Dear woman behind me in line at the grocery store;
I noticed you cooing at my baby and I smiled because many people do it. Don't worry I love a cute baby as much as the next person! I smiled at you and you noticed I'd turned towards you. I was prepared for the next few statements/questions of "What's her name?" "Oh that's pretty" then there's the question I've begun to brace myself for, the inevitable "how old is she?" To which I responded eight months. I saw the look in your face, almost disgust, "Oh really? She's very big for her age! I can't remember my babies being so big ever". Meh, it's just an itty bitty comment about her size right? Well, you happen to be the most recent comment of a string of people who have mentioned my baby's weight and it's getting absurd. Sure, my daughter is no string bean. She happily wears her age group clothing and has rolls on her arms and neck. Yes, my daughter may be blessed with chunk to kiss but she has hit every growth milestone with ease and her doctors, the ones with a degree for this, say she's perfectly average weight for her age.
Right now, at eight months, she doesn't hear you when you ask what the heck I'm feeding her or the lovely claim that she can't really be only eight months. However at some point she will, and it's not okay. My daughter is a happy and loved baby who deserves to grow up knowing her body, whatever shape it takes, is wonderful. To have a stranger body shame my child is ridiculous. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself by calling you out when she's only eight months but it only adds to the worry I have that one day she'll look at herself and question her self worth based on what other people say she should look like. Eventually she'll start to compare herself to others and find faults in her looks, because someone else says her eyebrows aren't the right shape or her nose is just too big. Someday she will wonder if her hips are too wide or too narrow. In this day and age where image is weighed upon so heavily it makes me cringe to see someone put that pressure upon my baby already.
If you're comfortable calling her chubby now when does it become a problem? At what age should I expect you to stop? At what age will she remember the random lady at the grocery store calling her too chunky? If I told you I was wearing size four jeans would you look at my hips and tell me there's no way because I'm too big? Probably not, so why would you comment on my child's weight? Perhaps it's because she didn't understand that you just called her fat, but I can and I'm not impressed. So, I ask you lady behind me to keep your comments about my child's belly to yourself. I quite like all her little rolls and her little belly. I like that she's 100% comfortable in the body she's in and I'm not going to let the world take that from her.
