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To the Fat Shaming Mom at the Soccer Field

Photo by: Shutterstock

Hey there, mama.

I want to talk to you about something. Two weeks ago we kind of met. Well, not really. You didn’t introduce yourself. Instead, you fat shamed me. Out of no where. And shit, man, it stung.

I was hungry. It was afternoon already and I had been running around all day. I took my kidlet to church and then ran a few errands. That’s when I started feeling a bit woozy while I was driving to the soccer field. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten a thing yet. I had managed to feed my kid both breakfast and lunch and pack a snack for him for his soccer game. Me? I was still sipping a giant travel mug of coffee after getting little to no sleep the night before. Just like a mom.

So I stopped at Wendy’s. I had two bucks and some change in cash and let’s face it, they have the best dollar menu (I mean, right?!) Anyway, I got a sandwich. Ok, I got two. Two 99 cent burgers and a cup of water.

I headed toward the soccer field because I couldn’t remember if the game was at two-fifteen or two-thirty and I didn’t want my kid to be late. When I rolled up some families were arriving. Including you. I started eating my sandwich. The game was at 2:15 and my kid’s team was already on the field warming up.

I was eating pretty fast.

See, I know I’m fat but I’m also a mom and mom’s eat fast a lot. You probably do too, right? Some reasons you might eat fast are that you’re late getting somewhere or you just want to finish dinner before the kids start going ape-shit at the table or you just know that baby is gonna cry any second and you want to eat your dinner before you are called away and it sits there getting cold. Do any of these sound familiar? Anyway, yes, I was eating that sandwich faster than lightening. You might even say I was wolfing that mother f#@ker. Because I was.

Because I needed to eat. And I wanted to watch my boy play without passing out.

So when you came along and we locked eyes and you gave me that look. And took 2 seconds out of your day to look me up and down and be disgusted by me shamelessly eating while fat in public. Shit, I hate to admit it (because I am a f#@king awesome person and love myself immensely) but it hurt. And I felt like an 8th grade reject all over again. All because of that two seconds of your life and that shake of your head and that steadied no mistaking scan of my body ending with the focus on the sandwich in my mouth. The sigh you let out as if to say, “Ugh, gross”.

Ouch, Stranger Mom. Ouch.

I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now. And I’ve decided that you are probably a good person. Your kid was giggling and seemed like a happy kid. You looked rushed, but not mad about it so maybe that means you are a patient mom. And obviously, you came to your kid’s game! That’s a nice thing to do for your child. In the few seconds I saw you, I picked up on several nice things about you. You were well put together too! Kudos to you for that. Lord knows it’s hard to put together a decent look with kids running around.

So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to let this go. And I am forgiving you (for something you no doubt have done before this) in the hopes that maybe someday you realize how hurtful it is to fat shame a person. I forgive you. And I’m forgiving myself for letting it hurt me so much. But in the end, I think that it hurts you more. It makes all of those good things about you ugly to the person that you shame next.

So don’t do it. You can be better than that.

See you on Sunday,

Mama Pants

Have you ever felt fat shamed?

Colleen Thoele is a mama, wife, fancy lady, writer. She spends her free time blogging over at The Family Pants about the awesomeness and not awesomeness of living with the two miniature people she made. When she gets an itch to say something, she writes about social justice, domestic violence and women’s issues. Join her on Facebook and Twitter.

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