What's KP Thinking?

For 40 years I was an acceptable regular size, according to societal norms. But I hated my body and felt awful about how I looked. For the past 1 year I’ve been plus size (according to the people who make our clothes and have decided that any item above a size 14 needs to be in a different section of the store). But this is the happiest, most content, I have ever felt in my body. This may be the biggest irony of my life. Loving myself, inside and out, has been a journey. Actually, still is a journey, as the road has not come to an end. I still have days when I feel down about how I look or what size I am. But those days pass, as do all bad days, and life moves forward.

If you are on a similar journey of body acceptance, or would like to start, I offer the following actionable steps. Not theories, slogans or resources, rather honest-to-goodness tangible things you can do starting TODAY to love the skin you’re in.

1. Throw away your scale. Your weight is an arbitrary data figure that has no real meaning in your life. It’s simply the quantifiable amount of gravity that pulls on your specific body. Yet we give that number the power to wreak havoc on our self-esteem, mood, and eating habits. So ditch it and never look back.
2. Flip the script in your mind. Positive self-talk is they key to success. Knock off all the awful things you say to yourself when you look in the mirror. That horrible inner voice is just plain mean. So why are you listening to it? Every time you start to say something self-deprecating, change it to a compliment. Instead of “Ugh, I’m so fat”, say to yourself, “Damn! You look good!”. Keep doing this. Every single day, a thousand times a day, until the negative voice is gone. Even if at first you feel foolish or don’t believe yourself, stick with it. Pretty soon you will believe the good voice…which has been inside of you the whole time.
3. Stop body shaming conversations on the spot. Shut that shit down. Do not talk bad about yourself in a group, and do not let others talk bad about themselves. Women need to help each other by no longer making the focus of our conversations “I feel so fat” “I need to go on a diet” “my skin is disgusting” “these jeans used to fit” “I need to get my fat ass to the gym”. Do not accept that form of body-shaming in your presence. Instead talk about projects, aspirations, hobbies, current events. Imagine the power in turning negative put-downs into positive thoughtful discussions. We can make this change the new reality one conversation at a time.
4. Stop reading beauty magazines. Save your money and your sanity. We’ve all seen the studies about how low our self-esteem plummets after flipping thru a fashion mag. So just don’t do it. That goes for following pages on FB, Pinterest, and Twitter that make you feel bad about yourself. They may be disguised as “Beauty Tips”or “How to be Your Best Self” but if they are essentially a long list of the changes you need to make to be “better”, delete them.Trust me, you will never miss their advice.
5.  Buy clothes that fit. And get rid of the ones that don’t. Do you hear me? Your closet should be equipped with clothes that make you feel fabulous. If they are uncomfortable or depress you, time to bin them and move on. And SO THE F WHAT if they need to be a bigger or smaller size?? Repeat after me: It just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM4jJc8w4H0
6. Blame the object, not yourself. Bad pic of you? Then it’s the angle or lighting that wasn’t flattering, not that you’re ugly/fat/gross. Your butt doesn’t fit on a chair? Then the chair is too small, your butt isn’t too big. Can’t fit through a tight spot, don’t apologize, the spot is too small, you’re not too big. Pants to tight? Buy new pants (see above). Someone insult you? Then they’re an asshole and you should ignore the comment. Stand up for YOU. Feel good about the space you take up on this planet. Own it. Use it. Make your surroundings conform to your needs–not the other way around. Be a BOSS.
7. Do more of what you love. And stop doing what you feel you “have to do”. Stop listening to what society/media tell us to do, be like, and look like. Throw away your list of things to do, like: lose 10 lbs, go to the gym 3 times a week, fit into college jeans, eat more healthy. Dig deep and discover what makes your soul happy. Maybe it’s a day at the beach, brunch with a friend, reading a book, hiking in the forest, swimming in the ocean, having mind-blowing sex, trying restorative yoga, meditating in a meadow, eating a second dessert, baking a new recipe, walking your dog, drinking fine wine, volunteering for a cause, running at night, playing with your kids, s’mores around a fire… These are the things that life should be about. These are the things that should be on your to-do list.

