Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thanks Mum!

I spend a lot of time complaining about all the bad things that come with being fat and the people who have been unkind and downright nasty because of my size. Something I forget to mention is that I have had one person my whole life who has been nothing but supportive of me. My mum.

Something my mum has always understood is the importance of clothes in a girls life. When I was a young, the school uniform shops didn't make any uniforms in bigger sizes and so my mum got a seamstress to carefully copy the school uniform so as you couldn't tell it wasn't bought from the uniform shop. Despite the fact we were very poor when I was growing up, she would scour the shops to find 'cool' clothes in my size for school discos so that I would fit in with the other kids. Then for my high school graduation she took me to the one plus size shop in Melbourne at the time and bought me a gorgeous skirt and top that she then had her friend alter to make it trendier and it was probably the first time in my high school life that I felt good about myself.

In more recent times she noticed my weight gain and quietly went about making me a number of dresses to wear in Hawaii, a dress for my friend's wedding and a dress for the Melbourne Cup. She didn't ever mention the fact that I had put on weight and had nothing to fit me, she just made them and casually said that I might find somewhere to wear them. She doesn't have much money, yet she has spent all her spare money on material and patterns at Spotlight to make clothes for me. She doesn't even really know how to sew, she just decided to follow the directions and see what she could do.

It wasn't only clothes, she always fought for me and my right not to be humiliated because of my weight. When we used to take swimming lessons at school and I couldn't pull myself up out of the pool like the other kids, my mum quietly asked the swim teacher to have my lessons close by the pool ladder. During bike education some of the safety vests were too small for me so my mum asked the instructor to hold aside a larger one for me each lesson. During the hellish years of PE at school my mum would blast my PE teachers when they made us weigh ourselves in front of everyone or when they would scream at me for being 'fat and slow'. Once I was so desperate to get out of a school cross country race that my mum organised for me and her to go to Melbourne for the day and go shopping so that I didn't have to go through yet another humiliating school sporting event.

Unlike a lot of people in my life, she has never made me feel bad or like I deserve less because I am overweight. She has never acted like any of my concerns about fitting in at school or wearing nice clothes were frivolous. There are just too many examples of how she has helped me to even mention them all here and right now my head is swarmed with funny memories of my mum doing crazy things to help me out. I honestly don't know what I would do without her.

19 comments:

  1. Hey!

    Your mum sounds like mine!! she would often spend huge amounts of money on what ever i wanted!!!!! this week i have started a shake diet i need to get my arse moving again!!!!

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  2. Absolutely wonderful post. My mum has been awesome like that as well. She doesn't understand all the time, but she tries. She just wants me to be happy.

    Mums are awesome :)

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  3. what an uplifting post. you should print this post out and give it to your mum.

    she'd love it.

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  4. Wow, what a great mum. And how lucky to have a mum that not only supports you but knows how to sew :D

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  5. Oh my goodness your Mum sounds absolutely amazing - that is so lovely. I hope I can be a supportive and caring Mum like that to my kids, not just about their weight but about anything that can help them feel good about themselves.

    The clothes she made for you are beautiful - I LOVED your melbourne cup dress.

    Can I adopt her?

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  6. She sounds great and I'm sure she'll appreciate this post.

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  7. What a wonderful woman your mother is! You are so lucky to have her. My Mum is the exact opposite...when I was bigger she was always going on about my weight, offering to buy me diet programs for my birthday, etc. Now that I run she seems bewildered as to why I don't win the races I go in. I just hope that when I have a child I can be more like your mother because it is caring, kind women like this that SHOULD have children.

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  8. What a wonderful mum you have! Please, please make sure you let her know how much she means to you!

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  9. What a beautiful post Tully! Your mum sounds wonderful and I hope my children feel like this about me when they are a little older.

    Must stop being grumpy NOW!! Hehe, seriously though, all mums and dads should be like your mum. I feel such hurt when my kids are hurting.

    Im off to ring my mum now!

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  10. Awwww Your Mum sounds like a total Darling! Wanna share her? My mum is very judgemental and critical of my weight.

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  11. Awesome post! You have a great mother.

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  12. Ahhhhh so that is where you got that fabulous Melbourne Cup number!! Clever Mum!

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  13. You are so lucky to have a mum like that.

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  14. This made me teary .... I am that sort of mum. My eldest is larger than the others at school too. She is not massive but noticably taller, broader and thicker than the others. I have gone through school and was teased badly and I never wanted my kids to go through that. EVER.
    Over the last school holidays I spent a massive amount of time and money just to make sure Talija had a cupboard full of cool, trendy size smart clothes ..... I hope she will appreciate me like you do your mummy!!

    Great post .... close to home :(

    Oh and well done to your mum on her sewing skills...... she did really well!!!!

    xoxo

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  15. I really hope that I am that sort of mum to my daughter. She is not hugely overweight at all but a few girls have teased her about her sz and I'm sure she feels she is huge, when really she is perfectly fine, its just that the girls that teased her were VERY skinny. (not an ounce of meat on them).

    My daughter loves swimming and netball but HATES cross country as she is not a great (or natural born) runner. She has also been teased for coming in near last and I decided then and there that cross country days were not going to become something she later had awful memories of. We both take the day off and go and have some fun. She is very clever, especially with maths and english so I think a few kids have picked out her weakness and target in on it as she leaves them for dust academically. lol

    I know a few parents would probably say let them take the teasing as they need a few knocks in life to toughen them up, but there is NO WAY on this earth that I support this view as I feel that kids are cruel enough to each other (at times) so she certainly doesn't need to develop a complex about her appearance at her young age. (she had started coming home with her lunch uneaten and didn't want to eat much, so I believe I saw the early indications of an eating disorder and she was only 8)

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  16. Awwwww how lucky can a girl get? :-)

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  17. Beautiful Post Tully, hold on to those memories & in time the awful ones will fade leaving only these good ones in their place. xoxo

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Awww thanks so much for the comment!