How I See Myself is Damaging My Daughter

James and I have a nickname for Lena... Sonar. I swear that child hears literally everything. She can be in her room, with the TV on, while we're clear across the house, and all of a sudden she will chime in randomly to our conversations. We know that if we want to have any sort of private conversation that we had better go outside into the garage and most likely rev up the lawn mower, possibly while she's "sleeping," just to be on the safe side if we don't want her to ease drop on what we're saying.

Yet somehow, it never occurred to me to mask or filter out some of the things I say about myself. If you read my last post, then you know I've been feeling a little, um, self conscious lately.  Even when writing the post though, I admit that I carefully filtered out some of the harsher things I've been thinking (and saying) about myself as of late. Not once did it occur to me though that I should be applying that filter here in my own home.

Typically, we think of home as the place where we should be allowed to be ourselves. A place where we should be totally comfortable speaking our minds and being who we are without shame. I've always had the attitude that I won't pretend to be someone I'm not, but I think maybe I've let it "all hang out" just little too much in the past few months. And here's why...

Lena stood in the living room today and pulled out the waistband of her pants and told me straight faced "Mom, I think I'm losing a little weight. Look, I'm not as fat as I was before."

Excuse me, what???? 

Does this look like a fat kid to you? No? Me either!!! I blame some of this on my mother and her telling Lena a month ago that she needed to start being more girly because, and I quote, "Kids in middle school are mean and they'll call you a lesbian." I wish I was kidding about this, but I'm not. She's said the same thing to me plenty of times, but it was usually that I'm a fat lesbian (and people wonder why I have issues sometimes). Let's just say I had a not so nice little chat with Gramma....

That comment has kicked off a new concern for what other kids might think about what she wears and how her hair looks. I've been trying to help her work through that, but ultimately, that specific comment about her weight tonight is my fault. I've been talking about my own weight somewhat obsessively for the past few months and I've been in overdrive since I placed my order to get back on ACE. I did get my order today and honestly I'm excited, but I don't think I know I didn't present it in a positive way.

I don't remember what I said exactly, but I believe my comment was something along the lines of "Woo hoo it's here! Now I won't have to be such a fat ass."  Again, not word for word, but you get the point.

In the moment that my beautiful daughter stood there in front of me concerned because evidently she thinks she's fat, I started silently cussing myself out in my head. Here I've been trying to do damage control for my mother's comment to her and all the while I've been inflicting my own low self-esteem onto her while telling her as long as she's happy with herself than nothing else matters. Basically, I'm discrediting myself and in a way validating the bullshit that comes out of my mother's mouth. Fan-freaking-tastic!

While I can't instantaneously promise to see myself in a whole new light, I can promise not to open my trap anymore in front of Lena.

How I see and feel about this....

....will stay on here and only here.