Rachel K. Belly

My Body is Wrong

Kids say the Meanest Things

There's a girl named Sophie at Gumball Elementary who has special needs (mostly in working through her behaviors and healthy ways to show her feelings, from what I've observed). Due to my status as a new, young(ish) teacher, a lot of the girls have taken a shine to me (their dreams that I am a ballerina bride who loves to bake and sing and ride horses will gradually be crushed by my own harsh, non-Disney capabilities and affinities). Sophie asked me on our way out of the music trailer portable, "Ms. Kay, are you having a baby?" I guess I've graduated from being Teacher Barbie to being "that lady who's my mom's age whose belly kinda sticks out like a toddler's. In any case, I wanted to punch everyone in the face.

On a side-note, I used to teach English (or rather, help plan English-centered activities for a real teacher) in Japan. I'm sure the Japanese people, with their slight statures, demure carriage and shiny shiny hair, also commented aloud on my body shapes. Fortunately, Japanese is the impossible picture language of ninjas quite difficult, and I must have missed the majority of pronouncements.

I responded to Sophie, "No, I'm not having a baby," and then added to the other girls who had gathered, "my body is just shaped this way." I also want to mention as a disclaimer, that I am not a fat person (not that there's anything wrong with that). I have actually lost about 15 pounds since February, and most of the time I feel like I'm looking pretty good! It's just that for whatever genetic reason, my stomach likes to shape itself like a beer gut, and so it is and has always been.

Perhaps my oddly shaped midriff can stand as a beacon to all girls in the 5th grade! It is OK to have a beer belly even though you really don't drink beer and you've gotten so good at sucking it in except after you eat leftover lasagna for lunch. It's OK to forget to blend your foundation because you're putting on your makeup at 6:30am without your glasses on and you can't actually see what you're doing to your face. Most of all, it's OK to realize that your flower print skirt doesn't match your hamburger earrings, but it's Friday and there's a spelling test and maybe nobody will notice. The moral is, young girls, that you should be yourself. Women like Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler have worked and striven to make us a world where it's OK to look wrong so long as you can write satire about it and clean up nice on TV - and I do, girls. I do.