Swimming with Chickens

Last week, my blog post came on the heels of a very exhausting road trip with my family. It made for fuzzy writing I'm afraid. My dear husband pointed out a few grammatical errors. If you know me at all, you know that nothing dampens my mood quite like making a grammatical error. And if you know my husband at all, you know that having him (the guy who can calculate percentages in his head in five seconds but cannot master proper comma usage) be the one to discover it makes it all the greater the shame. Need less to say, I was eager to make up for it with a stellar, thought-provoking picture of writing perfection. And then I got a stomach virus. So please do forgive me if this week's post is a little gut wrenching.

My intestinal non-fortitude not withstanding, I was really excited to write about this week's topic, "Modesty, Swimwear and Body Image". Do me a favour. Try, just try, to come up with three words that are more conflicting and stick them in a phrase. Go ahead. Try it.

Have you ever seen those crazy chicken fights where two roosters just get stuck in a pen? They essentially attack each other, feathers fly, blood is shed and somewhere, some poor mother chicken wonders where she went wrong. That is how I feel about "modesty", "swimwear" and "body image" being put together. It's like a chicken fight. Because today, in our society, those words don't agree. They don't get along. They peck and scratch and tear each other's feathers out.

Forming a solid opinion on these words is like trying to balance a spoon on your nose while standing on a water-bed. I'm sure it's possible but not without a great deal of effort. With varying schools of thought and a large, healthy portion of societal influence, it's daunting to say the least.

I love society. It does such a great job of making things complicated. Everything is a debate and everything is contradictory. We all want to feel like we control our bodies and we control what's on them...as long as what we are doing fits within the confines of what is acceptable in the mainstream.

If you are a teenager, you should wear a bikini. This is what is done. This is what they do in magazines, and everyone knows that magazines are a mirror image of reality. One pieces are not sexy. They are not appealing. If you wear one, you will never get a date, a job, a home or a life.

If you are in college, you should wear as much, or as little, as you want without consideration to what impact this has on the world around you. It's all about you. It's all about what makes you happy. If a fifteen-year-old boy should happen to pass and become aroused by your lack of coverage, he must be a filthy- minded heathen. If an elderly woman glances at you a bit disapprovingly, she is an old prude. If an eleven-year-old girl looks at you and thinks that she needs to dress that way in order to be successful and beautiful, she should be allowed to do so, because it's her body. At this stage of life, your only responsibility is to yourself. Isn't that what life is all about?

When you have children, you can still wear a bikini...if you have to. But please, for pete's sake, do not breastfeed your baby in public. That's disgusting. And oh, those stretch marks are pretty unsightly, would you mind putting a tank top on over that bikini? You have what? Varicose veins?!? Seriously woman, please put on some shorts. The women in magazines do not have vericose veins and you have a duty to cover up because we might be offended by what we see. It's not like you're single any more ya know.

If you're an elderly woman, just wear a dress. You don't really have to get in the water do you? Shouldn't you be sitting under an umbrella somewhere?

No wonder I despise shopping for swimwear.

With society's ever present opinion plastered on the cover of every magazine, movie poster and television commercial, is it any wonder that studies report that 97% of women will have at least one "I hate my body" moment every day?

Confession: I am one of the 97%. I have those moments. Not a lot of them, but still. They happen and they're painful. I do not look like a girl in a magazine. I have stretch marks, I have varicose veins, my breasts hang below my rib cage on a good day and my stomach bears strong resemblance to a spayed cat pouch. My last few trips to the beach have involved cap-sleeved t-shirts and shorts, for no other reason than because that is what I am comfortable wearing in public.

Society might have me believe that this means that I have an unhealthy body image and low self-esteem. They would tell me that in order to love my body, I have to expose it. In order to not be ashamed of it, I need to parade around in as little as possible with my head held high. I disagree.

I don't always love the way my body looks on the outside, but I do respect it. It allowed me to walk and run and swim and spend countless hours on the back of a horse. It took me to school, to parties, to dances. It walked me through the temple with my husband. It nourished and bore children. It allows me to rock my babies, bandage scraped knees, embrace my husband, drive to soccer practice, teach music every Sunday. I respect my body. I am thankful for my body. I appreciate my body. And because of that, I love my body. I don't need anyone else to see my bare thighs in order to feel that.

I don't cover my body because I'm ashamed of it, I cover it because I respect it. And that respect is not contingent on the approval of society. That respect goes a lot deeper than a bathing suit.

As women, wearing a bathing suit can feel like being in a chicken fight. We might feel like we are being attacked, pecked, scratched and de-feathered. We might feel like we need to attack the choices of others to establish a comfort level with our own personal choices. We might think we need to dress to send a message, make a statement or conform to what is acceptable in the eye of the public.

But what if we could step back from the fight and realize that we don't actually need to do that? What if we focused more on the purposes our bodies fulfil, instead of how they stack up to the latest catalogue model? What if we could celebrate the virtues of a healthy body rather than constantly berate it for its flaws? Would we still be so concerned with what we wear to the beach?

What if covering our bodies was not seen as a sure indicator of immaturity but rather and acceptance of the reality that our bodies are made for more than bathing suits? What if young girls knew that their potential for positive influence in this world is not contingent on exposing their midriffs? Would our choices be less agonizing if we were content with our bodies and grateful for the rolls they fill?

I am thankful for the body I have been given. I appreciate my angel mother for her sacrifice to create that body. I hope that my daughter will feel that way. I hope that she will treasure her body and respect it and love it, no matter what shape it takes, what tint it has, or what flaws may come its way. I worked hard to give it to her.

At the end of the day, I hope she will be able to say, "I am who I am and that bathing suit is darn lucky to have me."