Kids are mean. Hands down, they can be the biggest punks. And as a nanny I can say that because I usually get the short end of that stick first hand. Let me just share with you some of my favorite questions I've gotten from kids I've watched:
"Why do you have three stomachs?"
"You know you're fat, right?"
"Why are you so big? My mom and dad are small, you're big."
"Do you have a baby in there? My mom does, she looks like you."
These types of comments are nothing new to me. I've experienced this type of outcast since grade school. My love for food started at a young age, so I was always heavier then my classmates. And to add to that, my two brothers and I always towered over kids in our grade growing up. It's no surprise that I'm the shortest of us three standing tall at 5'11". In elementary school I was picked on a lot, but mostly from afar, I mean lets be real, who's going to mess with a 1st grader that stands 5 feet tall. No one. So I would constantly hear kids yell at me, you're fat or hear the whispers when they would walk by with caution. But one of the meanest thing I ever experienced was a group of boys yelling as my friends and I chased them, "LOOK OUT....ITS GODZILLA!!!" As a child, it was one of thee most devastating things to hear that, I felt like an animal. And as a kid, I didn't know how to work through those emotions, so I ate, and ate, and ate. And with excessive eating, I would only become angry, mean, and grumpy. I was a punk for quiet some years, but I'll talk about that later.
Anyway, although I am not a parent, I do make an effort to always encourage the kids I work with to love the skin their in. We live in a society where the media is always telling us ways we can change ourselves to look prettier, or procedures to get skinnier faster. We need to start embracing our perfect imperfections, and realize that's what makes us who we are. Live in your skin. Conquer today. The world is waiting for you.
-Allison Rose
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