If you don't have anything nice to say...wait...just don't say anything.

"Two major weight loss companies won't touch Kim Kardashian's 'big fat ass' with a 10-foot pole." -TMZ


For those of you living under a rock, or who never go to a grocery store, Kim Kardashian is pregnant.  And for those same, trash-magazine deprived folk, she's gained some weight in the process.  On a regular day, I think the publishers of this critical, self-image-destroying poison are evil incarnate.  But when they skewer, yet another, celebrity for packing on the LBs while gestating, they have sunk to a new low.  

The reason I care so much is that sadly, it's not just the tabloids who participate in the judgement of a woman's body while gestating.  The public shaming of pregnant celebrities makes it socially acceptable for anyone to comment on a woman's size during a time when skinny thighs are the last thing on her mind.  No, I am not saying these magazines are the ones who invented the cruel baby-weight comments, but US Weekly makes body-shaming the pregnant into a topic of conversation between normal people in the break room. It's the Average Josephine making cracks,  no longer just the crazy, old lady on the bus asking a woman if she's having twins.  It is bad enough non-pregnant women feel they have to a conform to a very narrow body standard.  Now pregnant woman also have to worry about fitting into a mold.  

Pregnancy is the first time, for many of us, we feel outside of society's harsh, body-judging glare. Or at least we used to.  Do some of us, like Mean Mommy, celebrate the removing of those shackles with a few too many fries and brownies?  Sure.  Should you say something about it?  Abso-fucking-lutely not.  I'll let you in on a secret.  Pregnant women know when and if they are getting fat and they do not give a shit.  I knew perfectly well I was going to have to run off every pint of Ben & Jerry's I made H go get me in the dark of night, I didn't need anyone to tell me.  That high fat dairy helped me shove down some of the anxiety about whether my baby was going to be born with all its parts and whether I was going to be a good mother.  Emotional eating?  Yes?  But what else could I do?  Drink?  OK, maybe get some therapy, but that doesn't taste as good.

Here's where some will say, "But shouldn't something be said about a woman's weight for the health of the baby?"  Yes, and unless you have been to medical school and are being paid by this woman's insurance, keep your well-meaning advice to yourself.  She and her healthcare provider will have a constructive conversation about her weight.  And is the baby's health what's really being talked about when scrutinizing a pregnant woman's weight?  No, it's about her fitting into a bikini anytime in the next five years and you know it, so shut up.

During a pregnancy, a woman should not be concerned about how her body looks, but rather with how her body is functioning.  So it seems strange to me it is the one time in life people who barely know you feel free to comment on your figure.  Coming back form our babymoon during my pregnancy with Little Man, the TSA worker in the Virgin Islands told me I was "carrying well", as it was "all in my belly".  Bets were even taken among the workers as to the baby's gender.  That's my favorite ruse.  "Let's pretend we're using the mother's body shape as an indicator of gender so we can talk about her ass".  Even while being complimented it felt weird and wrong.* 

So can we all make a pact?  Can we all stop feeling so free to comment on pregnant women's bodies?  Good, bad, indifferent, it's just not OK.  (I am of the vast monitory who think it's not OK to talk about non-pregnant women's bodies, but I'll choose my battles for now.)  Women have enough to worry about during these nine months, let's not add how they look in those painfully ugly maternity bathing suits to the list.  

And any comments after she's had the baby?  Punishable by death.  Agreed?

*Don't think I never experienced pregnancy fat-shame.  I made a conscious effort to stay away from Benjamin and Jerald during LM's time in the oven, knowing I wouldn't have any time to lose the weight with two other kids.  I was precariously close to, if not over, two hundred pounds during my other two gestations.