I remember being 5 and seeing my mother naked in bath. I was immediately repulsed. I told her I never ever wanted to grow up, have boobies or have a big wrinkly tummy as I like my little body just the way it was.
My mum has never forgotten this, and reminds me quite frequently. She also seemed quite smug when she found out I’d got very bad stretch marks from my first child.
At the time I thought every mother suffered from stretch marks so it didn’t bother me; however I soon learned that I could have possibly avoided them if only I’d resisted the cravings for strawberry milkshakes and cream scones.
Although I was aware how my body would look, I don’t think the full reality hit me until I looked in the mirror and now I wish I’d spent my teenage years in a bikini, showing off my rounded but unmarked tum!
I often bathe with my two daughters, as we have a large Jacuzzi and have a lot of fun, and my eldest at 8 has already told me she doesn’t want children because of the stretchmark’s she might get. She’s finally accepted the fact that she will grow breasts though and threw out a wish that they will be “as soft and as cosy as yours are mum!”
My youngest daughter is now noticing many things about her body, she understands body parts even if she can’t say the words, so when she pointed at my stomach in the bath, I was fully prepared for an “urghh” (Toddler speak for Yuck).
Imagine my surprise when she poked and prodded only to poked and prod her own., When her own didn’t wobble in the same way she became quite upset at not having a tummy like mummy’s. So I took my stretch marked tummy and turned it into a face that gobbled her fingers all up. She defeated the beast and while we got dry, rested her head on the softest (but flabbiest) part of my body.
See society may consider my stretch marks to be ugly, but if my daughters find comfort in that flab that’s good enough for me. I’ll still breathe in every time I undress in front of hubby though!
