Kadiera's Playground Cute but Evil - it averages out

When I was a small child, maybe four or five, I was told by one of my grandmothers (some of you will likely figure out who was the instigator here) that I needed to learn to hold in my tummy, frequently accompanied by a flick of the fingers at my belly button as a reminder that I wasn't holding it in well enough.

This was an important part of being a lady, and would make me look "more presentable" - a code word for all things grandma-approved and not likely to cause the family embarrassement in the community, including not wearing jeans or t-shirts in public, having perfectly done hair all the time (and it had to be a normal color and length), not being fat, and the like. Looking back, I suspect a large number of the things that fell into this category really boiled down to "not like your mother" sorts of things, but that's really a side issue of sorts.

So well reinforced was this idea that even now, I find myself doing just that - holding in those stomach muscles 24/7 without even thinking about it, trying to flatten out my belly, which besides the fact that I was overweight before I got pregnant (and thus could not possibly have a flat stomach), is kind of stupidly ridiculous when I'm 5 months pregnant...and I'm realizing today just how tiring it is to do so all the time, at least right now.

Don't get me wrong - I suspect all the years of this subconscious form of resistance exercise have been good for my abdominal muscles, and that's good for my back and the rest of my body over all.

But mostly, I'm finding myself resenting the fact that something so obviously un-helpful in the realm of self-esteem is now taking up so much energy (both physical and mental)...and that someone close to me planted such an idea in my head.