Smaller than Before: The Politics of Post-Partum Bodies

[Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Dr. Jessica Zucker,a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles specializing in women's health with a focus on fertility, prenatal and postpartum adjustments, attachment, and transitions in motherhood. Learn more about Jessica at her website. 


This story is part of a new, ongoing series of guest posts about motherhood. Visit IMOW's new online exhibition MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe at mama.imow.org ]

Flickr/ huberson

A close friend of mine from graduate school was in town over the weekend, someone I hadn’t seen since I was mid-way through my pregnancy. As we briskly walked toward each other, arms outstretched, brimming with wild enthusiasm about our long overdue rendezvous, Amalia blurts out from across the toddler trafficked park, “Oh my God, look at you, you don’t even look like you had a baby! You’re smaller than you were before.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt as we hugged, in the midst of awkwardly digesting her jubilant albeit off the cuff comment about the apparent erasure of my pregnancy. The embrace was cut short as she gently pushed me back to scan every inch of my postpartum body, unable to contain her energized description of how “little” I look, how “tiny” I am – spilling with words she defines as every woman’s dream. Or more to the point, every woman’s goal.

I want to be marked, in some way, by pregnancy, by the birth of my child. This is not to say that I would have wanted to maintain all the weight gained during pregnancy, but I do feel the body as well as the mind/psyche/heart go through a series of metamorphoses as life is being nourished inside and outside of the body.

Women are constantly shamed for their shape. Prepartum, postpartum, and never-partum. All but the smallest sizes are viewed as less than, not driven enough to surveil every morsel of food ingested, not vigilant enough to carve out time for daily workouts. Even women I know who do embody the cultural ideal – trotting around in the smallest sizes the jean manufacturers are producing these days- even they don’t feel at home in their bodies.

The droning laundry list of things that women say about how they “got their bodies back” include and sadly are not limited to: “breastfeeding is definitely what made the baby weight fly off”, “I got the food delivery service straight away. I was determined to return to my pre-baby wardrobe as quickly as possible and that way I didn’t have to think about what I was eating, it was done for me”, “I started counting calories while in the hospital. I was surprised by how long it took for the weight to come off but I feel like it’s the only thing I can control right now so my focus is sharp”, “not even a moment goes into thinking about my food intake. I guess I lost it all while running after my rambunctious toddler. He never gives me a break.”

Amalia is freshly married, 38, ambivalent about having kids. As she blithely puts it as she considers raising a family, “I could take it or leave it.” The ubiquity of psychological disconnection and body disenchantment is illuminated in Amalia’s detailing of my presence. My physicality is noticed first. My size is experienced and discussed in relationship to banishing pregnancy. The absence of body change is asserted as an enviable compliment. Meanwhile, my darling toddler is resting on my hip and I look into his eyes knowing that he grew inside of me and together we altered the feel and shape of my body. And then I think to myself, “Why would we want to erase that?”

Amalia provoked me to reflect on hundreds of fragmented interactions I’ve had with women since my baby was born. Women who are mothers themselves, women dying to get pregnant, women who share their horror of giving birth, “getting fat”, “staying fat”, women who asked me how much weight I gained while pregnant, my own mother reflecting on her speedy loss of “baby weight” and curious about why mine wasn’t slipping off as quickly. The dynamics of women and what we unwittingly do to each other is devastating. Paralyzing. A cultural vestige all too pervasive.

And then of course we are inundated with endless magazine images of emaciated post-pregnancy “stars” who “got their bodies back instantly.” They pontificate about the various ways women must expunge maternity. The pride taken in shrinking one’s body at any cost is emblematic of a cultural obsession with women not being real women.

The intimacy I experienced with my body and my developing baby during pregnancy was perhaps the most compelling transformation I have ever known. It became, in a way, a metaphor for how I feel about parenthood—a striking awareness of loss of control, simultaneity of surrendering to change on a moment-to-moment basis while experiencing more joy and more fear than the heart can contain. Pregnancy and parenthood invoke an unprecedented heightening of anxiety—excruciating awareness of vulnerability, altering one’s perspective on the fragility of life, as well as a depth of love that redefines the concept. Why would we erase all of this complexity– the physical and psychological makings and markings of pregnancy and parenthood?

