There is a pretty cool movement afoot. It's women rebelling against the massive tide of pornified women being held up in advertising and fitness circles as being the norm. I am totally down with that movement. The airbrushed, photoshopped, sexy images that plague us when we are trying to go about our daily lives have entered our psyches as what is normal, desirable and right. The reality of women's bodies, particularly as they change and age, is being wiped out of our consciousness. What? Women DON'T snap back to a size 6 immediately after giving birth? What? Smooth perfect tummies are actually the exception and not the rule when it comes to women who have had babies? Poor men. They are being sold such a lie.

Anyway, I agree, these ideas are totally false, and should not be promoted in any way.

But you know what?

I don't love my post baby body. Like, at all.

And I feel guilty about that. Especially now with all the "love your body no matter what" mommy blogs all over the place.

I hate the literally torn muscles in my abdomen. They don't support my organs at all. I hate my stretch marks. They are ugly. There is nothing beautiful and nothing to love about the lumps and sags of the extra skin carrying my children caused me to grow, that I will never be rid of unless I consent to having it cut from my body.

It doesn't matter how much weight I lose, or how in shape I become, or how many miles I can actually run. My belly, my muscles, the skin around my middle will never be pretty to me. I don't care who I housed in there for 9 months.

I think we are doing a disservice to women to tell them they have to love it. No matter what. Because it is a result of our darling children.

I wish this had never happened to my body. I wish I could still take a crap without supporting my perineum because I have a prolapse. I wish I could look down at my belly and not see the literal scars on my skin left by the literal tearing of the underlayers of my dermis. I wish my intestines and other organs had a secure safe home and didn't flop about, kinking and causing excruciating gas build up because they don't lay where they are supposed to because my abdominal wall doesn't support them anymore. I have passed out from that pain before. It's not pretty. And it never will be.

Doesn't mean I don't love my kids. It doesn't make me less of a mother.

See, maybe  it is because I am at least 3 years out from having a little one who depended on my existence for her very sustenance, and I don't cradle her on my lap every night, nourishing her to sleep with my own body, that I can see that I am actually more than just someone's mom.

I am still someone's lover. I can see beyond the years of raising kids, now, as my oldest is nearing adulthood, and I can actually fathom it being just me and the man I am married to as the focus of my life. I can see that horizon, and I don't like the idea of living it with this body.

I am not going to pretend it's pretty anymore. It's not. I resent being told I should love it. Because I don't. And I really can't be arsed to worry about one more way that I am failing at being a woman.