Even when you put in a lot of effort to boost your child’s self-esteem and promote healthy body image, kids are still exposed to messages about how they’re “supposed to” look. Sometimes those messages might come from the media or from their peers, or in some cases, they might even come from another family member. One dad experienced exactly that.
While his family was enjoying dinner, the dad’s mother-in-law made a comment about his 11-year-old daughter’s “pudgy belly.” Concerned about the impact this type of comment could have, the dad jumped to his daughter’s defense.
The MIL gave her 11-year-old granddaughter unsolicited advice.
In a video shared on TikTok, the dad, Jon, said he “went off” on his MIL while they were enjoying dinner together. As they ate fried chicken and pickles, the MIL told her granddaughter that she “should eat more pickles so she wouldn’t have such a pudgy belly.”
The dad said he “rarely gets angry,” but he was totally livid after hearing his MIL’s “weird comment.” Right away, Jon’s wife also told her mom to cut it out. “My wife immediately reacted and says, ‘Oh, don’t say that, Mom,'” Jon explained. When he saw the look on his 11-year-old’s face, however, he knew he had to say something too.
“I looked over at my daughter and she made a face,” the dad said. “That set me off. I went off on my mother-in-law, and I told her that she can’t say s— like that in my house.”
The dad emphasized that comments like that are really ‘harmful.’
Jon told his MIL to never say anything like that to his daughter again because it would “harm her self-image.” His MIL was a little dismissive and called her comment “harmless,” but Jon wouldn’t let it go. The dad said he “explained to her that no, it’s not harmless whatsoever.”
He already knew his daughter was insecure about her body.
@jonfromfridai I rarely get angry, but my MIL made my livid with her comment about my daughter. #girldad #bodyimage #teens #parenting ♬ original sound – Jon
Even before the MIL’s offensive comment, Jon’s daughter had said things that signaled she was worried about the way her body looks. “She’s entering an age where body image is very sensitive,” the dad shared. “A couple days ago, she was talking about how perhaps she should join track because she didn’t want to look so fat compared to her classmates.”
The dad found this comment particularly troubling because his daughter doesn’t actually enjoy running or want to join the track team for fun. She’s only entertaining the idea because she’s worried about her weight — at age 11.
Jon went on to explain that comments like his MIL made are exactly what breeds this kind of insecurity in young girls. He noted that it felt even more harmful “during an age where she’s starting to discover her body.”
“Normally I’m not someone who gets very angry,” he added. “I’m actually very happy-go-lucky. But that comment and that look on my daughter’s face made me feel livid as a father.”
People thought he had every right to be angry.
In the comments, people could understand why the dad found the comment so concerning. “11 is the exact age you should NEVRR say this :(,” one person wrote. Many people who watched the video still remember the negative comments people made about their bodies when they were children.
One of them wrote, “I’m glad you spoke up, when I was a teen my grandmother would say the most awful things about my body.”
Someone else added, “I am a dietitian and I promise it is harmful. I meet with women of all ages and they ALL remember these comments, even as adults!”
