Now and Then

I’ve been reading a lot of back issues of Baby Talk magazine lately, something I’m trying to do less and less of since it has a tendency to do weird things to me, such as convincing me that these retro styled monogrammed blankets are actually worth fifty bucks and that I wouldn’t be a proper mom unless I pulled out my already overused credit card and purchased one. As if Liam is really going to care whether he gets to puke his milk up on a trend setting item apparently being bought by our current star mommies like Gwyneth Paltrow. Anyway, one issue had this really interesting piece on the evolution of the magazine and how “expert” advice for pregnant/new moms has changed since WWII. Below are some examples…bizarre…

“Perhaps it should be a requirement of every wife that she hold at least one position outside the home before marriage. This is probably the only way she can realize the day-in and day-out grind her breadwinner knows” (September 1943)

“Pregnant you’ll look a real ‘5′ by 5″ unless you keep weight gain under 20 pounds. The tiniest junior miss figure blocks into a husky square.” (March 1953)

“When they form the habit of sitting on their knees…straighten their legs out, again and again, dozens of times a day if necessary. Continued sitting in such a position will deform their knees, flattening them.” (January, 1942)

“Many babies prefer to sleep with their ears folded like pink flower petals against their cheeks…On a bald-headed baby, narrow bands of adhesive tape will hold the ears securely down.” (January 1942)

“The trick is to look so altogether lovely, so perfectly exquisite, that your altered figure becomes just what it is-the mere ouward sign that you are having a baby.” (August 1942)

Although times have changed, things haven’t exactly gotten easier for women when it comes to pregnancy, especially in the area of body image. I found this article to be particularly revealing. Another article I came across on CNN awhile back claimed that with all the new Hollywood moms out there, it had now become “hip” to be pregnant. Sometimes it seems as though we are meant to view the swelling bump on our belly more as a fashion statement, rather than a glorious sign of coming motherhood. I think this creates a rather dangerous stigma. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful that we now have fashions designed more to show off our pregnancy than to hide it like we used to. There’s just something happening in our society right now that I can’t quite put my finger on. We’re all health conscious…that’s for sure…and as a pregnant woman everyone’s main concern is obviously your health and that of the child’s. But, oddly enough, this hasn’t been my experience and people’s reactions when they see me don’t always reflect this notion completely. I think they mean for it to but their response comes out more to the tune of “You look good” or “You sure are getting bigger” or like the one I got today was, “You don’t even look like you’re due in three months”, which I’m not exactly sure is a good or bad thing.
This obviously has a lot to do with how sensitive a person is and I admitt, I have always been sensitive when it comes to remarks on my appearance, whether they be positive or negative. The more a person begins to comment on how I look, the more I begin to scrutinize over my appearance. This, of course, is nobody’s fault but merely a result of my own insecurities. Strangely enough, as this pregnancy has progressed, I have found myself becoming more and more comfortable with my body and I think I’ve even managed to deal with some of those image problems that I’ve probably always had but usually tossed aside as self absorbing nonesense. I’ve always been one of those people who tried to pretend I didn’t care about “thinness” and “prettiness” but like every other woman raised in the Western world, I would think about it constantly, secretly coming up with my own meal menu’s and excercise plans that I would play out as “just a simple healthy lifestyle”. The secret, I think, is when I realized that the look of my body wasn’t important. What was important was what my body could do. I need my body to be able to do things for me, provide me with stamina, joy, comfort, prevention from pain and illness. Thinness doesn’t necessarilly emcompass those things so why should I strive for it. Second, numbers need to be taken out of the equation. The only one who should be concerned with them is my doctor. My ideal body weight is whatever weight it’s at when I myself know that I am eating well and maintaining a healthy lifestlye. And lifestlye doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with excercise. It can but it doesn’t have to. It has more to do with doing things you enjoy.
There will definitely be some changes in my body after this baby is born. There will be all kinds of adjustments, emotional and physically that I’ll have to get used to. Some things will be bigger, some things smaller, saggier, whatever. If there is one thing that this pregnancy has definitely tought me, it’s that beauty isn’t meant to stay the same, it has stages like everything else in life. And I can honestly say that I don’t think I have every enjoyed a stage in my life as much as I’ve enjoyed this one.

However, the whole back and leg pain thing definitely makes me cranky.