Comments on: Yummy Mummy: Can cause serious side-effects

By: breedermama

breedermama — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:40:51 +0000

I love, love, love Shape of A Mother. It helped me so much with the post partum period.

By: If parents can stop it, why don’t they? « blue milk

If parents can stop it, why don’t they? « blue milk — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:10:57 +0000

[...] which mimic the fashions of the adult parent. The ‘yummy mummy’ phenomenon attests to the pressure on parents to be seen as young and savvy. Somehow, despite sexualisation being oppressively mainstream it has also successfully branded [...]

By: outside the (toy) box » Love Your Body Day

outside the (toy) box » Love Your Body Day — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:21:43 +0000

[...] it for granted (sorry body). If you prefer option B, I recommend the Shape of a Mother blog, that bluemilk introduced to me, kudos Shape of a Mother for showing us what real bodies actually look like. If [...]

By: www.bodybuildingandexercises.info » Yummy Mummy: Can cause serious side-effects

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:41:48 +0000

[...] bluemilk wrote a fantastic post today on “Yummy Mummy: Can cause serious side-effects”Here’s ONLY a quick extractYour body is perfectly fine. Mothers particularly, but really all women need to arm themselves by revealing the deception, building their self-esteem, developing realistic expectations of ageing, and valuing themselves and other women … [...]

By: Lost in a reverie...

Lost in a reverie... — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 08:39:45 +0000

The use of terms such as ‘deformity’ and ‘abnormality’ by some in the medical profession to describe post partum bodies is so insulting to women who have been through, and often struggled with, the physical and emotional life-changing events of pregnancy and childbirth.
And labioplasties and vaginaplasties (or whatever they’re called) – after the pain of a vaginal delivery and maybe episiotomy/tearing, why the hell would you want to get something like that done to yourself? Just so your vulva can look like something in a Playboy magazine? Why don’t we see airbrushing and photoshopping of pictures of models as abnormal rather than women’s real bodies? Agh, it disgusts me. And yes tsaari, that article definitely needed a counter opinion.

By: tsaari

tsaari — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 18:57:35 +0000

Oh Bluemilk… I think society has seriously lost its mind! “Pooch”, “Deflated sacks”, and other harmful words when describing a post-birth female body… it pains me to read those words in print. And trying to grasp a fellow female sister stating such things about herself in an interview. What the hell happened to you so that you have stooped to such low-self esteemed levels adding to an already overpiled pile of BS I can only imagine? Why oh why?!

I think what’s in order here are some Dear Mr/Dr Huffaker letters of coomplaint. I would like to see all the Dr’s… specifically the Mr Stoker’s, Mr Lloyd’s, and Mr Huffaker in all their physical glory. Their sagging ball-sacks, penis sizes, beer-bellies, hairy arses, bald-heads; etc. Can we find a “cure” for these unsightly slacks?

I no more want to see the hyped promotion of the icky “metrosexualized male” than constantly driving this message that women need to be hyper-vigilant about their “looks”. Please ladies- STOP!

And it’s really quite laughable when you take a look at these websites like amommymakeover, look at that “quiz” will you, and those “before & after” shots. One of them really looked PhotoShopped to me, a piece from here add to there, voila! I’m sorry, but I have to ask this question: what brain-dead moron will not seriously question who is pedaling this?!

My biggest concern since adult women feel so “deflated” postpartum, is what this message continues to drive into the minds of young adolescent girls who are already so saturated with such crud, eating disorders, overperfectionism, etc. Now Mommy can berate herself, starve herself, overexercise herself- all in the presence of not only her children, but keep promoting some zealous ideal that exhausts me just to think about.

I do wish Ms Singer of the NY times piece would have carried a much more balanced position and opinions/voices of other women who obviously are not buying into this sh*%t, not just ONE female counter opinion. Surely she could have dug up more; so I do wonder what truly was important here, was she stating that “Mom’s Job” is unnecessary, or in need of physical beautification and perfectionism. It’s no longer okay just to be a Mom, you have to wear those heels, tight jeans- and swing a couple of toddlers around with that overprocessed smile? I was left confused.

Then she had a blip, just a blip on the lovely ‘labioplasty’ and ‘vagioplasty’… gotta get one of those! I think American society can hardly stand in judgment over other cultures deemed “barbaric” in their practices of FGM- Female Genital Mutilation… we’re providing as well as promoting the same, only under a different insidious name and more upgraded procedure.

ARggggghhhh!

By: kate

kate — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 09:26:51 +0000

It’s a strange struggle, the post-baby body acceptance thing. Never having been bothered by my body before, except for a period of illness and Oh My God I Look Like A Rake, I’ve been fine with my body how it was. And mostly I am now, except that none of my old clothes fit me, and I don’t know what suits me, and I can only wear separates because of the breastfeeding. So now that I’ve started shopping for new work clothes, (because I’m giving up on ever fitting into my old wardrobe of things I loved and took years carefully acquiring) I find I have to try on every pair of pants in the shop and twelve shirts before I find something that’s right.

Oh, and I’m so glad that my midwives didn’t weigh me during pregnancy.

By: serahrose

serahrose — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 02:00:42 +0000

nice post.
i recently had a long and slightly painful conversation with a mom-to-be. at 7 months she’s gained about 15 pounds total. granted, she’s very fit and continues to run…but her doctor says, “eat more!” i agreed. especially after she revealed to me that the baby doesn’t move very much.

it turns out, she’s not eating enough because she’s worried about losing it once the baby’s born. she kept asking me how i lost my weight. my response, “i had knee surgery and then lost my husband. it’s not the way to go. besides, my body my look pre-pregnancy slim to you, but it’s not the same body it was. yours will be different too. i sag where i never sagged before. i have stretch marks. i have quickly deflating breasts. get over it. your body will be different. eat.”

i was, at least, a little kind and didn’t tell her that her vagina will be different too. welcome to a whole new world of sex.

By: radical mama

radical mama — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:52:27 +0000

Ahhh. MILF culture.

Mom, you make such a good point. We never have the opportunity to see real women’s bodies, and when we do (rarely) we see those women torn to shreds for having the audacity to show off their true selves! It’s ridiculous.

By: mom

mom — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:31:04 +0000

Cori – sad, absolutely, but not very surprising, is it? The rapidly circulating Onslaught video (posted on by bluemilk today also) is a great illustration. Women’s bodies are okay one way, and one way only.

Part of the problem I think is also that we don’t SEE other women’s real, naked bodies very much. Men pee out in the open, we’re tucked in stalls, men walk around locker rooms buck naked, but (at least in the US), women cling to their towels. You’ll think I’m lying, but I walk around buck naked all over the gym and see it as a public service — see this cellulite, ladies? This is a real body.

BTW blue milk, you have the most beautifully written posts around. I know I’ve mentioned this before on here (the post when you helped the woman get an ambulance), but I think it daily. Thanks!