I always thought I was the daughter of a strong woman, raised to be a strong woman. I was not wrong. My mother did her best to teach all of her children to advocate for themselves, a lesson I have worked hard to pass on to my son. Those lessons have stayed with me and have helped me grow into the strong, independent woman I am today. Yet looking back, I feel like it maybe it just wasn’t enough.
I remember being 15-years-old, sitting in the doctor’s office waiting to see the nurse practitioner. The office policy recommended that parents let children over the age of 15 see the doctor alone. I remember why I was there. My periods were a nightmare that I couldn’t cope with. Cramping would leave me curled in a ball sobbing. It was the worse pain I had ever known. I have five sisters; I knew it wasn’t supposed to be that way.
The nurse practitioner came in and asked me what seemed like a hundred invasive and embarrassing questions. She asked about everything from what I eat and when I exercise to if I had a boyfriend and if I liked school. After hearing my answers, she just stared at me. I was left feeling like I was there because I had done something wrong. After the silence became uncomfortable, she dropped a bomb that would impact my life in ways that still surprise me. She asked me if I knew that I was overweight and asked that I tell her what I was really eating. She told me I was lying, that I couldn’t be exercising as much as I had claimed. Her final parting words still echo inside my mind, that little voice that undermines my neverending fight with body image. “Just get off the couch and put down the chips,” she said. “The cramping will get better if you exercise.”
I was embarrassed and horrified. She was telling me that 5am practices, after-school practices, gymnastics, and ballet weren’t enough. She was a medical professional so I believed her. I was 10lbs over the recommended weight for my height. If I had known now what I had known then, maybe I would have been able to call her on it, maybe not. We teach our children to not question certain adults.
While we teach our children to advocate for themselves, I think we must also teach them to question things that don’t seem right. I say this because the topic of teenage girls and weight came up recently between my friend and I. It brought up difficult memories about events that really shaped the way I view my body to this day.
Years later, I look back on that day in the doctor’s office and wish I had known more about how to advocate for myself. I wish I had been taught to question what I was told. I share this story because I want children to be able to advocate for themselves in a way I didn’t.
What are you doing to help build this type of confidence in your child?
