Here it is: Your post-baby body is the aging body you would've had if you'd never had any children at all, with maybe a pee-leaking addition or some additional stretch marks. As we age, our metabolism slows down, but we also live more healthy lifestyles. We stop staying up partying until the wee hours eating Fourth Meal whether or not we become parents. We take interest in yoga, or we don't . We take vitamins, or we don't. We exercise, or we don't. I don't think it has that much to do with parenthood, I really don't. Your body, for the most part, is a product of genetics and lifestyle. In other words--even without kids, you would've gotten older.

Everyone deals with a full life differently. Time-management is a huge issue for parents, especially mothers, and that has an impact for the first few years of parenthood on one's figure. Exhaustion, too. Some people deal with stress by not eating, and some people grab the chocolate, like Jennspastic:

    This body is not my "mom body", rather it is my "stress body." That is to say that, when I get stressed the first thing I do is pick up a tasty candy bar or a bag of chips. (Or in tonight's case, a tub of double fudge brownie ice cream AND a bag of chips.) And tomorrow I will be whining that my belly bulge is the devil and Why-Oh-Why can't I fit in these pants?

Listen, this post isn't going in the direction you might think. I'm not going to tell you take control and find time to exercise and eat right. All I'm saying is we look the way we look because we're getting older, because of our habits. We can choose to worry about that or we can realize this is a pretty hectic time in our lives and we can be Helen Mirren later.

As The Shape of a Mother writes:

    I also feel like positive body image really and truly IS within our reach, only we each have to make the decision not to allow them to imprison us in our own cells of self-hatred. We have to make the decision to just REFUSE to let them tell us how to think of ourselves. How dare they? How dare they try to keep us down?

It just gets old, doesn't it? But at the same time, we want to look good in those jeans, we do, and that's not so wrong. It's just a balance. We know we can have the pan of brownies or we can have the skinny jeans, and we can't have both. We KNOW THAT.

We know our bodies won't snap back from an entire pizza they way they did when we were 15. We know we can't look at 35 the way we did at 22.  We know that intellectually, but inside, we still secretly believe we ARE 15, so why shouldn't we look that hot?  It's okay to want to look like you did when you were 15, as long as you realize it's not possible. It's just not. So let it go. Don't blame it on your kids, don't blame it on your work, just accept it or do something about it. Either choice is fine. Let Former Eating Disorder Girl repeat that: Either choice is fine.

The truth about mommy bodies: They're our bodies. I have a great set of clavicles, a flat chest and thick ankles. I'm never going to change any of it. Motherhood didn't make my ankles fat--they've always been that way. Oh, well. Dress for your figure, play up your best features, and realize you only can be the hottest you, not the hottest anyone else. Be hot in a 44-year-old way and to hell with the rest of the world. Unless you don't care at all about being hot, which is also totally fine. I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm staring at a stack of women's magazines right now (the same ones I want to write for!), and the juxtaposition of food and dieting headlines is enough to make anyone laugh out loud if we step outside the pressure circle of womanhood for a minute.

The fringe benefit of all this rationality is the effect it will have on our kids, especially our daughters. As Wendy Felton writes:

    But instead of teaching young girls that beauty doesn't have to be perfect, maybe we should teach them to value themselves and others for something other than beauty.

One thing I can say for motherhood is this: It cured me off the eating-disorder Wild Turkey. My daughter added a really healthy dose of perspective to my life. I also realized that up until a certain age, children don't realize if their mothers aren't beautiful.

I also relaxed a little in the have-to-look-awesome category because I placed myself in a different category mentally. It was called "woman." I was a woman before I had my daughter, but her birth coincided with my 30th birthday, and I've always thought at some age you earn the right to just look like you instead of like the current fashion. For me, that age was 30. What age is it for you? Have you let it go? Have I pissed you off? Who else is talking about this?

We have a group here on BlogHer for this is my "mom" body, not my real one.

More links:

    *  Breed 'em and Weep
    * Joy Unexpected

Submitted by Rita Arens (view blog)