I’m finally finding my voice. Wait, you need to read that with the correct emphasis. It’s not “I’m finally finding my VOICE.” Rather, “I’m finally finding MY voice”. See the difference? Because I didn’t for the past 40 years. Allow me to explain.

I’ve always been outspoken, gregarious, extroverted, and some might say loud. Ok, Ok, I’m loud. I’ve never had an issue with voicing thoughts, jokes, opinions. My problem has been the authenticity behind my words. More specifically, the lack of authenticity. You see I know how to play to the room. I’m an expert at saying what everyone else is thinking. I’m so tuned in to the group dynamic that I can zero in on what will make the conversation flow, keeping everyone happy. To the outside eye, this makes me intuitive, understanding, and a great conversationalist. But to my insides, this is exhausting. It’s exhausting to take on the emotional well-being of an entire room. In order to focus on external cues, I’ve had to sacrifice internal cues. It’s impossible to keep up with both. And until this past year, I honestly had no idea I was functioning this way. Because this is how I was raised.

Growing up, my “role” within my family was peace-keeper. It was quite an adult role to take on as a child, but there you have it. All of my energy was spent making my parents happy with me, with my sister, and with each other. This made me the good kid, the rule-follower, the dependable one. If I ever voiced a contrary opinion, or veered away from my peace-keeping role, there was hell to pay. Screaming, fighting, punishing. So you can see how I was trained early on to remain agreeable.

As I grew up, my subconscious continued to play this role within my family, but also with friends and colleagues. To a big extent, it’s served me well. I did well in school, have many friends, have a successful career, and am generally well-liked. An A+ report card for life if you will. So if everything seems happy all around me, then I must be happy, right?

Wrong.

My soul hasn’t been happy. It’s been ignored–completely shut out. The report card for my true self is an F. A big ol fail. Thus this new focus on MY voice. What do I want? What do I feel? What do I think? For the first time in my life I’m looking for answers internally, not externally. And it’s a fascinating journey. There is so much in me that I’m discovering. For example, I’ve recently learned, that if I voice my authentic opinion on a topic, and others disagree, that’s OK. In fact, not only is it OK,  it’s not my responsibility to take on how they feel about it. It’s their job. (Bye-bye peace keeper!) I’m also figuring out the more honest I am with others and my self, the more free I feel. Not worrying about how everyone else in the room is feeling, has freed up my soul. I’m experiencing a lightness from within and I like it.

Not everyone in my life likes this new me, and that’s taking some time to figure out. I’ve lost some friendships along the way and key relationships in my life are shifting. But that’s OK. The more sure I am of my self the more sure I am that the deep meaningful connections in life will brave this storm with me.  As I continue to be authentic, discover my true purpose, and use MY voice, those who can keep up with me will. And those who can’t will fall away. Thus is life…or so I’m learning.

Let’s take a look back at my diet history, shall we. Then let us ponder all the ways in which my energy, focus and drive could have been better utilized. Pretty sure I could have colonized the moon by now. OK? Here we go.

Birth. My first diet began mere days after I landed on this amazing planet. Apparently I was lactose intolerant so was put on soy formula until I was 1 year old. Not a calorie restricting diet, but a diet nonetheless.

My first actual memory of a diet was attending Weight Watcher meetings with my mom. I watched her anxiously get weighed in front of the group, told it was either a good or bad week, then sat and listened to a lecture on the importance of self-control and portion size. I was 6 years old.

Throughout my adolescence, I have vague recollections of my mom being on The Cabbage Soup Diet, some kind of shake diet (Slim Fast maybe?) and on and off Weight Watchers more times than I can count. I was surrounded by lots and lots of diet talk. My mom, her friends and our family liked to talk about what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat, how to eat, what others were eating, what others weren’t eating, what food to buy, what food not to buy, who was gaining weight, who was losing weight, how celebrities looked, how my mom looked, how my sister looked, and how I looked.

