My son was 8 years old when his father first made him think about the way his body looked. I think up until that day he thought of his body as a propeller. What moved him from one adventure to another. On Saturday mornings, as he ran around the neighborhood in his Superman pajamas and cowboy boots, he had strong legs that could push him high on a swing or pedal his bike. He had strong arms and could catch soccer balls thrown by his older brothers and bounce basketballs around the backyard. He had steady little hands that could draw with sure fingers or hold my hand reassuringly, feet that could kick a soccer ball or race with friends, and a face as open as a big blue sky. His stomach was the very place where the food was delivered. I was never able to close it again until during a weekend visit a father gave his son the nickname “Chubbs” and suddenly opened the door to his son’s body.
When he returned from visiting his father, he was immediately different. My hackles rose when I saw his face. Something felt wrong. His gait was different, and he was hunched over as if he had aged several years in the 48 hours he had been away from me. I asked his father if everything was okay, but he just shrugged his shoulders like, “How do I know that?” As if they had no way of knowing how their child was feeling. As if asking him if he was okay was too much for him. Or under him.
That night at dinner, my son was the quiet center amidst the usual storm of loud voices, passing plates and sharing stories. As usual, I’m not waiting for my turn to tell the story. He wasn’t eating as happily as usual—he had been eating happily up until that point. He loved writing out the menu for the night on the little Ratatouille Chalkboard I kept in the fridge, adding his own restaurant quotes to the meals, like “The World’s Best Spaghetti and Meatballs” and “On Fridays, Make Your Own Sundae!” He has lived his life like a human exclamation point, and suddenly there is a question mark.
I asked him why he wasn’t eating. he shrugged. I asked him if he wanted dessert. he said no. Instead he ran outside and ran all the way down our street with a grim look on his face. He told me not to pack too much food in my lunch box for the next day. He went to sleep without kissing me goodnight and then came back and hugged me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe with his sadness.
The last person to tell me was his younger brother. “Dad gave him a new nickname. He and Grandpa now call him ‘Chubbs,'” he said over breakfast. “I think they think it’s funny.”
I felt a kind of liquid panic, anger mixed with helplessness. Because I knew how this would turn out. I knew the moment I was alone that night I would call my ex-husband and tell him I had to quit. I knew he would first reason, then placate, then plead, then rage. I was trying to explain that this kind of “joke” causes irreparable damage. If he continues to do so, his son’s view of himself may change, perhaps forever. I knew he would react exactly that way. “You’re too sensitive,” he told me. “You’re pushing your fatness on him. Boys don’t care about that.”
I spent the next two weeks trying to turn back the clock for my son. We talked about that nickname and how unfunny it was. How mean and wrong and how it wasn’t about him at all. The further we got away from his last visit, the clearer his eyes became. I started to feel more and more like the boy who went on adventures and sang while eating cereal.
Then he returned for the next visit. And then the cycle started again. His father still called him “Chubbs,” perhaps in response to my prompting him about it in the first place. The son returns home, depressed and sad, and once again finds his body to be his enemy.
There was nothing I could do to stop the flow. I talked to a lawyer and he said it didn’t concern me. The family court couldn’t really say anything because this wasn’t an issue of abuse.
but It wasn’t like that that?
He forever changed the way my son looked at his body. Suddenly he thought that his stomach, legs, arms, and face were enemies. As a way for the rest of the world to judge him. He actively wanted our son to feel wrong, too big, too big, too different. He repeated that decision many times.
My son and I both did the best we could. Eventually, the son reached an age where he chose not to return to his father, but the father claimed to be confused by this sudden betrayal.
He is an adult now. I think he’s confident in who he is after years of being criticized and shamed. I hope he sees himself the way he once saw himself. They were how I saw him, how he was supposed to be. As a boy with a body that is the driving force for adventure. A boy with an open face like the big blue sky.