I am not necessarily idealizing the experience of pregnancy. I’m not saying women should necessarily enjoy gaining weight, being tattooed with stretch marks, or relish the postpartum belly jiggle. I am attempting to call attention to cultures calamitous requirement that women erase the life giving process.

As Amelia and I make our way through the throngs of sweaty and spirited toddlers and exit the park, she turns to me and reiterates, “You’re so lucky, you look exactly like you did before.” There’s a pregnant pause. And I say, “Actually, my body’s changed from having a baby, and that is why I’m lucky.”


Dr. Jessica Zucker is a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles specializing in women’s health with a focus on transitions in motherhood, perinatal and postpartum mood disorders, and early parent-child attachment. Dr. Zucker received graduate degrees from Harvard and New York University. Jessica is an award-winning writer and is a contributor to The Huffington Post and PBS This Emotional Life. Dr. Zucker is currently writing her first book about mother-daughter relationships and issues surrounding the body (Routledge). Jessica consults on various projects pertaining to the motherhood continuum. www.drjessicazucker.com

Jeju Island Grannies of the Sea

[Editor's Note: The following is a guest post from photographer Brenda Paik Sunoo. IMOW is hosting an event featuring Brenda to celebrate the publication of her book Moon Tides: Jeju Island Grannies of the Sea in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 29. You can find more information about the event here.]

From Brenda Paik Sunoo's "Moon Tides: Jeju Island Grannies of the Sea"

I’m newly arrived to the shores of aging. And yes, a bit fearful of the unknown. After all, the eldest of 75 million American baby boomers began turning 60 in 2004. In some ways, aging is like free diving. In the sea, one’s mental and physical endurance is tested with a single breath. On land, one’s endurance is tested within a single lifetime. Quite simply, there’s no guaranteed safety net for either phenomenon. Aging and free diving both invite risks into mysterious and magical realms.

I was born on February 13, 1948. During my last few physical exams, I have repeatedly been warned to watch my cholesterol, supplement my diet with Vitamin D, monitor uterine fibroids, irrigate my sinuses, and practice Pilates due to a herniated disc. It’s no wonder that I’ve never dreamt of diving into the sea. That is, until I encountered the sea women of Jeju Island, Korea—known as haenyeo.

For centuries, these divers have faced the tempestuous tides of history and struggle for survival. Their intimate relationship to the land and sea, their shaman beliefs, and communal village life have protected them throughout their entire lives. In return, many have sustained a continuous life of purpose and resiliency well into their 90s.

Three years ago, I turned sixty. I began searching for inspiring role models---aging women who remained active until they died. Not women who died because they had regrettably aged. To a graying baby boomer like myself, these haenyeo stories became gleaming beaconsilluminating a wise, practical and fearless course.

Moon Tides is my homage to these women divers. I have organized the book according to seven aspects of their multi-dimensional lives. Each one reveals how the haenyeo have been “lifted by the wind and tides” of: Shamanism, Family, Survival, Suffering, Aging, Compassion and the Future. Through photos and translated interviews, my intention has been to represent the women (ages 39 – 93) in their own voices and work/life environments--not only in their rubber suits. They are, after all, grannies, wives, mothers, sisters, community volunteers, patriots, and social activists. To each other, lifelong friends.

Through their examples, I believe that one’s life purpose can be as continuous and infinite as the sea. For centuries, these Jeju divers have kept their lives afloat--in spite of risks and danger. As one granny told me, “If we didn’t, we couldn’t survive.”

Having been blessed to drift among them for for 7 months over the course of three years, I feel more comfortable with aging. Thankfully, one is never too old to be inspired by others. I have even begun to imagine my life as a septuagenarian and octogenarian. Granted, I will never become a working woman of the sea like the haenyeo. But if I do live well into my 90s, I hope to lead a continuous life of purpose as they have. Gray-haired, wrinkled and polyp-free.