Why Tho?: Can old people understand that disordered eating is bad?

[petrea_mitchell]

Actual headline: Why Tho? Body shaming grandma is older, but may be capable of hearing a correction, changing her behavior

Dear Lizzy,

I have a wonderful relationship with my generous free-spirited grandmother who I admire for so many reasons, one of them being her adventurous and curious nature. She definitely instilled a passion for travel within me. Which is why it’s so disappointing and difficult that I’m feeling anxiety before an upcoming trip to Mexico with her because of the many negative comments she’s made over the years about my body (and other family members’ bodies, like my mom and sister). Like when I once opened up to her about my bulimia episode as a teenager, she said, “Imagine how skinny you’d be if you were still throwing up!”

I know her perspective is coming from a different generation and likely her own deep-rooted insecurities, but as I get older and more comfortable with my own body, I still struggle to set boundaries with her on the topic.

Vacation Anxiety

Dear Vacation Anxiety,

First, let’s start with acknowledging how much it sucks that your grandma says things about your body that hurt your feelings. It does! You know how I know? It’s happened to me! I imagine it’s happened to a lot of people and it’s never great.

I don’t want to let your grandma off the hook and I don’t want to minimize the harm of her words, but I also want to say this: Both of my biological grandmas are dead and when I think about them, it’s not usually the negative comments about my appearance I remember. It’s more about how I miss them and what it would be like to talk to them about life now. Being a mom. Climate change. Things like that.

All that is to say, when dealing with this issue I think you should start with how lucky you are to have a grandma and one that you clearly love and who loves you. She’s taking you on vacation! Amazing!

Now, she is your grandma but she is also a person you respect. So, as hard as it is to say something vulnerable to your grandma, you should give her the chance to know how her actions are making you feel and change her behavior.

First, don’t assume she will say something hurtful. But if she does, in that moment say, “Grandma, I love you and care what you think and it really hurts my feelings when you talk about my body like that.”

She might get flustered or momentarily defensive, but it is something she needs to hear and, even though she’s older, she’s absolutely capable of hearing it and changing her behavior.

You are right – when someone says something hurtful about you, it’s almost always about them. I think this is a great opportunity to start a conversation with your grandma and learn more about her life and her experience. You could ask her why she is worried about your body. Ask her what pressure she’s felt in her life to look or act a certain way. Actually listen to her.

But what if your grandma isn’t receptive to hearing about your feelings and talking about her experience with her body?

Now you get to decide. You can either avoid this topic with your grandma on vacation and then actively not be around her afterwards or you can decide not to let what she says about your body have any bearing on how you feel about yourself. Hard, yes, but also, doable. You can love someone and let their words roll off your back. You are beautiful (I may not know you but I pretty much think everyone is beautiful) and your body is yours. You get to decide its value, not anyone else.

I miss my grandmas. I miss their perspective on a lot of things and knowing someone well who was born generations before you is like getting to step into a time machine. I feel like that about having a little kid, too. Grandmas inhabited a world with pressures we can’t comprehend, mainly because of the work they did so we wouldn’t have to. Hopefully, our daughters will be adults in a world that’s even better.

The change over our grandmas’ lifetimes and our mothers’ and ours and our daughters’ was, is and will be vast. So we have to give each other some allowances, the chance to change and a little space to be wrong. It’s uncomfortable, but I imagine one day, if we are lucky, we will be the old ladies. And I hope our granddaughters will love and respect us enough to show us how to change.

Good luck! Have a wonderful vacation!

Lizzy

Comments

[r_tt_n]

ngl I struggle to understand how LW can have "a wonderful relationship" with her grandma in these circumstances. My grandparents used to make negative comments about my body when I was a kid and my opinions and feelings towards them are... rather unkind, to put it some way. And none of the things they ever said was as fucked up as what this woman said, like I'm not judging LW but I genuinely can't process that she loves her still

[ethelmay]

It doesn't surprise me, given that the grandmother has a lot of other interests and it clearly isn't every minute that she's saying crap like this. But I think people have put up with it longer than they would have if she were also generally no fun to be around, and a lot of patterns have gotten set which are now harder to break. I think it is possible that the part of the response where Lizzy gives LW an actual script to use is not that bad, but the guilt-trip around it, ugh.