Sometimes We’re Just Lucky
Jan 29th, 2010 by heidi
I’ve seen the story about the Bellevue couple that starved their baby mentioned all over the place. My first reaction? Well, folks, that’s what happens when you have a weight-obsessed society that prioritizes thinness over health.
My second reaction? There but for the grace of God/Goddess go I…
Six weeks before my son was born, a tremendously mean, and probably fatphobic, ultrasound tech told me at a scan that he was already six pounds and that I’d “better hope he stopped growing.” She clearly believed that I was horrendously unhealthy and that I was dooming my son to a life of fatness. Although I knew better than to stop eating, you’d better believe that I was terrified that I’d end up with an enormous baby.
He weighed six pounds, nine ounces. He was around the 25th percentile for newborns in the UK and, although he was a skinny little thing and I knew the stats for bigger babies being healthier, I was pathetically grateful that he was small. I wanted a small baby because then, at least, nobody could blame the DEATHFAT! mother for having a DEATHFAT! baby. Bear in mind that all of these thoughts were *after* having started the process toward intuitive eating and eating disorder recovery, though I hadn’t yet seen any professionals about that process.
When he shot up to nearly the 50th percentile by 12 months, I was panicking. Brittainy Labberton’s words about her own baby, when she hit the 50th percentile mark, that “my husband has a weight problem and we didn’t want our daughters to be fat” could well have been mine, except that I would have said that I’m fat, have been fat all of my adult life, and I don’t want my child to suffer the pain that comes from being fat in Western society. I was deathly scared that because he’d changed percentiles upward, they were going to blame me. It was going to be my fault that I was turning my baby into a fatty.
Something, perhaps the three years that I’d spent working on intuitive eating and getting away from my self-hatred, made me realize at that point that I really, really needed help. Although I didn’t find the courage to seek out a nutritionist and a therapist until a couple of years later, realizing that the thoughts I had were really and truly unhealthy, both for me and for my son. Because I have a loving husband and family, I was in a place where I could realize how scary and screwed up my fatphobia was…and I let my son eat. He still hovers around the 50th percentile in weight, and the 50th-75th percentile in height, and I sometimes still have to bite back worries that he is eating too much, or eating too little, but I can let him be the size he is.
But…and there is a but…I’m grateful that he’s not fat. I recognize that for the unhealthy thought it is and can steer myself toward healthier attitudes, but the fear still lingers.
So, for Brittainy Labberton, at least, I have sympathy. News stories generally state that she is anorexic and that she may well have dieted during pregnancy (ironically enough, putting her baby at a higher risk of being fat in later life as a result). Her husband may be abusive. Her family may well not be supportive or loving (I don’t know). While, as an adult, the onus was on Mrs. Labberton to seek out help for her own disordered eating and CARE for her children instead of starving them, I know that my thoughts are not so far from hers. I may have made wiser choices but I suspect I also had more help in making them, thanks to the people who care about me and my son.
Those who look at her story in light of the rampant fatphobia in our society, claiming not to understand how she could do it, are lying to themselves. What she and her husband did is absolutely, terribly wrong. I would never do what she did. But…and there is a but…I understand why she did it.
I appreciate that this case reminds you of your own story, and it is brave of you to share it. But I do take issue with your statement that “those who look at her story in light of the rampant fatphobia in our society, claiming not to understand how she could do it, are lying to themselves.”
No, I can’t understand what this mother and father did, and I am not lying to myself. The mother’s actions I attribute to severe mental illness. The father, in my opinion, should be in prison. When my child was born, I was elated that she was over 9lbs in weight. She had to have surgery shortly after birth, and in those first two months of her life, my primary function as a human being was to keep her nourished, so that she could stay alive and be healthy. So some of us are coming from a different place – where our children’s lives have been on the line, and the more weight the better, because weight means nourishment and vitality.
I have to completely agree with you Heidi, the context of crisis hysteria in society acted as an enabler to this couple.
The inadequate and the messed up often are the ones that get into trouble with society’s rules and lores. I know of people who’ve tried briefly to restrict their babies milk a little, when worried that they were too fat.
Difference is, they responded quickly to their baby’s distress. But don’t forget, if your child is fat, that has in itself, been labelled abuse.
Obviously this woman had two problems, anorexia and post natal depression, she was in a bad way.
But what’s also telling is the ‘too fat to walk’, remark, if I didn’t know better that would have sounded like a lot of child obesity scare stories.
I don’t excuse their obvious cruelty and negligence, but it was undoubtedly faciliated by the reckless abandon of a lot of child obesity rhetoric and without it, I’m just not sure they would have acted in this way.
I agree that society enabled this. I hear so often that parents who “make” or “allow” their kids to be fat are child abusers that it doesn’t surprise me in the least that a person who is mentally ill would internalize and act on that to an extreme and dangerous degree. What I think is more troubling is how many millions of parents are doing the same thing–underfeeding their children–but to a lesser degree, and so are being applauded for being good and responsible parents.
I don’t get the fear over large babies, though. It just seems common sense that babies would come in different sizes. My son was about 9-1/2 pounds when he was born. I actually felt like I got off easy, because my father (who is 6′4″) and my husband (who is 6′5″) were both 10-1/2 pounders. I was fortunate that all of the health care providers I had just looked at me (I’m 5′8″) and my husband, and told us we had a big, strong, healthy baby–no accusations of somehow doing something “wrong” to cause him to be “too big.” And, it’s not just like bigger babies have lots of extra fat and that’s it. My son had relatively good head control right at birth, sometimes that usually doesn’t develop for a few months. I mentioned it to our family doctor, and she told me that that wasn’t unusual in larger babies: they aren’t just bigger, they tend to have developed more, and often have the physical capabilities of babies 2 or 3 months old. Now, it’s not like that means it’s better to have a big baby or anything, because it tends to even out in the end, but the idea that a 9-pound baby is just a 7-pound baby who’s mom did something wrong so that he has an extra 2 pounds of fat is just plain wrong. It’s funny because now “normal”-sized infants seem so, so fragile to me, after having my son, who just seemed really sturdy from the moment he was born.
hsofia – I think that viscerally you can choose differently but I think that, given our society’s extreme focus on fatness, the mother’s obviously untreated eating disorder, and a potentially abusive relationship, we can understand what would trigger such thoughts in a parent’s head. Her actions are her own. She will, I am sure, face consequences for them and rightfully so. However, society and the media created a situation in which a sufficiently mentally ill mother would do what she did – and that we have to face as part of OUR responsibility.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever suffered from mental illness but I have – I know the completely skewed perception of reality that it gives. Could the mother have made other choices? Of course she could, and should, have done. But I understand the mindset that led her there and the complete absence of support/sanity that caused her to do what she did. She is responsible but we should all understand what our society’s fatphobia is doing to people who might otherwise NOT be developing eating disorders and hypersensitivity about size.
….Grass always greener. It’s really quite exhausting to worry about every bite of food I can talk my TINY daughter into eating, while at the same time trying to remind myself to eat when I’m HUNGRY and not when I’m bored-stressed-tired-anxious-watching-TV-reading-thinking-breathing.
I’ve nothing to add really- as usual you write a thorough and thoughtful post:) I just miss you and Ciaran in my web life and wanted to stop over to say hello. xo