Gina

Stop worrying about whether or not you are fat. You are, and Bella, it is okay, no matter what Ma or Nana or Seventeen magazine says. You will be a range of different sizes in your life, and all of them are beautiful.

Just because your family was not on welfare does not mean you grew up with enough or with a safety net. Just because your family is doing okay financially now does not mean that things were good when you were a kid (they weren’t). It does not mean that the bottom won’t fall out of the middle-class dream your family has finally achieved (because the bottom will fall out, in an almost Shakespearian, tragicomic way). There are reasons why you search through every hippie Xmas free pile on your college campus, why you always take home leftovers, why you always pick up change off the street, why you hold on to clothes and shoes and blankets and towels and Tupperware containers even when they are ill-fitting and threadbare and broken and mismatched. There are reasons why you cut the mold off of cheese that is 80% mold and 20% cheese and eat the 20% that is cheese even though it tastes kinda funny instead of just throwing it away. When you are older, you will understand that “working-class” is not just one thing. The ghosts of poverty and uncertainty, the ghosts of shakeyness and instability, they will always follow you around. The trick is learning how to appreciate the lessons these ghosts have taught you, and to banish the doubt they try to plant in you.

Turns out this article is about a sex worker who’s had her “obese” “unhygenic” daughter removed from her. Nothing triggered this article. It was written just to demonstrate how “prostitutes” make fucked up, unfit mothers who let their kids get fat and obviously don’t know how to raise proper little middle class white girls who eat “healthy” and play sports.

There is mention that the woman exposed her daughter to “inappropriate sexual issues”. What the fuck does that mean? That the daughter knew she worked? That mom didn’t enforce middle-class white norms around sexuality?

There is reference to the mom possibly having mental health issues. Y’know what? I’m the daughter of a single mom and a fuck of alot of them have mental health issues because it’s BRUTALLY HARD TO BE A SINGLE MOM. Instead of punishing mothers for failing to be perfectly happy robo-women, how about providing support and self-determination so they don’t drown? And by support, I’m talking decent wages, culturally appropriate childcare, educational opportunities and respect. And as for sex working moms? DECRIMINALIZE AND DESTIGMATIZE.

But mostly the author delights in sharing how the girl had “turned her life around” with, among other things, a “less sedentary lifestyle” and substantial weight loss. Wow. I feel confident that this removal would not have happened if the child had been a boy because a girl child is much more likely to be seen as emotionally unwell due to fatness. This is specifically the policing and punishment of working class femininity–both the mom’s and the daughter’s.