Day in the Life: Being the Grown-up

It’s hard, but sometimes someone has to be the grown-up. Such as when a young girl (6 or 8 years?) at the grocery store points to me and whispers “Look at her!” and giggles with her similar-age companion.

I met her eye and replied, “Yes, I’m wearing Sounders green* today for the game. Do you like the Sounders?”

Eyes like saucers, she just stared at me with deer-in-the-headlights, “OMG the grown-up heard me talking about her” shock. I smiled and walked on.

*Actually this neon green t-shirt, since the Sounders doesn’t sell shirts my size. But for a group of friends getting together to watch the game it does very well. :)

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Posted

September 14, 2009

BeingSuperFat, DayInTheLife

Living 400lbs

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7 responses to “Day in the Life: Being the Grown-up”

O.C.

September 14, 2009

Bravo!

Reply
Michelle

September 14, 2009

That was a really good response – not mean or angry, but you made it clear that you are a person to interact with, not an object to gawk at. I wish I were as good at dealing with kids. I’m not very big, but I’m shaped in such a way that sometimes kids think I’m pregnant.

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spoonfork38

September 14, 2009

Your grace and sense of humor are only two of the myriad reasons that you are my inspiration!

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Trabb’s Boy

September 14, 2009

Ditto spoonfork38!

Last night my son said “You have a fat butt” and I just said “Mm-hmm”, and he followed up with “You have a great big fat giant butt” and I was unable to stop myself — I said “That’s not a nice thing to say.” This body acceptance stuff is hard. You handled those children perfectly!

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Miriam Heddy

September 14, 2009

Trabb’s Boy, my daughter (6) regularly comments on my body in all sorts of ways, some of which make me squeamish, especially when I’m not expecting them. She tends to note that I’m much bigger than her, that I’m fatter than Daddy (who’s very thin and tall), that I’m fun to lie on and hug because I’m soft and squishy, etc.

Generally, if I can’t think of something to say, my fallback is, “People come in all shapes and sizes.”

It’s generic and rather boring, but a useful message, I think.

My point really is that it’s handy to come up with a standard reply you can pull out when you can’t think of something else.

Also, when in doubt, I just agree with her. “Yup, I do have a big butt.” To which I will usually add, “Butts come in lots of different shapes and sizes. It’s part of what make people so interesting.”

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Anna

September 14, 2009

Good response! And “Being the grown up” is a lesson a lot of us can stand to learn. Hopefully that girl will learn a lesson about manners as well.

I will have to remember this next time I hear kids/teenagers being snide.

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Rachel

September 25, 2009

you are better than I am. I had a similar situation last week “mommy- look how ugly that fat lady is”. I waited a minute to see if mommy would react. When she didn’t I lost it and retorted with a ‘mommy look at how rude your son is”. Normally I am pretty good with something like “God made us all different- I was having a bad day to begin with and when “mommy” seemed okay with the comment I sort of lost it.

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