MrsDarwin writes in the combox to my post about vanity and physical fitness:
To be honest, it's watching my re-emerging contours appear that keeps me motivated in my weight loss. That', and the recent wedding/reunion I went to, for which I wanted to present an image of looking attractive and fit as the one of the set who got married right away and had a boatload of children. Vanity? Evangelization? Advertisement? It's all mixed, motive-wise.
I'd just like to add that as a mother of four children myself, I'm also really appreciative and grateful to the other mothers around me who take proper care of themselves — who dress well and look good.
It was five or six years ago, when we only had two children, that we switched to a parish a little farther away — we picked it because it had a perpetual adoration chapel — a parish that happens to have a lot of big families and a lot of growing families.
Some of you moms of bigger families are going to laugh at me for my naiveté, I know, but one of the things that surprised me and kind of astonished me — and enchanted me — was the number of really beautiful women in the parish who had four, five, six, seven, eight, even nine or ten children.
And no, that's not code for "every mother of many children exudes an inner beauty." Not every mother is objectively beautiful — sorry, but it's true; some people look tired and harried all the time, even in their Sunday best. It may not be their fault. My point is: when I mention beautiful women, I really do mean visually beautiful, at least as objective as my own opinion can be.
[what you hear is the sound of cackling as the blogger imagines her fellow parishioners reading this and wondering, "Which kind am I?!?!"]
Seriously, though, to a young mother of two who had not spent a whole lot of time with the mothers of larger families, and who was toying with the idea of having several more children, it was kind of a relief to discover women with five or more children — and not just occasional freaks but really quite a lot of women! — who looked good, dressed stylishly (at least on Sunday!) and were, well, really radiant and happy-looking. Not having known very many mothers of five-plus kids (although now that I think of it, the few I had known by then were and are beautiful women, too) I guess I had always assumed that you must sacrifice your looks for your children. But it's not true — and that was a revelation to me.
We all acknowledge that women mostly dress to be seen by other women. That sounds catty. But it doesn't have to be.
Sure, some women dress to make other women jealous. Still, they can't control how others really see them. The attitude of the beholder is what transforms the experience into one of inspiration or of jealousy.
So — a big thank you from me to all the good-looking women out there with lots of kids. It helps. ;-)
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