning, everyone! We’re going to begin class today with a quick “Do Now” activity. Take a look at the Question of the Day and add your response to our Nearpod board—oh wait. This is my blog. And [hopefully] none of my fifth-graders are reading this. 

But I do, in fact, have a Question of the Day: when was the first time you tied your self-worth to your appearance? [I’m not talking worth as in money. Although I did buy a $10 pint of ice cream yesterday. No, seriously—ten dollars! I’m not really sure who to blame. Myself? Inflation? Fancy ingredients like pistachios? Let me get back the important question.] When was the first time you tied your self-worth to your appearance? Take a minute to think if you need to.

And now [you guessed it!] I’m going to tell you my answer. I have a very fuzzy memory of the first time I really felt self-conscious about my body, the first time I made a conscious connection between big = bad. When I was a little kid, I had a Best FriendTM. I’m doing that facetious little superscript not because of some wild plot twist like she ended up being a boyfriend-stealing bully or something [she did not]. I’m doing this whole Best FriendTM thing because we really were best friends. As in sleepovers whenever our parents would allow, always running back and forth through this little path that connected our backyards, building houses for bugs out of moss and sticks and leaves. We also did lots of dressing up and makeovers—to each other and, even better, to our little brothers whenever they let it happen. We were a dynamic duo and I genuinely have only fond memories of our friendship.

So you might be thinking well, what happened? Nothing major, really. I moved to another town, we grew older, we grew apart. And she’s definitely not the bad guy in this story—I’m actually not entirely sure who is. But yes, my first memory of feeling that a bigger body is a worse body involves her. She had always been a skinny kid and I was... well, not a skinny kid. I remember one specific moment that I became acutely aware of this. Like I said, we did a lot of makeovers and playing dress-up. One day, I was over at her house partaking in the usual: excessive blue eyeshadow and bright red lipstick that was not exactly contained to our lips. Her mom had a surprise for us: she’d gotten us two matching dresses to wear for a “fashion show” we wanted to put on! What a dream!

I wish this was a fashion blog so I could take you into all the details of these two matching dresses from the Target kids section, but alas. This is probably not the place. All you need to know is they were the same style, different patterns, but absolutely beautiful. And we were thrilled. Like, really over the moon excited about this. Until, suddenly, I wasn’t. I had this pit in my stomach wondering is that going to fit me? I had such a specific vision in my mind: the dress wouldn’t zip, or even if it did, it would cling to my protruding little-kid belly. She didn’t have a belly like mine. How could these dresses possibly fit both of us? I was so stressed about this and so embarrassed at the possibility that my dress wouldn’t fit that my excitement about the fashion show went out the window all together.

I’m going to cut ahead to the end: it all worked out. My best friend’s mom, being an adult who considers these things, had gotten the dresses in different sizes, so of course they fit each of us, respectively, perfectly. The fashion show was a success, albeit sparsely attended only by both of our moms and two of my younger siblings. If you weren’t there that day on my patio in approximately 2005, I don’t know what to tell you—you missed out on some runway magic.

Happy ending, for the time being, but overall the beginning of something more long-lasting and more sinister. And who’s to blame? In all of my English classes over the years, I’ve been taught that there’s always an antagonist. The antagonist can come in many forms, but it’s got to be there [I’m looking at you, ninth grade English man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. man, and man vs. society. Aced that quiz!]. For this exercise I’d like to go with the last one: man vs. society. It’s possible there’s a little of man vs. man and man vs. self thrown in there also. Let’s break it down. We’ll start small:

Quinn vs. Self: really, I’m my own worst enemy in this story. There’s nobody directly, in-the-moment telling me I wasn’t going to fit in the dress or even that it would be bad if I didn’t. But also, I was like seven. So I’m probably not the primary antagonist here.

Quinn vs. Man: somehow, somewhere, I’d heard that bigger bodies were something to be embarrassed about. Someone must have told me that. Was it my dad, who has been pushing for healthiness [whatever that actually means] for as long as I can remember? Was it my mom, who was constantly on one diet or another, normalizing that for me from an early age? Was it a friend’s older sister who I overheard complaining about how she would do literally anything to keep from looking fat in her dress for the middle school dance? I mean, sure, we’re influenced by the ideas and habits of the people around us. But they also didn’t pull those beliefs from the void—someone else told them those things, or maybe even a larger system was at play...

Quinn vs. Society: yeah, this one seems like the real menace. Everyone involved in this story is part of and influenced by the society we live in. And guess what that society loves? Thin bodies. If you need a mental image to picture “Quinn vs. Society,” I would invite you now to imagine ten or twelve-year-old me flipping through Seventeen magazine. First, picture the slender white girl on the cover, held up as the paragon of what beauty looks like. If you flip through the pages of the magazine, sure, you might find a woman with some curves. But I would bet you $20 that she’s part of an article about what jeans to wear for your body type, and I’ll bet you $10 more that the blurb next to the curvy girl suggests wearing something that would be “slimming.”

That’s what the antagonist in this story looks like: the pervasive societal idea that thinner is better. That thinness equals happiness, love, fun, and money. All of these things are tied, sometimes subtly and sometimes not-so, to depictions of thinness. Which, on the flip side, indicates that if you’re not thin, it’s going to be really hard to get any of the above. And that pervasive idea is, you know, pervasive: it is always there. It’s hard to get away from it. For me, anyway, it’s hard to feel like I’m good enough if I’m not “thin enough.”

Pause. You are about to arrive at my favorite part of my blog post. And that’s because I’m about to list all of the reasons why I am good enough [and I got there without being thin]. The point of my blog is not to tell you about the overwhelming enemy of comparing ourselves to an unachievable societal ideal. The point of my blog is to be honest about the way I see the world, and then to be honest about where I find happiness and comfort within it. Basically, keep reading to hear about why I am awesome.  

Reasons why I am [way more than just] good enough: I am getting better at cooking, I am working on moving my body for the sake of enjoyment, I am intelligent and inquisitive, I look great in a bathing suit, I think outside the box, I am creative, I give a lot to the people I love, I bring a lot to the table. I work hard at my job, I strive to be better every day. I could go on.

And guess what?! Not one of those things has anything to do with my weight. Yeah, you read that right: not even the bathing suit one.  

So, for anyone out there who feels like the way they look is holding them back from everything they want to be—and trust me, I’ve been there and some days I still am there—this is for you. You are more than your weight. You are deserving! You are loved and you are worthy. You are WAY more than good enough.