Getting Real with Kira Hazledine

Let’s start with privilege. People get up in arms about the word, as if they can help what they were born into. Genetics, society, whatever. You’re right, you can’t.

Which is exactly why it’s so important to own it.

Privilege isn’t stating that life for you is never hard. It’s saying that life for you is never hard for a particular reason. Like in motherhood, life isn’t hard for me because I’m thin. Life is hard for me in other ways, but my weight has nothing to do with how I might be oppressed as a woman and a person.

So, it needs to be owned. I have thin privilege, and here is why it’s so important that the mothers with that same privilege need to be kicking and screaming about the status quo of postpartum bodies.

I’ve never known the struggle of “losing the baby weight” yet I hear society demanding that it be done in a matter of weeks, if not months. I’ve never dealt with the apron that develops after a c-section, or diastis recti that can prevent a woman from losing that baby pouch. Yet, women are expected to heal, get back to work, maintain the house, or whatever it is that society asks for.

This is NOT to say I haven’t dealt with my own self-image issues postpartum. This is NOT to say that I do not personally struggle. This is acknowledging that society does not see me differently. I am not shamed for not having “bounced back.” No one is asking when I’m gonna pick up working out again or setting a healthy example for my children.

What I need to do with the privilege that I have is speak when other women are backed into a corner. Speak for the woman ahead of me in the grocery store when some ignorant person asks when she’s due, with a small baby in the carrier in plain sight. Chide other women with thin privilege that boast about the weight “just falling off” as they continue to rant about how they just don’t understand why it’s so hard for other women. Obviously, they didn’t breastfeed, right?

Except, not, you twatwaffle. Perhaps that mom is struggling with PPD, and healthy eating, or eating at all, isn’t the top of the list. Maybe that mom is a single mother, with no time to do anything except work, pick up kids from daycare, and swing through the drive thru. That mom might have a serious medical condition that prevents exercise and the medication that keeps her out of the hospital causes her to gain weight.

YOU DON’T KNOW HER STORY. And more importantly, a woman’s worth is not tied to her weight.

It’s time to acknowledge that every mother is a warrior, making the ultimate sacrifice by carrying a child. It changes your body and there are some things that will never bounce back, even with the best diet and exercise regimen.

People with thin privilege need to knock their shit off and speak up against society for the stupid expectations. You may not experience the struggle, but many women around you do. Time to step up for your village.