Post baby body. Where did this stupid phrase come from? Implying that women should care about what their body looks like when they just went through a huge transformation and are coping with some of the biggest challenges of their lives, emotionally, mentally and physically.

Just stop it already. After I had my first daughter, even though I didn’t gain a lot of weight, it took me about a year to go back to how I looked before. After giving birth, everything was soft and loose and yes, I had wobbly bits too.

I couldn’t have possibly cared less. I had a newborn, I was nursing her, and my body was very different, but I expected it to be very different. Toned and lean and muscular? That was very nice pre babies, and it’s very nice now that the kids are 8 and 10 and I have more time for myself and can work out every day.

But during that first year, I wore stretch pants and loose tops and I was beautiful and glowing because I was not starving myself in a ridiculous attempt to lose weight fast. I was eating right and taking walks and not stressing over unimportant things such as losing 40 pounds in 7 days, which is apparently what OK! magazine thinks is normal since they photoshopped Kourtney Kardashian to make it appear as if she had done just that:

Kardashian disclosed the fact that she was airbrushed which was quite admirable. How important for all those new moms looking at such a cover and admonishing themselves for still being overweight a few months after giving birth, when it is absolutely, perfectly, normal.

In my dream world, the phrase “post baby body” would cease to exist.

–
Links of interest:

Supermodel Mom Gisele Didn’t Have to Wear Maternity Clothes – where the pressure moves from “post-baby body” to “during-baby body.” Awesome.

Please Don’t Retouch Me – where portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders explains that “I’m not unsympathetic. There’s a lot of pressure out there. We all want to be attractive and admired. What I object to is the excess, the shameless retouching, the body sculpting performed by so many magazines, and the dangerous message it sends.”

Loved this comment:

“Why is it they turn something beautiful and meaningful into sick crap?” By Life Coach Tess of “The Bold Life.”

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Post Baby Body: Stop it Already!

This is a short post. It’s not really a blog post I guess, but a photo essay followed by a multiple choice test.

The topic of showing cleavage came up when I was watching the Golden Globes, where many of the actresses were showing serious cleavage, and Mariah Carey especially showed so much cleavage that it was difficult to concentrate on anything other than her big, shiny boobs.

Over dinner with friends the following night, the discussion heated up when a few of us felt that showing cleavage was unnecessary and tacky, others felt that it was completely legit (the “if you’ve got it flaunt it” school of thought) and yet others were fairly neutral, saying that showing cleavage can be either tasteful and elegant (if you’re not showing too much and if you’re not too old and wrinkly), or it could be disastrous (if half your boobs are out there and/ or if you’re decolletage has known better days).

A few photos to give you a general idea of how regular, non-celebrity women are choosing to show cleavage:

Photo by Michael Lehet

Photo by brianschulman

Photo by streetguy

And now to the test. It has a single question and six possible answers.

Question:
How do you feel about showing cleavage?

Answers:
a. It’s a fashion Don’t, of course. Showing cleavage is always slutty, tacky and totally unnecessary.
b. It depends. If you’re fairly young and you don’t show too much, it can look great.
c. Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it! And anyone that says otherwise is simply jealous.
d. You call yourself a feminist? Breasts are perfectly natural. There’s no reason to hide them or to fuss about them.
e. Definitely a faux pas. Showing boobs is not a feminist act but rather a cheap attempt at using one’s body for getting male attention.
f. It’s fine, except for the office. I don’t want to see anyone’s cleavage/ chest, regardless of their gender and of how fabulous they look, when I’m trying to get work done.

How do YOU feel about showing cleavage?

Loved this Comment: “What does it say about our society that in order to be taken seriously (particularly at work), women have to pretend they don’t have breasts and keep them covered (but not TOO covered because then they’d be prudes and look unfashionable) according to arbitrary dress rules that were set in place by people without breasts at all (men)?” Noble Savage

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Thoughts On The Very Important Subject Of Showing Cleavage

“High heels are sexy,” explains my friend D. “They elongate my legs. They make my ankles appear thinner. They give me confidence!”

I look at her incredulously. It’s not that I’m not familiar with the idea that high heels are sexy. Of course I am. We all are. It’s not even that I’ve never worn a pair of high heels, or that I don’t own several pairs of them. In fact, I have this pair of gorgeous 4-inch heels that I often insist on wearing when I go out at night. But the older I get, the more I rebel against the very idea that women’s shoes designers and manufacturers think it’s OK to design and sell shoes that cause serious damage to women’s bodies.

Shoes are supposed to make walking an easier, safer experience than walking barefoot, correct? That’s the entire idea behind wearing shoes. And yet, millions of women are buying into the ridiculous idea that shoes that make walking very difficult, shoes that can – and often do – cause a range of ailments and injuries – are sexy and desirable.

