Our monthly theme this month was body image through the lens of the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) journey. So when I came across Lindsey, of Adventures of Endo in the Arctic’s, recent post I knew it was the perfect tie-in to our monthly theme. Lindsey recounts a conversation she had with her niece and nephew. They were talking about camels:
I asked them if they knew what camel humps were made of. They suggested water (as most people assume) and I shared that they are actually made of fat.
My nephew was quiet for a minute then asked, “Does that mean camels are ugly?”
What? Yeah, her nephew is young. Young enough that you (or at least I) wouldn’t think they would have been so influenced by popular culture and societal pressures. Lindsey’s response to her nephew’s very innocent yet troubling question is a lot better than I could have done. And then she offers a way she wished she handled the conversation that is just stellar. Like, hands down, thanks for making my job as a parent ten times easier.
How do we do this? How do we raise kids in a society that puts so much ‘weight’ on body image? How do we teach what beauty really is? How do we have these conversations with young kids, because as Lindsey points out:
With an adult I feel like we could have had a long discussion about societal conventions of beauty but with a kid you need to put it into a few sentences and how is that possible when you’re not expecting it?
*****
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Chandra is a Mom and Foster Mom. She holds a Master’s degree in Theology and is particularly interested in the theology of infertility. Chandra grew up in the Northeast but she and her husband are raising their daughter in the middle-of-nowhere Indiana. She has 3 chickens that drive her crazy, a huge garden, and a penchant for bacon. She occasionally attempts to make sense of all those things, and more, over at her blog, MetholicBlog. She also shares embarrassing stories about her husband and unicorns.
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