“Mommy, why does your belly button look like that?”
.
“Mine is different than yours because that’s just how my body looks. And guess what? I love it so much!”
.
She beamed back at me and said, “Oh yay mommy! I love mine too!” 👏🏻
.
And that’s when it hit me. If we want to raise kids to love their bodies instead of hate them, we have to lead by example.
//
What she doesn’t know is that my belly button has haunted me my entire life. It never looked like any of my friends growing up. I always blamed it on being fat and punished myself for not looking “normal.” So, do I really love it now? Nah. But I don’t hate it, which is major progress.

So if it takes me pretending that I love that part of my body for her to learn body acceptance, then so be it! And you never know, it might work on me too.