I guess the reasoning behind wearing high heels is, “if it makes me look good, I don’t care how limiting, unsafe and unhealthy it is.”

Regularly wearing high heels can cause a long list of not-so-sexy side effects, including blisters, corns, calluses, bunions (Victoria Beckham reportedly now needs surgery to remove those), lower back pain, knee damage, chronic sharp pains in the ball of the foot, ankle sprains, a painful inflammation of the Achilles tendon at the back of the heel, hammertoes, and the list goes on.

None of these sound very sexy to me.

Of course, just because something is bad for women doesn’t mean women will stop wearing it. There’s a huge pressure on professional women in formal work environments to wear heels to work (ever heard of the concept “power heels?”) which is even worse than wearing heels when you go out at night, since wearing them to work day after day, for several hours each day, really adds up in terms of the damage caused to the wearer.

A survey conducted by the American Podiatric Medical Association showed that 42% of women admitted they’d wear a shoe they liked even if it caused them discomfort. 73% admitted to already having a shoe-related foot issue. It looks like very few women are brave enough, and smart enough, to choose a pain-free existence.

I find it incredibly sad that instead of voting with our wallets and refusing to buy 8-inch (EIGHT inch!) high heels, we are opting for crazy treatments such as collagen feet fillers to pad our feet and make wearing crazy high heels less painful.

High Heels Sexy? I don’t get it. To me, you just look stupid when you can’t walk.

Loved this comment: “In the morning on the way to work I’m accompanied by a whole herd of clop-clopping young women on stilty heels. The older I get, the more style just seems to be another word for herd instinct.” Dot, Deeper Issues.

The High heels in the photo are featured at Zappos.com. They are by Dolce & Gabbana and will set you back $1248 should you decide to buy them.

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High Heels Sexy?

You can tell from my blog, I think.

I hate clutter more than anything. I certainly hate clutter more than I love buying stuff.

Which makes the entire dilemma very easy for me: yes, I live in a consumerist society. I am surrounded by media and advertising messages that promise me the world if only I buy their product, whether it’s a wrinkle cream, a shampoo, or a new mattress.

I prefer not to buy their stuff. I used to enjoy shopping. But over the years I came to realize that shopping results in stuff, and that stuff takes place and creates clutter, and that clutter upsets me. So I would buy things, but then after a few months I would donate them, because they were cluttering my house.

So I stopped buying things.

I make a real effort these days to only buy things that I really need. Of course, “need” is often “want,” and even if it’s a real “need,” it’s still a need that reflects American standards of living. So I could probably get rid of at least half of what I own, and I would still have a lot.

Still, by those same American standards, my house is clutter free. I like it this way, because clutter stresses me out while a clean, clutter-free house calms me down. My cleaning person loves it too, because it makes cleaning the house a breeze.

Almost every visitor to our house comments on two things: the modern design and the lack of clutter. They all want advice on how to maintain a clutter free house, especially in a household with kids. Here’s what I tell them.

Six Tips For Creating A Clutter-Free Home

1. Don’t buy things unless you need them. Once you stop the habit of recreational shopping, half the problem is gone.

2. Everything has its designated place. Look at the kids’ playroom: it’s certainly the room in our house that contains the most stuff relative to its size, but everything there has its place. They have cubbies and baskets and containers and bulletin boards to hold everything, and once in a while we go over their things and decide what needs to be tossed and what can be donated.

3. I straighten up the house every day, several times each day. I don’t wait for clutter to build up – as I walk through the house, if I see something out of its normal place, I immediately put it back where it belongs.

4. We never just put stuff on surfaces. The kitchen counter is clutter free, because there’s no reason to put anything there – everything has its designated place, including drawers and cupboards and a basket for mail.

The dining table is clutter free, because there’s absolutely no need to put items on it when everything in the house has its place.

5. I donate stuff twice a year. I use the “2-year” rule, which says that if you haven’t worn or used an item for two years, you must get rid of it. I apply this rule to everything – even pots and pans – not just to clothes.

6. I never store anything in the garage long-term, and certainly not at a rented storage space. If you can allow something to sit at a remote storage space, then you don’t need it. Stop wasting your money on storage and donate or sell it. As for the garage, it has the 2-year rule as well. So yes, my garage is clutter-free too, although it’s certainly more cluttered than the main house.

My house is clutter-free, but it’s not completely bare. That would be boring! I do have art on the walls, and a few items that I love as decorations.

The reading area has a small table that holds a few beloved items:

And I really like the large bowl on my dining room table:

Since the table is otherwise clutter-free, the bowl stands out even more.