Which leads me to my teen years. This is when things got serious. My girlfriends and I had a motto: “You can never be too thin, too rich, or too tan.” These were our goals. To meet these goals I danced 3 days a week, swam 5 days a week, and walked miles every weekend. I was a vegetarian for almost two years, which was my first taste of banishing food. By the time I was 16, I took it to a whole new level by not eating any food most days. Or if I ate, it was diet Mt. Dew, Wheat Thins, and cigarettes. My periods stopped. I would wake up every morning, sit up in bed, and black out. I went from a size 10 to a size 6, while standing 5 feet 8 inches tall. I was literally skin and bones. I was anorexic. All I saw was a horrendously fat girl when I looked in the mirror. I remember driving my car while wearing shorts and staring at my “disgusting” thighs as they splayed out on the seat. This lasted until I left for college. Where I discovered fat-free freedom.

My college years were all about “non fat”. Ah the 90’s. I started eating again as long as it was fat-free. (And thank gawd beer was fat free!) Pretty sure I survived those years on bagels, Snackwell cookies, non-fat cheese, fat free ranch on lettuce and diet coke. SO MUCH diet coke. I was still extremely self-conscious, always in complete fear of gaining a pound, and obsessed with thinness. I also began running in college. Mostly to sweat out the beer.

Enter my twenties. Living on my own, I was a pile of anxiety about life, work, my boyfriend and my body. I started taking diet pills which came with a diet “plan” in the box. It was something ridiculous like, eat 5 saltines with 1/4 cup cottage cheese in the morning, a peach for lunch with 1 oz of turkey meat, and a plain baked potato for dinner. What’s that, 500 calories at most? I can still taste the pills in my mouth…like chalky seaweed. I rotated between those pills and Dexatrim, because although Dexatrim killed my appetite it made my head buzz like a helicopter. I was still rail thin at a size 10. I remember being humiliated that my size was double digits. I also remember every time someone called me skinny I thought they were lying. I did not, could not, see it. I thought of myself as fat and ALWAYS needing to be on a diet. If I ever “splurged” and ate something “bad” I’d punish myself for days with exercise and by severely restricting food. Throughout this decade of my life, I never ate popcorn at the movies, ice cream on a summer day, cake at a Birthday party, or got fries with my meal. Some may think “Well done! Good self-control”. In hindsight all I can think is “How sad. How very sad”.

In my thirties I discovered cleanses. Glorious, vomit-tasting, stomach-churning, diarrhea-inducing, bad-breath-causing, dizzy-spell-making cleanses. Name one, I’ve done it. And then I got married and had two babies. And do you want to know the absolute best thing about being pregnant?? No, not the miracle of life growing in my uterus you fool, the GUILT-FREE eating. I had been waiting for this my entire life. Oh my god! FINALLY it was socially acceptable for me to eat and gain weight. And gain it I did–50 lbs with my first pregnancy and 60 lbs with my second. I gave in to every craving, every hunger pain, every indulgence…for the sake of the baby of course.

And then the babies were born. And even though I gained 50-60 lbs, only 9lb babies came out. Huh? WTF? You mean all those people “warning” me about baby-weight were right? Oh shit. Thus began my new mission in life: to get my body back. Get my pre-baby body back. Lose the baby weight. Get back into my pre-pregnancy clothes. It was ON. So again the diets. Oh the diets after my babies. The list is endless…The Zone, Weight Watchers, Atkins, 5/2 Diet, Slimming World, FitBit, MyFitnessPal, Arbonne Shakes, Slim Fast, Jenny Craig, NutraSystem, Aloha Shakes, Green Coffee Pills, Whole 30 Diet, Real Food Diet, Veganism, then the grand finale…prescription drugs. Yep, I signed up for a Medical Weight Loss program which cost me over $1,200 a month for drugs, supplements and weekly B12 injections. Before this program I was a size 12/14, healthy, active and beautiful. But I didn’t see it and the clinic was more than happy to take my money and “get me to my pre-baby goal”!

