The Body Positive: Blaming My Mom For My Body Issues

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I’m on the blame-your-mother bandwagon.

Or at least I was.

It started off innocently enough–I, like most teenagers, wanted a scapegoat for all of my problems. I looked around…let’s see…Dad? Nah. Little sis? Eh. Mom? Ding, ding, ding!

Out of my three possible culprits, my mom was the most likely. She showed the most interest in me–especially my looks. She helped me pick out cute accessories for my hair, hemmed and hawed with me over nail polish and delighted in going shoe shopping together. (I realize this kind of makes it sound like we’re something out of Clueless, but you wouldn’t find us on Rodeo Drive–more like the aisles of Target.)

Of course, it was only a matter of time until this all shifted from enjoyable to torturous. Talk to my mom? About makeup? Or the latest top I had to have? Or hair? (Don’t even get me started on the great bang debate of 1997.) Please.

Around this same time, my dieting took on new steam. It was far from new to me, but I approached it with renewed zeal. I went through every diet in the book (literally, I believe)–coming up against “failure” after “failure.” As the failures piled up, so did my anger–toward my mom.

“If she hadn’t pushed me so hard, I would be effortlessly thin [despite all genetic evidence to the contrary].”

“If she’d just back off, I’d handle this.”

“If she wouldn’t encourage me, I could just chill out and let the pounds drop off.” Yes, I liked to blame her for both sides of the coin.

This pattern continued for years–diet, fail, blame my mother. Lather, rinse, repeat. Over time, as I started to ditch the diet mentality, I realized I had some (and by that, I obviously mean a ton of) internal work to do. And so I set about looking at just how much my mom was to blame for my predicament. I was imagining it would end up totaling around oh, say, 145%.

Much to my chagrin, though, I found it didn’t shake out quite that easily. Was my mom perfect when it came to conversations about weight or body image? Of course not. But whose is? Especially given that they’re right there with us in the thick of societal expectations about what women should look like.

These days, I’m all about owning who I am and accepting and love the body I have right now.  And I never blame my mother for anything. (Oh, I know; you’re right—I’m not fooling anyone. I totally blame her for my love of color-coded organizational systems.)

Anna Guest-Jelley is the Founder of Curvy Yoga, which is all about lovin’ the body you have today. Through Curvy Yoga, she offers yoga designed to fit the bodies of people of all shapes, sizes and abilities as well as messages of body positivity and meeting yourself where you are–both on and off the mat. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.