–
In the interest of full disclosure:Yes, I straightened up the house right before taking these photos.

Loved this Comment: “These tips would work great for me if I lived alone and didn’t have the clutter nutters running around. Socks? Under the kitchen table. Husband’s mail? On the kitchen counter. Sneakers? You never know where they’ll turn up. Phone chargers, tv remotes, flyers from school, jackets cast aside, beloved Lego crafts . . . well you get the picture!” Lawyer Mom.

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Clutter Free Home: Six Useful Tips

Even when taking into account this was no more than a sleazy publicity stunt, which of course worked beautifully, the very concept of sites that help members surround themselves with “good looking people” and weed out “unattractive” people from their life is fascinating.

The obvious criticism is that these are shallow people who focus on the wrong thing – on short-term physical beauty instead of on the person as a whole. But I think it’s more than that.

Who exactly decides what “attractive” is? I had a wonderful friend, who unfortunately died of cancer at a very young age (before she turned 40). She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense of the word, but she had the most amazing, lively, energetic personality and huge dark eyes. When I met her for the first time, I thought she was rather ordinary-looking, but years later, after I got to know her, I remember looking at her as she was sitting across from me talking, and becoming mesmerized by those huge, expressive, thoughtful eyes, thinking to myself she must be the most beautiful person on this planet.

Was she beautiful? would she be accepted to one of those dating sites? Likely not. But was her husband and we, her friends, incredibly lucky to have her in our lives? Of course we were. She was a beautiful person and a loyal friend. I miss her terribly.

Beauty is not just about a person’s looks or their measurements. We all have stories of people whom we considered as “plain” until we got to know them and realized they were incredibly beautiful. Anyone who intentionally limits their choice of dates or relationships to physically beautiful people deserves all the humiliation they can get.

Loved this Comment: “How sad does your life have to be that this club would be something to aspire to?” Jannie Funster

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Fat People Not Welcome

Some of the best, or most high-traffic posts, that were published on this blog during the past 12 months.

1. Butt Writing. When it comes to ridiculous fashion trends, nothing beats the trend of prancing around with words such as “Juicy” and “Dig It” prominently displayed on one’s behind.

2. Children’s Self Esteem. Despite continued controversy on whether parents have much influence over their child’s self esteem (except for extreme cases of neglect of course), I still feel that part of my job as a parent is to show my kids the respect that would help them to respect themselves.

3. Women and Body Image: Ten Disturbing Facts. This post, a simple collection of facts about women and body image, exploded in terms of social media traffic. The Internet is a weird place.

4. Pita Bread Recipe. Generally, I only publish recipes on this blog after I have tweaked them and changed them and brought them to perfection. This pita bread recipe is one of those perfect, no-fail recipes. I’m really proud of it.

5. The Value of Social Networking. I wrote this post after seeing too many “I just used X tool to get 3000 new Twitter followers overnight!” I sometimes can’t believe how stupid people can be and how easy it is for us to fall for meaningless number games.

6. Activities for Kids. I like this post because I wrote it with the help of my kids; because we then printed it out and posted it in their play room; and because they actually refer to it whenever they feel bored.

7. In Defense of Plastic Surgery. A guest post by my beloved, real-life friend Dan Miller, who writes Artiphys, this post didn’t get much attention, but is actually one of my favorite posts. It raises some important questions about age acceptance and whether we should strive to accept aging, or see it as a disease and try to fight back, medically and cosmetically, as hard as we can.

8. Lizzie Miller in Glamour Magazine. Ghostwriter Sean Platt emailed me the story, and I responded with “I don’t know, it’s an old story, maybe I’ll cover it, maybe I won’t” then felt compelled to write about it, and wrote what turned out to be my highest-traffic post for 2009, at least in terms of Google traffic. I’ll never say that magazines need to show “real,” curvy women because I’m slender yet quite real, but I do wish that showing women of all shapes, sizes, races and ages will someday become mainstream.

9. Karl Lagerfeld Attacks “Fat Mommies” . I think it’s up to us women to stop looking up to the old-generation fashion icons. They obviously hate women and have very distorted ideas of how women should look and act. If we saw these men for what they really are, we wouldn’t accept their beauty “ideals” as our own ideals.

10. Twitter Privacy. I was surprised that Penelope Trunk responded to this post. I didn’t write it as a bait – I don’t think I even used her name in the post. I think the issue of social media boundaries is important and one that we need to keep discussing. I also agree with some of the comments that said this is probably a generational thing – the older you are, the less inclined you are to share on the Internet. The younger you are, the more comfortable you are with the medium.