That was two years ago. And I did lose weight. Friends and family congratulated and complimented me. I was succeeding at getting my body back, until the pills made me absolutely flip out. I had a chemical reaction and went bonkers for about 2 weeks until they cleared my system. So that clinic prescribed a different drug (that’s right, they didn’t stop taking my money), except the new drug didn’t kill my appetite like the first one had. So I tried every which way to get my hands on the crazy-pills from another doctor. And another. (There are some shady doctors out there, let me tell you!) I was hell-bent on getting those pills. Because my dress size was more important than my sanity.

And then I fell and broke my leg and ankle and couldn’t walk for 6 months. Had two re-constructive surgeries. Was on bed rest another 6 weeks. Had physical therapy to learn to walk again. And finally, finally, finally, finally, stopped worrying about my weight. As I sit and type this, I’m a comfortable size 18/20. In the past year I’ve discovered myself . I’ve fallen in love with my body. I’ve made peace with food. I simply eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. Image that. Why it took me 40 years and a tragic accident to get here, I’ll never know. But no matter, I’m here now. Won’t you join me?

Happy and healthy at 40.

 I totally believe in magic. It’s all around us. How else do you explain the universe, everyday miracles, birth, near-death experiences, TIVO? It’s all magic. There are a few very specific instances of magic that have happened in my life. I recognize them by an out-of-body experience that comes over me. A dream like sense that I’m not in control of the situation–but a firm belief that what’s happening is meant to be.

Have you noticed your magic moments? Because I promise you, they’re happening.

WISHES = MAGIC

My first memory of magic was when, at 12 years old, I asked the universe for special powers and it obliged. All I had to do was want something bad enough. Really, really, really, in my heart, want it bad.Starting in 7th grade if I crossed all my fingers, on both hands, including my thumbs, squeezed my eyes shut really tight, and chanted a wish in my head, it came true. Once I realized my innate power, I used it only for good. Things like wishing to pass my science exam (which I passed) and wishing my Grandma would stop by the house with doughnuts (and she did). I kept this power a secret, except for one late night slumber party where I revealed my magic to my best friend at the time. Not sure she believed me…but I believed me, and that’s all that really matters.

MEETING MY HUSBAND

Late one hot Tuesday night in July, in a very loud, very crowded dance club, I noticed a cute guy looking at me from across the bar. I recognized him from college, but didn’t want to give up my seat to go say hi. The night went on, and I went on drinking and dancing with my BFF. I didn’t see cute-college-guy again, until closing time. My BFF said it was time to leave, so she grabbed my hand, and led me thru the sweaty crowd of hundreds to the exit. Set on the path to leave,  something made me look left (MAGIC!). There I saw cute-college-guy out of the corner of my eye. I dragged my BFF away from the exit and over to the guy. I said “Hey, how’s your summer?” and he said, “Do I know you?” Turns out it was not the guy I thought I knew from college, it was a complete stranger. But it was, and still is, my husband of nearly 20 years. I swear to this day that angels turned my head left to find him–I was most certainly under destiny’s magic spell that night.

MOVING AWAY FROM HOME

I’ve had wanderlust for as long as I can remember. The world is SO BIG and there’s SO MUCH to see, that staying in once place for too long kills me. So after 23 years in Michigan, I was ready for a change. But I couldn’t quite work out how to take that first step. So the first step was taken for me. The company I was working for at the time announced it was opening 5 new offices across the country. There it was, step 1: opportunity. Step 2 was to secure one of those jobs and a relo package to make it happen. Originally management said it was only sending senior team members to the new offices, of which I was not. But that didn’t deter me from meeting one-on-one with the president of our company and convincing him to send me to the Atlanta office. At 23 years old, I have no clue if that was an act of courage or stupidity. From that point on magic took over–I walked around in a dream-like state breaking my lease, telling my family and boyfriend that I was moving, and looking for a new apartment in Atlanta. It was both exhilarating and terrifying (a feeling I’d later to come realize called living.) The most vivid memory I have, is standing in front of the fax machine, sending my new apartment least to Atlanta, thinking: This decision is changing the course of my life.

