One Size Fits All

[rolanni]

As advertised elsewhere, yesterday we journeyed to the great city of Augusta and there committed Shopping. While I didn't buy any clothes myself yesterday, I tried on jeans -- between size 12 and 14, depending on the cut -- and found myself in the dressing room next door to one where a maybe-15-year-old girl and her mom were undertaking the exercise in futility of trying to see the child appropriately clothed according to two sets of vastly different criteria.

"Those are too tight," I hear mom say. "What size are they?"

"Three," the kid answers shortly.

"Well, I'll go out and get you a size five," mom says, whereupon the kid immediately hits orbit.

"Five!" she wails. "Moooom! I don't wear a five! Five! My God! Bring me a four. A four will be fine."

"They don't have fours here, honey," mom says with more patience than I was feeling, and I was only an eavesdropper.

"They have to have fours," the kid insists. "They have fours at the Gap."

"The Gap..." mom starts, then lets it go and just repeats, "I'll go get you a five, sweetie. Back in a minute." Whereupon she beats a retreat, and the kid is left to fume audibly about size five and her mother thought she was fat and she did too wear a four and this wouldn't have happened if only they had gone to the Gap.

Shaking my head, I decided that I wasn't going to pay thirty dollars for acid-washed jeans with short pockets and left the scene before mom got back with the fat-girl clothes.

Fast-forward to this morning and the gym. Someone has gotten the bright idea of putting up testimonials from women who have lost a lot of weight, as an inspiration to the rest of us. I usually don't read them, but today there was one right in front of my nose as I was doing my stretches, and I read it before I remembered not to.

Seems the lady testifying had lost sixty pounds since late 2002. Her testimony starts off with, "When my husband bought me a pair of size 14 pants, I knew I had to do something." She goes on to reveal that she had weighed 153 pounds and provides a picture to prove it, along with a second picture of her new, thin self. The testimony doesn't mention how tall she is -- I'm guessing it must be in the five-three range.

Now, this lady had accomplished something that's very difficult to do and she's justly proud of herself. I don't at all want to denigrate her victory, here. But I do feel, just a bit, worried. The message of the testimony appears to be that a weight of 153 pounds is wrong of itself.

Sorta like those size 5 jeans.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I've realized over the years that obsessing about their appearance is kind of hardwired into many girls--and reviling against it is just to give them yet more mixed signals.

So I don't. But I do let my sixth graders know, when the subject comes up, that boys never ask what size dress or jeans a girl wears--only other girls do, and only in competition. I point out that boys like girls with real figures, not all bony and stick-like.