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MomGrind: Best of 2009

Did you know that the top New Year’s resolution for most people in the U.S, year after year, is “lose weight?”

Some people make New Year’s resolutions, other laugh at them. If you search online, you can find lots of jokes about New Year’s resolutions. But I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making them.

Critics say they’re empty and useless – that most people make them, but never follow through, which ultimately makes them feel even worse than before.

I disagree. I think that New Year’s resolutions CAN be useless and often are. I also think that when New Year’s resolutions are done in a meaningful way, they can be a wonderful self-improvement tool.

To make New Year’s resolutions that stick, I usually try to make just one resolution each year, then break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks, and follow up every couple of months to see how I’m doing. So, if my goal is to complain less, I might start with “limit my nagging and complaining to no more than once a day,” then once I accomplish that goal, move on to the next of, say, whining just once a week! (My husband must be feeling hopeful right now).

Back to the most popular New Year’s resolution of losing weight. Of course people don’t stick with it! It’s far too vague. By breaking it down into smaller chunks and focusing on just this resolution instead of on five others, you stand a much better chance of accomplishing your goal.

You could start by specifying how much exactly you want to lose (2 pounds per month or 24 pounds in 2010); decide on specific monthly goals such as limiting your soda intake or taking the stairs at work. Whatever you do, by breaking it down and focusing on just this one goal, you’re seriously increasing your chances of making it a reality.

I’m not a self-development expert and usually stay away from self-help-type posts. But this is something that has worked for me over the past few years. I hope it will work for you too.

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Do you keep them?

Comment of the Day: “I think the key to sticky resolutions is having a compelling ‘why’ and an effective ‘how’ to go along with the ‘what.’” J.D. Meier, Sources of Insight.

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Do You Make New Year’s Resolutions?

A mother tweets about her toddler drowning in their home’s pool, less than 30 minutes after she calls 911.

Mothers live-tweeting their birth.

Celebrity couples flirting with each other via Twitter.

A man tweets as he (supposedly) sits on the toilet.

Where do we place the limits? How much is too much? While the two first examples of tweets resulted in serious criticism and uproar, the next two are considered fairly acceptable, and the last tweet is -well – just plain ridiculous.

Do you use Twitter? How do you feel about Twitter overexposure? Does it bother you? How much do you share on your own Twitter account, or on any other social media platform?

Comment of the Day: “Here’s a way to think about twitter. It’s actually a very private medium.”
Penelope Trunk

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Twitter: Where Do You Draw The Line of Privacy?

I love peanut butter cookies because they are simple, fairly healthy and of course chewy. I much prefer chewy cookies to crunchy cookies.

My kids love these cookies too, which you may think is not surprising since they are, after all, COOKIES, but you need to know that my kids can sense a “healthy treat” from a mile away, and once they sense it’s not completely junky, they often flatly refuse it.

Not so with these cookies: they love them. I rarely need to store these cookies – between the four of us, we usually polish them off on the day I make them. This recipe makes about 20 cookies, so if you need more, double the amounts.

Ingredients:

1 + 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 large egg
1/2 TBS vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking powder , baking soda, and salt.

Beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and continue beating until fluffy.

Beat in the peanut butter, the egg, and the vanilla.

Mix the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture until well incorporated. Peanut butter cookie dough will be a bit crumbly:

(Now comes the fun part, especially for the kids.) Roll the dough in your hands into 2-inch balls.

Each ball contains about 2 TBS of mixture – you can measure them if you’d like.

Place the dough balls on the baking sheet, about 2 inches apart, and flatten them gently with a fork, making a crisscross design:

This is what the shaped cookies look like:

Bake for about 10 minutes. To make sure they are chewy, the cookies’ edges should be slightly browned, but the top should not look completely baked. That’s OK: we want to let them finish baking outside of the oven.

After removing from the oven, allow cookies to remain on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

I’m sure you won’t be shocked if I tell you that these cookies go incredibly well with a cold glass of milk.

As I said, peanut butter cookies don’t usually last longer than a day at our house, and they do taste best on the first day, but if you do need to store them, they keep for 2-3 days in a well-sealed plastic container.

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Peanut Butter Cookies

The dip may look obnoxious (how did they make it so FIRM?):

The idea that foil can beautify one’s home is hilarious:

Serving Spam Spread as a holiday delicacy is wrong on so many levels:

And no one in their right mind would use this sentence today: “16 colorful pages with new ideas for a gay holiday brunch”:

But as always when looking at the past, it all looks so naive, innocent and sweet.

Photos were uploaded to Flickr under the Creative Commons license by Uh.. Bob. Thank you!

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Holidays in the 60s: Spam Spread, Foil and Scary Dips