GETTING OFF COURSE, GOT US ON COURSE

We were on a road trip along the Pacific, North of San Francisco. We were sight-seeing and escaping in more ways than one.

Mama cow and her newborn calf. Yes, that’s the placenta on the ground behind mama.

It had been a long few years of infertility and a miscarriage and we needed to clear our heads. After so much bad news, heartbreak and disappointment we were looking for fun. Or at the very least, a reprieve. So we drove along looking at lighthouses and hiking thru redwoods. One warm afternoon, while driving back to our cabin, we got lost. Or we thought we got lost. In fact, we were in the presence of magic. We ended up on a dirt road driving past a farm. With the windows down, I heard a noise that made me  yell “stop the car”. We got out and walked over to the fence, where we saw a mama cow in the final stages of labor. It was a sight like I’ve never seen. The calf slipped out, the mama licked it clean, and we stood there with tears in our eyes witnessing the miracle of birth. The very miracle we were trying and hoping for, for ourselves. And there she was, that baby calf, delivered to us by magic. As if to say, “Trust in the cycle of life. It’s closer than you think”. And it was. My son was born 1 year later.

SOUL SISTER

And just in case I need ongoing evidence of magic in my life, I have my sister. My twin, born two years after me. The number of magic moments we’ve shared cannot begin to be captured here–it’s endless. Just to name a few: picking up the phone to call her and it’s ringing from her calling me, getting married in the same year, renovating our homes in the same year, her daughter and my son born within hours of each other, showing up in the exact same outfit, communicating without words, knowing when something is wrong with the other, marrying extremely similar guys, her sitting at ball park 3,000 miles away from me talking about a TV show at the exact moment I call her to ask about said TV show…the list goes on. Because of my sister, I will never doubt the abundance of magic in the world. May you find your magic as well.

1. Traffic. The car has been around for over 130 years, and I can only assume traffic has been an issue from day one. As a society we must solve this. I don’t know the answer, but someone with more time and ingenuity than me needs to get on this. How do we make traffic extinct? With Trains? Jet-Packs? Work-from-Home? I mean seriously, enough already with sitting and wasting our precious time on earth in traffic.
2. Dentistry. Going to the dentist today feels archaic. What major improvements have they made in the last 50 years?  We still use laughing gas, we still scrape shit off our teeth with metal tools, we still drill out decay, we still yank rotten teeth out by the roots. How has technology not improved on any of this??? Techies, listen up, the world doesn’t need another gaming app–it needs an over the counter laser that painlessly zaps away cavities.
3. Radio. We need TIVO for the radio. Why can’t I pause a song on the radio? Or record it? Or rewind to play it again? Or use voice demand to change channels? Common people! This one MUST already in the works?? (And don’t tell me to play iTunes. Don’t make me plug anything in–I need this to happen right from the radio, not my phone.)
4.  Education. We’ve all read the studies, play = learning. So why are we still schooling our kids the same way we did 100 years ago–in a classroom? Our kids are still trapped in a room all day, being lectured and taking tests, instead of experiencing the world around them. Why is recess considered a break in the learning process, when in fact it’s the opposite? Recess is where the social and emotional learning happens. You know, the real shit that life’s all about. Let’s stop teaching subjects as separate  ideas–they all flow together. Stop forcing kids to “sit still” all day. Let’s take a lesson from Finland and Denmark, and let kids ENJOY the learning process. And for the love of God, let’s pay teacher more money!!!!!!
5. Politics. The whole bleeping system. Because Donald Trump. Need I say more?

