Comments on: There’s nothing wrong with your face

By: Emerald

Emerald — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:42:48 +0000

Beautiful. And making me sad, because I wish I had one fragment of a recollection that my mother ever felt that way about me. I totally take after my dad. My mother would admit he was a handsome guy ‘when he was younger’ (before he put on a lot of weight, was the implication), but then she’d complain that I looked too much like him. Irony was I don’t think she liked her own looks that much – you cannot love how you look and be that obsessed with ‘self-improvement’ – yet she’d rather I’d resembled her than looked like a man, because that wasn’t ‘feminine’.

Thank you for this…I have so been meaning to listen to more of Ani’s stuff.

By: A Sarah

A Sarah — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:35:29 +0000

as great as Shape of a Mother is… it seemed to me like many of the posts I happened to see when I first went there were taut 20-year-olds who looked like they’d never been pregnant, and everyone going “I’m so jealous! You look so awesome!” It didn’t really make me feel much better.

spacedcowgirl, thank you for saying this… I want to like Shape of a Mother, but most of the time I come away feeling rotten because of the comments in which thinness and smooth skin and post-baby weight loss are praised again and again. I didn’t know anyone else felt that way.

What is it about rough, scarred, stretched, and saggy skin? What’s at stake in our (collectively) believing it to be SO UGLY? I mean, even independently of size, to the extent that it’s possible to separate the two. I wish I could think more critically about this, but it hits so close to home I have a hard time getting traction.

By: spacedcowgirl

spacedcowgirl — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:42:36 +0000

{{A Sarah}} I hear you. I haven’t had kids, but I have loose skin from weight loss and gain, and as great as Shape of a Mother is… it seemed to me like many of the posts I happened to see when I first went there were taut 20-year-olds who looked like they’d never been pregnant, and everyone going “I’m so jealous! You look so awesome!” It didn’t really make me feel much better. Anyway, I know what you mean about being accepting of larger shapes but it being so tough to let go of thinking of loose stomachs, scarring, or droopy breasts as “disfiguring.”

I love the song though. It would be too presumptuous–sort of like saying “you probably have issues with your body now, so here” when I don’t know anything of the sort and when she is in any case generally much more likely to buy into and not have a problem with society’s weight issues–to send it to my sister-in-law, who just had her baby on Friday (YAY!!), but I wish I could. I just think it’s so beautiful.

By: floreta

floreta — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:25:30 +0000

i saw her in concert before the new album was released and she played it. so powerful. i love that song!

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:51:46 +0000

I was listening to this just this morning. We saw her do it in London a few weeks ago and it was amazing. When she got to “Don’t forget to have a good time” I almost cried with joy. It was just before the election and all I could hear in my head all Nov 4th was “democracy…happening.” Oh, Ani.

It is weird to hear the stuff we talk about so much here enunciated so clearly by someone who has nothing to do with FA. Obviously those ideas aren’t exclusively ours, but the fatosphere is the only place in my life where people seem to genuinely believe in them, or at least be trying hard to. So to hear them given another voice (and by someone awesome at that) is cheering.

I love that SP is full of Ani fans. My people!

By: A Sarah

A Sarah — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:02:53 +0000

This is a tough one for me. I want to get what the song has to give, but the message isn’t getting through. Lately I’ve realized that I experienced pregnancy as profoundly disfiguring. It’s what gave me the physical traits that my mom most hated in her body, or at least, that I perceived her hating in her own body. It’s not fat so much as… stretched-out-ness, redundant skin, I don’t know.

We recently got mirrored closet doors in our bedroom because they were the cheapest option, but now when I catch sight of my post-two-kids belly it very often makes me cry. And yes, I’ve been to The Shape of a Mother, but whether due to my own issues or reality or some combination of both, I don’t see any bellies that seem to me quite so stretched and slackened. Even as I’ve come to accept larger bodies, I still have a real problem at least for my own body with flesh that isn’t smooth or taut.

I have sons, so mostly what I think about all this is, “Thank God they’ll never have to undergo this.” And also, “Shit, I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m able to say ‘Hey, my body is amazing! It produced them!’ so WHAT KIND OF ISSUES ARE THEY GOING TO GET FROM THAT OMG OMG OMG?!!”

I’ve been thinking about these lyrics for days, because I want them to touch the same thing in me that they’re touching in y’all, but I’m just not there yet.

By: vanessa

vanessa — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:12:36 +0000

ETA: on Ani’s new itunes exclusive album there are little statements from her about various songs, including this one. She talks about how Present/Infant is one of the gifts her daughter has given her: it made her examine her own self loathing because it is not something she wants to pas on.

By: vanessa

vanessa — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:20:04 +0000

I literally am listening to Ani right now. I love that song, it is one of my favorite Ani tunes. She is my favorite musician ever.

By: Lady Mercy

Lady Mercy — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:04:00 +0000

wow…I am trying to get pregnant now and I never thought about that. I know my baby will be beautiful weather he or she looks like me or not..but I never thought of self acceptance that way. I also thought about my parents…I look like my father not my mother and I am always saying how movie star handsome he is. Maybe there is a bit of that in me too…hmmm

By: slythwolf

slythwolf — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:48:13 +0000

Okay, now I’m all misty.