Departments Article

Loco Parentis: Living Large

By Sandy Hingston

Page 3 of 5

“Doesn’t Coach ever worry that you guys are eating too much?” I asked.

Jake gave me a withering look. “When you work as hard as we do, you have to stoke the engine.” Food as fuel: It was the connection I’d always wanted my kids to make. But sometimes I suspected Jake took up football just for the excuse it gave him to cram in calories.

It could be I was jealous, though.  


WHEN I LOOK at my son, at his huge head and enormous arms, I can’t help wondering: If he quits football, what will happen to all that him? To his neck, which has acquired those signature lineman ripples? To his broad barrel chest? I ask my husband Doug, who’s built like a whippet and works out like a madman.

“It will turn to fat,” he tells me.

“But it’s muscle now?”

“It’s muscle now.”

“Do you think he’s … on steroids?”

He shoots me an amused glance. “No. Do you?”

“It’s just that he got so big,” I try to explain.

“That’s what teenage boys do.”

Well, yeah. But teenage girls do, too, some of them, and get slapped down for it in a million different ways. I can still feel the mortification that consumed me when I was in eighth grade and wildly in love with Danny Taylor, and Danny Taylor told me to come around when I lost 20 pounds. Even at 13, he knew what would hurt the most.

Jake doesn’t walk the way a big girl does, with shoulders hunched and neck bent, trying to be invisible. He walks like a jock, with the side-to-side swagger that big athletes share. He doesn’t perch gingerly in unfamiliar chairs, worried they might not hold him, like I do. He doesn’t squash himself in at a table in a restaurant, terrified lest he be perceived as taking up too much room. He slams himself into seats, sprawls across sofas, drapes himself over diner booths, uses his avoirdupois to assert himself: Jake is here. I envy his ease with his size, so unlike my constant shamed self-consciousness. I wonder what it would be like to stride in his size 15 Nikes for a day.


LAST SUMMER, a few months before my dad died, Marcy and I went to visit him. As she settled in beside him on his sofa, he observed, with cruel accuracy, “You look like you’re putting on some weight.” Marcy burst into tears and ran out of the room. I wanted to run as well, from a rush of old memories: Dad tucking a slim sister on either side of me before snapping the picture for our Christmas card. Dad frowning at me at Thanksgiving dinner, scolding “Not so much pie!” in front of everyone. Dad offering to pay me a hundred bucks if I’d just lose 25 pounds … He was a kind man, a good man, but he didn’t understand about girls and size and shame. Though he did realize something was amiss, at least: On our next visit, he confided to me that he’d told a number of female friends about his remark to Marcy, and that every last one of them upbraided him for being a heartless pig. Jake happened to be along on this visit, and Dad took the opportunity to ask him: “So, what do you weigh these days?”

“Three hundred 20,” Jake said.


 

Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next


Change text size
Print

Email

Write a comment
 
 

