Читать книгу The Yummy Mummy’s Family Handbook - Liz Fraser - Страница 59

Fact 1: Many ladies have complicated issues with body image and food.

Fact 2: All mothers are ladies. (At least, they once were ladies, but are now exhausted, stretched and irritable forms of such beings, hence all the shouting and unladylike behaviour in the checkout queue. Be kind to them.)

Using basic logic, we can deduce from the above two facts that many mothers have issues with body image and food. There, I’ve said it, and by the sound reasoning above you can hopefully see that it’s true.

The result of this is that in every city, street and household in the land, lots and lots of ladies are trying to change their body shape, either to make it thinner, curvier, firmer, or just ‘more like that gorgeous actress I saw in that film last night.’ It’s really rather sad, when you think about it, that so much energy, money and time is wasted on a few rolls of subcutaneous fat, when there’s the planet to save and people unintentionally starving all over the place, but there it is: women obsessing about muffin tops and bingo wings are everywhere.

Every mother I know has been on one weird and wonderful food programme or another at some point in her post-childbirth life, because the body she once inhabited has been replaced by something two dress-sizes larger and covered in a saggy outer shell of loose skin. This is fine if you live alone, or perhaps with a cat or a cactus collection, but when you are eating together as a family, any peculiar eating habits come sharply under the spotlight, because everyone can see what you are, or aren’t, eating. Most children need a lot of food to keep them going through all their tree-climbing, growing, brain-using and sibling-bashing, so ‘family food’ needs to be wholesome, healthy and full of energy. When you are trying to shift a pound or two, or are about to go to a Legs, Bums and Tums class at the gym, sitting down to a two-course, filling meal isn’t really what you want to do. So you don’t.

This is where the ‘Why isn’t Mummy eating?’ question arises, and it’s a very tricky one to field. Do you say: ‘Well, darling, it’s because when Mummy sits in the bath and looks at her enormous wobbly thighs and her Michelin Man tummy, she feels like a beached whale and wants to drown herself’, or do you plump for something more heartfelt, like: ‘Because I’m fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! Now eat your dinner!’

All joking aside for a moment, the way you handle your own food fads and body issues is critical when you have kids, because the last thing you want to do is introduce the body issue before they discover it for themselves in the school changing room. What I do, if I’m just having vegetables while everyone else is tucking into the accompanying shepherds pie followed by bread pudding, is to be very logical and casual about it, and move the conversation on. Explanations that work include:

I tasted a lot as I cooked, so I’m not very hungry any more.

I had a very big lunch so I just want a small dinner. (Liar!)

I’ve been sitting at my desk all day but you’ve been running about for hours and are growing like a sunflower, so you need much more than me!

I’m going to meet a friend for dinner later. (Double liar!)

There are lots of other things you can say, which may also be true by the way, and my kids always accept any of these perfectly rational explanations very happily. I have the double problem that my husband is six foot five and can eat more food than anyone I’ve ever met without gaining an ounce, so there is a stark difference between what he consumes and what I do. This often leads to, ‘But Daddy isn’t growing either, and he eats lots’. This is easily explained by my replying, ‘Yes, but Daddy’s about three times bigger than me, and if I ate that much I would explode!’ Lots of laughter and satisfaction all round, and we move on.