Fat Ladies Eat Small Children

and they cry. It's no secret that I'm overweight. I've talked about it often enough on here and many of you join me in the constant struggle against bodies that fight us back. I've been overweight since puberty. Dieting is not something I do, its a way of life for me and one I was starting to get a handle on once I learned to eat around my PCOS issues. In 2010 I lost 46 lbs before getting pregnant.

I've whined about how I struggle with the pregnancy weight gain and losing control of my body that I was finally gaining control of. It's a daily fight in my own head to accept what is happening to my body to carry this child that I want so badly. I realize that most people probably can't tell I'm pregnant because I just look fat and do not have a pretty little bump. Today however, I was completely humiliated for being fat at the hands of a three year old and her inconsiderate mother.

I have never been more aware of my size than I am today when a little girl and her brother played a shopping cart game of duck down and hide from the "Fat Lady so she doesn't eat us." I was mortified as they pointed and squealed in their high voices: "there she goes, that was close but she might eat us next time" as I pass thier cart.

I was shaking and as the tears started to fall and I purposefully went the opposite direction, I could hear that little high voice "Where did the fat lady go Mom?" And the mother replied? "I don't know, I'm sure you will see her again." "Will she eat us mom?" "She might."

I broke down crying with this conversation ringing in my ears as I stared unseeingly at the aisle of bread. To complete my mortification, people veered around me and wouldn't look me in the face as if I had the plague. For thirty minutes I stood there, with tears streaming down my face and a child's high pitch voice becoming increasingly louder ringing through the store wondering where the Fat Lady who was going to eat them was.

It was all I could do to calmly exit with my pile of groceries that we desperately needed without crawling inside myself and feeling like I was going to die of shame as people stared at me.

Had it been just the mother, I'm sure I would have spouted something off about how humorous it was coming from someone in Pink Velour pants that showed every dimple of her cottage cheese ass bouncing over her knock off designer tennis shoes with the cubic zirconian glinting rather dully on her orange spray tanned fingers. But really, what do you say to someone in front of children who don't know any better? They don't know that they are being insensitive and rude because it was so obviously what they are being taught. What happens in 10 years when that little girl develops an eating disorder or a weight problem? What happens when these children become bullies and cause a girl to kill herself because of her hateful taunts because that just happened in our local high school.

How do you tell a parent off for their complete disregard for appropriate parenting in front of children without making it worse for the kids? Nothing I could have said in that situation would have made a difference for those children. The mother would have just turned it around as a lesson to the children on how fat people are evil and rude and completely belittled the whole point of any sermon I could have spewed at her. How do you fight ignorance and insensitivity?

All I could do was get in my car and know that my son will not behave in such a manner and if he were ever to innocently make an inconsiderate remark I would correct him immediately and teach him how to behave appropriately. MY SON will know kindness and have actual class. That lesson, on how to treat other humans, may be the finest lesson I can bestow upon my son. People are often crap, and its easy to form opinions based upon those examples, but we have to continue to rise above and be the best that we can be and provide better examples when we have learned from experiences such as this.

It hurts. I admit it. It hurt me to my soul. I dropped my groceries and sat in the middle of my kitchen floor balling and hiccuping while my husband tried to soothe me and find out what happened through my garbled stream of words. I questioned my ability to parent and if i was going to be a horrible person because I would be the "fat mom" that the kids make fun of hindering my child's ability to have a normal social life. I questioned everything about my existence as that little voice still echoed through my head. It HURT and I let it hurt me, but I'm not going to hide from it and let it fester. I'm going to post this, and let it out into the world that there are mean people who are raising mean children and I will not be one of them. I may judge harshly and make snap rude comments occasionally but my New Year's Resolution is to try and better control that part of my personality because it is only a part. A small part at that. I'm a nice person with a great capacity to love and give of myself and provide comfort to others and damn it I will be a great mother to a compassionate and giving child.