(As previously published on Time.com, September 15, 2015 http://time.com/4033896/how-to-parent-like-a-dane//)

Want to learn how to parent like two-time winner Happiest Place on Earth, Denmark? I had the privilege of living as an American expat for two years in Aarhus, Denmark with my family, where they do things quite differently. Here’s what I learned:

Separation Anxiety Means a Whole Different Thing
When I moved to Denmark, I declined the full time Vuggestue (daycare) for my toddler son that came with the relocation package, because I didn’t work outside the home. This baffled my relocation agent, who insisted I would be happier left by myself to run errands. I insisted back that I could do that and look after my son at the same time. She didn’t back down. “In an emergency on an airplane, the flight crew instructs mothers to place the oxygen masks over their faces first. It’s only after the mother can breathe that she assists the children,” she said—or words to that effect. “Do you know why? Because if the mother doesn’t get a chance to breathe, the children cannot breathe, either.” The thought of having “help” to raise my child was so foreign to me, that with some effort I found I a day care center that offered a morning-only program. The half-day schedule allowed me to ease into a culture that not only doesn’t judge you for putting your kid in daycare, it actually pressures moms to do it. And the government funds it for all families. I came to love quiet mornings to myself and watching my child blossom with his Danish peers. But this was the toughest lesson I learned in Scandinavia: I must breathe so that my child can breathe, too.

Forget Baby Proofing

There’s no such thing as “baby-proofing” in Denmark. In America baby-proofing is an industry built on the fear that kids will be in danger. But in Denmark, kids are encouraged to be independent and adventurous. Every day they do things that would send most American moms running after their children yelling. Every year on Sankt Hans Aften (St. John’s Eve), the celebration of the summer solstice, families, including kids of all ages, gather together to sing traditional songs and burn a straw witch on a huge bonfire. The particular celebration my family and I attended was in a field, next to a forest. As the massive bonfire was lit, I realized there were no safety precautions: no fire trucks, extinguishers or buckets of water. There were also no ropes or cones blocking off the fire. Kids could (and did) run around the fire as close to the flames as they dared. You can also find fire pits on the playground of most Danish schools. On a regular basis the teachers would light a huge bonfire on the playground so the kids could roast bread on sticks. And inside my son’s classroom, there were lit candles in the window sills. When I pointed out that the children could reach the candles, the teachers were nonplussed: “Why would they touch fire? That would cause a burn.” The Danish people are fearless. And proud of it. They expose their kids to danger early.

Keep Lunch Lackluster
In America we believe in choice. In Denmark, too much choice is seen as confusing or unnecessary. Take lunch, for example. Not only did I pack the same lunch for my kids every day, but every kid had the same lunch. My kids could have swapped lunches with any kid at school and still had “Leverpostej og Rugbrød” (the Dane’s favorite liver spread on Rye bread), carrots and apples. Not perfectly shaped, bright orange, individually bagged baby carrots, but misshapen things recently pulled from the ground, unpeeled, with greens still attached. (Also delicious.) And the apples were similar—bruised, misshapen, brown, unpeeled and whole. There was no worry about the food being “kid-friendly.” The kids devoured them.

Get Hygge With It
In America we feel that leaving work at 5:00 pm is “sneaking out.” Not in Denmark. At 4:00pm on the dot, the offices clear out. It’s like the opening song of the Flintstones. Everybody leaves to pick up kids and head home for dinner, which is cooked with the family. The Danes have a word with no direct translation in the English language—Hygge. It means creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people. The warm glow of candlelight is hygge. Friends and family are hygge. There’s nothing more hygge than sitting round a table, discussing the big and small things in life. The Danish families create this coziness with mealtime almost every night. But it doesn’t just happen; they prioritize it. In the U.S., just hanging out together can feel like time wasted. In Denmark, it was the best time of the day.

