I found the photos buried in my phone’s camera roll. I was scrolling back in search of something from about two years ago when they caught my eye: three “before” pictures of me, from different angles, standing in a sports bra and shorts in front of my full-length mirror, my face unsmiling.
It was springtime then, and it might’ve been the end of a particularly frustrating day of worrying about how my body would look come summer. Clearly, I was about to begin a fitness routine or diet and had wanted to document the process from the start. The joke was on me, though: about two months later, I’d find out I was pregnant, which would completely change my perspective on my body.
What strikes me when I see these pictures now is how absolutely fine I look. I almost want to yell at the images, as if I can convince my past self that she doesn’t need to spend so much time and energy thinking about how to alter her body. That she can exist without always feeling the need to be smaller, leaner, more toned, more “acceptable.”
I grew up a chubby kid, and my annual pediatrician appointments were fraught with anxiety about stepping on the scale and hearing the doctor announce that I was overweight for my height. At home, whenever I saw on the calendar that a check-up was coming, I’d start to panic weeks in advance. I did crunches in a frenzy to shed weight, or I’d have a meltdown before the appointment in an effort to have my mother reschedule to buy me more time.
All of this disordered thinking as a child led to a mentality that continued through my teen years and my 20s. No matter what size I wore or what the scale said—no matter how much weight I lost—I was never truly satisfied.
After I had my son, things shifted. At first, I was far too distracted with motherhood and sleep deprived to worry about the state of my thighs.
But over time, as I settled into my new existence as a parent and came out of the postpartum fog, I found that I no longer cared to critique my body the way I always had.
I could no longer stand to stare at myself in the mirror and pinch flab or suck in my stomach to imagine what I’d look like with flat abs. I wish I could say that I’d developed such a deep appreciation for what my body had done that I respected it too much to be critical. But I don’t think that’s the whole story.
Body shaming myself just started to feel pointless. Yes, my body had done something really incredible. It’s also a different shape now. My whole composition is different post-baby. But what would be the purpose of obsessing over the size of my arms? I would still be me. Did I really want to use my limited mental bandwidth on this stuff? The answer was no. I was exhausted by the thought.
Motherhood not only shifted my self-image but also highlighted what I wanted to focus on. I wanted to be there for my baby, and I wanted to finish working on my novel. I didn’t want to waste even two minutes of my precious time berating myself for looking a certain way.
To be clear, there wasn’t one particular moment when my perception shifted. It was more like a falling away, as if the child version of me who sobbed at the thought of stepping on a scale was finally able to let it all go. It was a series of choices to measure my worth not in numbers or “before and after” photos but in creative output and love. It was setting priorities, and body shaming fell off the list.
I’m sure I’ll have to spend the rest of my life reminding myself of my new outlook. Few of us are completely above self-criticism. But right now, in the early years of motherhood, I feel content. My body now is so different from the one in the pictures I took of myself two years ago. My hips are in a different place; my rib cage feels wider; my stomach clearly has stretched—things have not only mentally but literally shifted.
A body is functional, and I realize now that my function isn’t to strive for a smaller existence. Rather, it’s to create good work and love my people and add positive things to the world. In that way, then, I strive for a bigger existence, one that makes a meaningful impact. And none of that requires my body to be a certain size.