“Mama all the children are calling me motu”, cried H. His complaint brought an involuntary smile to my lips. It wasn’t that I was insensitive to his pain .. it’s just that it was so incongruous. One he is not fat.. at all, two even if he were, at four years of age he is just too young to start worrying about it.
In any case, he didn’t appreciate my smile at all and added with a wail, “They are teasing me mama.” I quashed the smile, gave him a hug and told him to not bother about it.
Even as I said that I knew I was asking for the impossible. At forty years of age, on the wrong side of 70 kgs, when someone tells me I am overweight it raises my hackles and in my mind that person is forever branded as insensitive and rude. And here I was advising a four-year-old to not mind his friends.
Predictably enough, he wasn’t convinced. “You give them a shout, please.” he then proceeded to escort all the kids in the playground, one by one, to their respective mothers and they were all dutifully admonished.
Kids can be quite ruthless and I do hope this teasing doesn’t stick.. once they figure out how much it distresses H I’m sure they’ll take to it with greater gusto.
What’s worse if it sticks, it stays for life.
Like it did for me. Never in my life have I been able to consider myself ‘not fat’ – thin is of course a dream. When I look back at some of my school pictures I realise I wasn’t really fat at all then.. but at that time I remember being constantly distressed about the weight — right through adolescence to — now.
I lay the blame squarely at the door of my sister and cousins. All of you guys, it is just because of you painfully thin, malnourished creatures that my chubby frame was so conspicuous. And the teasing… I don’t even want to start thinking about it.
I am having the last laugh, however. As we’ve grown older the ‘fat’ has caught up with ALL of us and ALL of us are having to work equally hard to keep it off. Hah. For me it’s an old enemy, so old that it’s almost become a part of me, a friend almost, by long association. I can handle it so much better. Double hah.
But don’t worry.. being a better human being than all of you I shall share my experience and wisdom. Write in for advice.
But I digressed… about H .. I do hope he never ever gets stuck in a body image like I did. I do hope he learns to be happy the way he is. But I do do do sincerely hope he NEVER EVER becomes overweight. Oh and N too.. though she’s so on the other side of the spectrum I don’t think I need to worry. Ummm… not yet at least (one can never tell with the evil ‘fat’).