It started with a simple question from my 8-year-old son. He was watching me get ready for work. As I was dutifully applying my third coat of lash-lengthening mascara, he looked up and asked, “Mommy, why do girls wear makeup but boys don’t?” I was about to automatically answer what I’ve been brainwashed to believe “because it makes me feel pretty” when I paused mid mascara stroke and took a moment to think. Really think. I looked at my son and gave him my honest answer “I don’t know”.

My son’s question has been sitting in my brain for months. And what I’ve concluded is that it’s bigger than makeup. Makeup is the tip of the double-standard iceberg. We’re all aware of the double standards between men and women. Things like, a man gets paid more for doing the exact same job as a woman. A man is bossy and he’s a leader, a woman is outspoken and she’s a bitch. We see every inch of a naked woman splayed across the movie screen, but only a 1 second glimpse of a penis. A man goes gray and he’s distinguished, and woman goes gray and she’s “given up” on her looks. The list goes on…

But I also believe the list goes deeper. It goes beyond the double standards and into the realm of “damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don’t”. It’s this no-win situation that women navigate daily.  It involves heightened insecurities, second guessing ourselves, and a whole heap of extra effort. I’ll explain.

Women shave their legs (men don’t = double standard). But take this one step further…women shave their legs, which leads to longer showers, which leads to taking longer to get ready, which leads to men joking, complaining, belittling women to “hurry up in there already”. Men, listen to me closely, you cannot have it both ways. Smooth legs take time. So shut the fuck up and wait for us to be ready as society expects. Or, women, join me in the “Stop Shaving” revolution. Let our bodies be free and gain equality on this issue one hairy leg, hairy armpit, and hairy god given hoo-ha at a time.

Women wear makeup (men don’t = double standard). But take this one step further…women wear makeup, so they buy makeup, which costs money, which leads men to tease and/or scold women for spending too much money on “useless stuff”. So which is it men? Is makeup useless or worth every penny? Personally, I’m over it. I’m over the latest trend in lip gloss, the latest craze in eyeliner, the latest “must-have” bronzer. The entire cosmetic industry profits from women’s insecurities. I’d like to propose a National No-Makeup Day/Week/Month/Year. And I mean NO makeup on anybody…bare faces on movie stars, clean-skinned talk show hosts, all natural VP’s leading meetings at work, fresh-faced teenagers walking the school halls, every woman, everywhere with no makeup on. How cool would it be to actually SEE the real faces of women in our lives? You know, like we see men every day.

Women get plastic surgery (more than men = double standard). But take this one step further. Women get publicly and privately mocked for having “work done”. So they spend all that money, all that recovery time, all that emotion (nevermind the life-threatening surgical risks) thinking they’re doing what society expects them to do to stay younger looking. All for what? For shit-talkers to mock their audacity at altering their looks cosmetically. Yet if a woman doesn’t get Botox, and heaven forbid shows a wrinkle, she’s “washed up” and society kinda understands (forgives??) when their man  leaves them for a younger woman.

Women wear shapewear, Spanx, stomach flattening undies (men don’t = double standard). But take this one step further…women wear these torture devices to flatten their tummies, to look thinner, to look “better” in clothes, to hide their “muffin tops”. But, they must never admit to wearing such articles of clothing. Heaven forbid a man discovers her “granny panties” or tries to get into her panties and can’t (Lycra is like cement ya’ll). Remember the scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary when Hugh Grant and Rene Zellweger are making out and he discovers her girdle? He is appalled and she is embarrassed. Again I ask, which way do you want it, because you can’t have both. Do you want to see our “imperfect” figures, or do you want our bits tucked and stuffed into “miracle wear”?

I realize none of these issues are new. In fact, I’m pretty sure it goes back to Adam and Eve. But where does it end? When does it end? When can I look my son in the eye and give him an answer that I’m proud of?