All women know that our bodies don’t automatically bounce back after giving birth to a child. For many women, the process of “losing the baby weight” takes some time. The last thing any of us want to hear, while we’re taking care of a baby, is that we need to lose weight sooner than we are able to.
One mom wrote in to Reddit to vent about her mother-in-law who had some cruel words for her after having a baby.
Some mother-in-laws are just not the best. They say rude things, they make us feel bad, and they’re definitely unappreciative. But, this mother-in-law definitely takes the cake.
The mom shared that her post-pregnancy recovery wasn’t the easiest.
The mom shared:
“This happened right after the birth of my first daughter, 10 years ago. [Two] months after the birth I was barely hanging on: my baby had colic, my husband worked every hour of the week, we had just moved and I knew no one in town, breastfeeding was a struggle, and my pre-pregnancy anxiety was manifesting as some seriously complex postpartum feelings.”
When you’re postpartum, losing weight isn’t on the forefront of your priorities.
Some moms struggle to even get up in the morning and take care of themselves and their children, so working out and losing weight isn’t exactly the first thing they are thinking about every day.
Her mother-in-law decided to send her daughter-in-law a card… with a passive-aggressive message.
“I was carrying an extra 20 lbs more than before the pregnancy and not feeling very good about it. My MIL chose this time to send me a card with a picture of myself in it taken at my wedding, [five] years before. The text of her message suggested that I put the picture of myself up on the fridge to ‘inspire’ myself to lose weight,” the mom said in her Reddit post.
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Her mother-in-law didn’t just do that, she also rambled on about being skinny.
“‘Look at those arms, look at that little waist!’ the card said. ‘I think you’d feel a lot happier about everything if you lost the baby weight.’ It was full of annoying, insulting, and frankly unreasonable suggestions about how I might do it, but mostly I’ll never forget the last line of the card. It said, ‘If all else fails, just remember: nothing tastes as good as skinny feels!’”
Could you imagine?!?
If I just had a baby two months ago, the last thing I want to hear is how I need to lose weight, especially when I’m run down, tired, and depressed.
People on Reddit were in full support of the new mom.
One person wrote:
“I see stories like this all the time about MILs (sometimes mothers) saying that a woman needs to lose their post-pregnancy weight! I hate it. Like is it because these women are so insecure that they need to pick on someone else who happens to be more vulnerable because they just had a baby? It’s messed up.”
Another pointed out that phrases like these are toxic.
Eating disorders are extremely common and some of them are hard to overcome. One Reddit user added:
“‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ is literally a pro-eating disorder phrase that is well known in those communities — your MIL is literally trying to disorder you.”
The best reply of all was one with some solid advice.
One Reddit user had a fantastic comment saying:
“I’d just send her back some brochures of old folks home and a message — ‘Never criticise your DIL, she helps pick your nursing home'”.
How would you have handled getting a card like this?
