"Look like Beyonce After Giving Birth?" (Or, on a Fat-Shaming Culture and Baby Fat-phobia)

Because of structural colorism and sizeism, this model has been chosen to provide an example of what a beautiful postpartum woman should look like. (source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_2657956_weight-loss-success.html)

Congratulations on your bundle of joy. Now that you’ve spent hours pushing what feels like a watermelon out of your yoni, welcome to the postpartum world if this is your first time.

You’ve spent the last 9 months listening to people tell you what a beautiful mama you look are and how you have this wonderful mama glow. Though you had your ups and downs throughout pregnancy, it was always flattering to know that your BIG belly was BEAUTIFUL. You had the world’s support, assuring you that you need not worry about your physical attributes and their worth in this American society that values you for how tight your ass is or isn’t, how big your boobs are or aren’t, and how ‘youthful’ your face is or is not. During pregnancy, you basically got a ‘free pass’, especially since all those f*cked up hormonal changes that even made you puke up water during that first trimester, gave you glowingly beautiful skin and lush hair that everyone just couldn’t get enough of. And wasn’t it great that you could eat eat eat and not be judged as a lazy fat ass?

Sorry new mom, that shit is about to change.

Welcome to to postpartum baby-moon in which you’ll be expected to lose that fat-ass and fat belly within two weeks, or everyone will think you are a lazy, obese and unsightly mama (This is especially true if you’re vegan since “skinny” = “veganism”. Read any Skinny Bitch book and it is clear that “lazy”= “obese”= “unsightly”)

Don’t look at me like I’m speaking some foreign language and as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Check into any latest news about Beyonce, and you’ll see how we can’t get enough of being impressed on how her new mama body is the benchmark for how we all should look after giving birth. After all, People Magazine did proclaim her as the world’s most beautiful woman (and of course ‘woman’ only means those of us women who pass that brown paper bag test!).

So, here we go to achieving your pre-pregnancy body type and size within 2 weeks of giving birth:

Breastfeed only. On demand. All the time. Nursing is a great way to lose all that unsightly belly fat and to avoid crash diets. And just don’t stop at nursing your own baby. Nurse every damn baby you know would like some mama juice. Post an ad on freecycle that you are willing to nurse 24/7, any baby or toddler. Remember, the bigger the child, the more calories they will suck out. Hey, if you’re not too weirded out, you can offer your mama juice to the sketchy adult men who have a mama juice fetish. Just imagine how many calories an adult could extract from your body. If that’s too creepy for you, pump whenever your baby isn’t nursing and sell that milk at the local farmer’s marker. Give those weird cow dairy farmers a run for their money. Yea, sure, nursing that much is stressful and you’ll probably be so focused on losing that weight that you forget to eat properly and come down with osteoporsis in your early 30s, but hey, as long as you lose that fat post-partum ass, that is all that matters. It’s our outer beauty, not our inner beauty and sanity that has value.
Carry your baby everywhere. Don’t be lazy and waste money on a $1000 Bugaboo stroller. Imagine how much weight you’ll be burning, carrying a growing baby on you 24/7. And if you aren’t a first time mom, carry your other kid or kids on you. Duct tape is excellent and offers a new way to do attachment parenting. With them duct taped to you, you won’t have the urge to take them off immediately when you start getting too lazy to carry that 10, 30, 50, 70lb extra of offspring. Duct tape hurts to take off anyway, so it will discourage you to do deattachment parenting.
Do pilates and yoga that is tailored for us postpartum period mamas. Everyone’s doing it and it will be assumed that you can and will do that same. It doesn’t matter that access to these exercises programs are $50 to $100 an hour or that they assume your are a white privileged suburban house mom who has the geographical and financial privilege to hire a personal coach. All you have to do is want it bad enough and manifest this reality and you’ll get it. Visualization is key to this. For example, my friend Grace Poor, an African American woman living in a food desert (no people, not food ‘dessert’) and makes $8/hr working in a factory with poor ventilation and lots of sexual harassment, gave birth last week. For some reason, she can’t do yoga or pilates , even though I told her she just has to manifest it and want it bad enough. Yeah, she had to go back to work 3 days after giving birth and works two shifts in a row. But, whatever. I guess she’s just too lazy to manifest and visualize abundance.
Do an Ironwoman competition now. Don’t listen to your midwife about holding off on any type of strenuous exercise until 8 months postpartum just because you had a 3rd degree tear into your poophole while pushing out that ten pounder. What does she know anyway? With your baby and/or kids already duct taped to you, you’ll have the added weight you’ll need to lose that postpartum ass. As you vomit towards the finish line and see the Child Protection Services Van driving towards you, don’t let that deter you from crossing and finishing. Remember, it not about CPS, it’s not about you or how you puked for the 18th time, it’s all about looking hot again so your unsightly belly and ass don’t make everyone else feel uncomfortable or annoyed. Explain to CPS that you don’t want to be obese and be a bad example for your children. Everyone knows that an obese lazy mother creates unsightly obese, fat, lazy children (and this is 4x more likely if you are darker than a brown bag apparently. Just watch Precious, you’ll see ) and that fat Americans are a financial and moral burden on the anorexic backs of skinny America. CPS will understand…..
Lastly, instead of spending your baby moon with the first 2-4 weeks in bed with your baby, singing to him or her and making eye contact, spend all your time on your Smartphone radiating your newborn’s brain as they nurse while you surf the web for blogs and information like this to learn how to not look like a fat-ass after giving birth.