Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Girls

I look at my cousin’s girls and pray they never hate their bodies. I watch them in a wonderment that mirrors their own, a twinge of nostalgia hanging on for dear life.

‘I was like that once,’ I think to myself. And then I pray.

I pray that they never stand on a scale in desperation, hoping the number is a different one than yesterday, because when the majority of girls wish their bodies looked differently it’s something you think about. You think about the pain and the punishment you put your body through in the name of beauty, and for what? The people who matter don’t care in the end. You don’t care in the end.

I pray that they never know the kind of heartache that can’t be fixed with ice cream and a rom-com, because that kind breaks you into pieces you didn’t know existed and you think about how many times you screamed for help and no one could hear you. No one deserves that in the end.

I pray that they never feel they have to shrink themselves smaller for a man, because a powerful woman is too much, intimidating, and a powerful man is just powerful and you think about how much you’ve had to fight for yourself, for every woman. It isn’t a fair fight in the end.

None of it is fair. Why does it feel inevitable?

I look at them and I pray they never hate their bodies.

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