Welcome to Am I The Only One with Meg Mansell, our new regular Capsule columnist. Meg is one of our favourite members of the Capsule community, bringing us smart, warm and thoughtful pieces on mental health, body positivity, motherhood and more. In her first Capsule column, she talks about learning to fall in love with her mum tum and shares her process to reclaiming her postpartum body.
If you were to ask me for one piece of proof that the world is completely backwards, I would bring to the table ‘the Mum Tum’. I have actually sat and pondered how I would ever describe this concept to an alien if they flew in from outer space: that those who grow babies are made to feel that they should hate their bodies afterwards.
What do you think their reaction would be? It would surely be total confusion. Because I like to think that I am somewhat of a smart person, so of course in theory it makes total sense to me that a part of the body that grew exponentially larger and tighter over a period of nine months would eventually deflate and look different to how it was before. Obviously. So why do I still hate mine so much?
When I sit and really think about my stomach and how it became the way that it is today, my mind boggles at how I can possibly feel shame about it. But I do! I do. That soft, hanging, stretched-out belly that is so openly hated by society, but that once grew life in it, is something I am still trying to get my head around three years after having my daughter.
I look at it every day in the mirror and I hear what the world would say to me if they saw it: Gross, ugly, disgusting. I don’t need to ask anyone because we all know it. The online world is constantly screaming at us that if we don’t look as good as we did before we had kids – or better – then we are pathetic, lazy and ruined.
I googled the words ‘Mum Tum’ to see what would come up and to no-one’s shock or surprise, the first suggestion for me is “How To Get Rid Of Mum Tum”. Want a guess at the second? It’s “How To Tone Your Mum Tum After Birth – Quick!”.
In fact, I gave up after I got to page 7 looking for anything other than articles and videos and programmes on how to lose it fast. It’s all a farce anyway, I’m pretty sure no matter how many crunches you do or how many calories you count, once skin has been stretched past a point, it’s not going to go back.
I’ve tried to pick where it all stemmed from or how it began. Surely in an alternate universe people who create life would have their postpartum bodies worshipped and be seen as Gods. But in this universe you will hear plenty of praise for getting pregnant, and praise for having that ‘cute’ bump everyone wants to touch. There are even people bold (stupid) enough to praise you for giving birth without medication and… that’s about where it the praise ends. The moment that baby is out you best have perky tits and a flat stomach again.
So, who makes these absurd and unjust rules? It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation, I feel, with celebrities. Do they make us feel like we must have our old bodies back because they do after they give birth? Or do they feel they need to have their old bodies back because we will berate and shame them if they don’t?
There is no ‘bouncing back’ for me that isn’t surgery; my belly is forever changed and right now I am working on seeing that as a good thing. It is not easy to go against what you have been told your whole life, even when it doesn’t make any sense to you. All I can focus on is what I know.
I know how lucky I was to be able to get pregnant in the first place, that isn’t the case for all parents, despite their desperate wishes for it. I know how lucky I was to give birth to a healthy daughter who has brought me endless joy and I know I wouldn’t wish for my life before her back (although I do miss how easy it used to be to leave the house on a whim).
So, if the payoff for all of that is that I have a stomach that resembles an old semi-deflated balloon, then so be it.
When I knew I was going to write this column, I thought to myself ‘wouldn’t it be nice if you took photos of your postpartum body to make others feel less alone with theirs’. And I’ll tell you what: thinking of it and actually doing it are two different things. Nothing I have ever done in my career has ever made me feel so nervous and uncomfortable – which annoyingly meant that I knew I should do it.
Of course, there is a part of me that is tense about strangers seeing this, but strangely I actually feel far more on edge about my friends. That’s been an odd realisation to have, thinking that my friends and husband’s friends might see me in a different light because of my belly.
It shows just how much worth I place on myself needing to be seen as ‘socially attractive’ to be liked and loved. Something to take to my next therapy session, maybe? But I imagine the psychologist would say something along the lines of “if looking at a body like yours makes somebody feel negatively, then maybe they should reflect on why that is,” and they wouldn’t be wrong. Sometimes things make us feel a certain way purely because we don’t see them often enough.
If that’s the case for you, you should fill your feed with more postpartum bodies. There is an amazing Instagram page and project by a photographer called Jaime from Ashburton called CelebratePostPartumBodies and also famously Sarah of TheBirdsPapaya who celebrates and shows hers on the regular.
To join in with them, here are photos of me and my belly in all its glory:
I hope that when someone googles the term ‘Mum Tum’ in the future, they might be sent to this column instead of all the ones telling them why they should hate theirs.