User comments

And you're a PARENT? You have GOT to be kidding me
Posted by Anonymous | Feb. 29, 2008 at 2:43 PM
COMMENT:
"I was impressed by her self-control — until her hair began to fall out in clumps." This is the problem right here in a nutshell. You want your daughter to be healthy, but she LOOKS BETTER TO YOU SICK?!?!? First of all, lady, you have drunk waaaay too much of the cultural Kool Aid without even thinking about what you're imbibing. Second, if your daughter ends up hating you, you have only yourself to blame. But I can't escape a sneaking feeling that somehow you already know that.
Well...
Posted by Anonymous | Feb. 29, 2008 at 2:47 PM
COMMENT:
"It’s something Marcy never will be able to do." Well, certainly not as long as her mother -- that would be the author -- keeps investing her with her own self-hatred, no. Marcy will never be able to do that.
Difficult psychological truths
Posted by T | Feb. 29, 2008 at 3:10 PM
COMMENT:
In response to the previous poster, there’s a famous feminist saying: “It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.” It seems to fit pretty well here. I think this is a moving article.
you're sick
Posted by Anonymous | Feb. 29, 2008 at 4:50 PM
COMMENT:
I feel bad for your daughter. what on earth is wrong with you? get help.
unbelievable
Posted by Anonymous | Feb. 29, 2008 at 9:02 PM
COMMENT:
"damn she sure looked good when she was thin. except her hair." is this supposed to be breezy humor? it is heartbreaking. if the author recognizes the lasting pain of her father's degrading comments about her own weight, she should have the self-awareness to not victimize her sick daughter. I hope her daughter can rise above her mother's contemptible shallowness masquerading as concern. Recovering from an eating disorder with that lack of support takes so much inner strength. When my sister was strugggling with anorexia my family were not thinking of how great she looked. We were looking into her haunted eyes of someone taken over by self-imposed restrictions and doing anything we could to help her recover and become a vibrant person again. The attitudes of this author are shameful. Therapy is in order here.
I should add
Posted by Anonymous | Feb. 29, 2008 at 9:23 PM
COMMENT:
...that I undertand and agree with the author's observation that there is a double standard saying heavy men are often respected/seen as "real men" while heavy women are subjected to much discrimination. However, people with eating disorders are never happy or fulfilled. The fact that the daughtrer is recovering for eating disorder, even if that means she isn't "kate moss thin" anymore, is a sign that her daughter has a chance to be well-adjusted again. The way to empower ones daughter is not to mirror society's obsession with weight but to focus on other qualities. To tell yourself that the only way your daughter will experience any personal liberation is to sire big-boned male children is regressive and passive. good grief.
I should add
Posted by Anonymous | Feb. 29, 2008 at 9:32 PM
COMMENT:
...that I undertand and agree with the author's observation that there is a double standard saying heavy men are often respected/seen as "real men" while heavy women are subjected to much discrimination. The many t.v. shows/films depicting "slobbish" overweight macho men with tiny, fawning wives is one depiction of that. However, people with eating disorders are never happy or fulfilled. The fact that the daughtrer is recovering for eating disorder, even if that means she isn't "kate moss thin" anymore, is a sign that her daughter has a chance to be well-adjusted again. The way to empower ones daughter is not to mirror society's obsession with weight but to focus on other qualities. To tell yourself that the only way your daughter will experience any personal liberation is to sire big-boned male children is regressive and passive.
my mouth hit the floor
Posted by Anonymous | Mar. 5, 2008 at 9:40 AM
COMMENT:
Yes, there is a double standard for men and women. But as someone in recovery from an eating disorder when I read "but Damn she looked good, except the hair" my mouth hit the floor. No matter how long your daughter has been recovered (and I do hope she is healthy and well) how can you possibly say something like that, knowing what she went through? And hoping that your daughter has an overweight son so she can take pleasure in their size is plain twisted. I know parents don't cause their children's eating disordrs but I wouldn't be surprised if you negatively influenced your daughter's feelings about food and body image. If you haven't already, I'd talk to your daughter about how reading your article made her feel.

Post a comment

(* = required field.)
  • Please check to make sure that your referer is not blocked.


Subject line of your comment*
Your comments (200 words max)*
Email*
First name*
Last Name*
Enter the code shown below.
Visual CAPTCHA
This helps prevent automated form submissions.
Philadelphia It List

Lets Do Cocktails: Recipes

Take a sneak peak into the latest, mouth-watering cocktails that will be featured in Philadelphia's area restaurants this season.
 
 

Whiskey Festival 2009

Join us at the 2009 Whiskey Festival - a tasting event featuring premium whiskeys and spirits from around the world. November 12. 6:30pm. Union League of Philadelphia. $85. Buy Tickets Now.
 
 

Design Home 2009

Philadelphia magazine's Eighth Annual Design Home. Follow our progress and explore the details as they come to life in two magnificent carriage homes at Haverford Reserve. Tours start September 10th.
 
 

6th Annual Trailblazer Award

Do you know an accomplished business woman? Submit your nomination today for Philadelphia magazine's 6th Annual Trailblazer Award! Deadline is November 6.
 
 

FYI Philly

Watch FYI Philly on 6 ABC! Join hosts Karen Rogers and Adam Joseph for all things sizzling and buzzworthy. Each show includes content from the editors of Philly Mag.