This is my first ever book review of a children's book. It's also a long mommy blogging-ish post, so feel free to skip it unless you are interested in how this fat feminist is parenting her SuperHeroPrincess.

Last week, I arrived at the library with SuperHeroPrincess in tow just before closing, trying to find a book about Mexico for 4-year-olds. Harder than it sounds. As I was looking for the books (with the help of the awesome librarian), SHP was playing on the computer (or most of the time, waiting for her turn to play on the computer). Just as we were leaving, she announces that she wants a book about princesses, and I don't have time to do a search, so I scour the shelves looking for something suitable. She settles on a book with a sparkly T-Rex on the cover about a quartet of dinosaurs who go trick-or-treating, and I find The Princess Knight, by Cornelia Funke and illustrated by Kerstin Meyer.
I settle in to read it to SHP while she is in bed, after the T-Rex who trick-or-treats, and find that I love it. SHP is interested, to be sure, but I'm reading it to see what happens next.
By about page 3, the queen dies. Usually, I'm not keen on stories in which this happens, but SHP has already been exposed to her share of stories when the queen dies (Snow White, Cinderella), and in the books we've read where this happens, it's glossed over, and on we go with the story.
In The Princess Knight, the king is draped over the pale queen's body, a nursemaid holding the tiny baby girl. It's a sad picture, to be sure, and it has prompted questions. But I think these are important questions. She's asked before about the queen in Snow White, but the illustration here prompted more in-depth questions.
SHP hasn't yet been exposed to death personally, the closest she's come in real life is hearing about the death of a neighbor's grandfather. But she does read about death, and pretend to kill and die when she is engaged in play, and I think it's time she began to understand a bit more about this.
When she asked why the queen died, what I said was, it used to be that when babies were born, sometimes their mother died, but this hardly ever happens any more.
"Why?"
"Because we have midwives and doctors and better care for moms when they are pregnant."
I didn't go into how in some contries, there are still many moms who die when their babies are born. I did remind her that it's not what happened when she was born.
She asked about the king being sad, and I told her that the king missed his wife, the queen.
"Why?"
"Well, when a person dies, they aren't in their body anymore."
Lucky for me (because I was very tired in that moment), she didn't ask the next logical question, which is, "where do they go when they aren't in their body anymore?"
I do have an answer for when that question comes up about my belief about it*. I have no idea if the answer I give will suffice. I'm sure it will need to change as she grows older, and I will definitely want to hear what she thinks about it.
But the first answer was sinking in a bit. Hard to understand, definitely.

We have an aging dog, who I think I have mentioned before, is the best dog in the whole wide world. Sure, you might know a really good dog, and I have known some really good dogs, but our Madamoiselle Marble Rye (not her real name) is the best dog I've ever known. She's 12, past the usual lifespan for her breed, and although deaf, with hypothyroidism she's had since she was about 5 years old,  and some hip pain, she recovered from some non-life-threatening surgery not long ago and is frisky and loving and so great. When we lose her, and she isn't in her body anymore, we will all be extremely sad, and miss her so much. (Yes, I'm crying now.) That's when death will be real for SHP. I hope that it's a long time before anyone else close to her dies. But I do want her to know that when she pretends to be dead (a la Sleeping Beauty) she can also pretend to be kissed back to life by a mom, a dad, or a stand-in prince, but that's not what death really is.

There's a part of me that doesn't like violent play, that includes killing (usually "killing bad guys") but I also know that bad guys (and bad girls) exist, and that I want her to know that if she is attacked, attacking back is an appropriate response (in a proportionate way). We don't own guns. But in The Princess Knight, the king raises his daughter the same way he has raised his sons, to be a knight, and although she struggles to mount a large horse in heavy, outsized armor, she learns to dodge and fight and parry and joust (I'm probably using all of the wrong words here) and she is able to defeat her brothers. I won't tell you what happens in later part of the book, but suffice it to say, there is an ending that SHP and I were both happy with.

After we read it for the third time, SHP asked if we could get her a sword. Several boys in the neighborhood just a bit older than her have play swords and shields, wooden ones. She sees them playing, and has played at being the princess while they are the knights. I'm not really into weaponry, but I'm thinking of maybe locating a nice wooden sword and shield kit. Good for upper body strength. Maybe we need two, so her dad and I can play with her (or at least an extra shield). We could also go to a RenFair -- (I'll have to see where the nearest one is to us) -- both she and her dad would enjoy it.

I've been thinking a lot about her playing at being a princess, and what it means. She wore her Sleeping Beauty costume (just the dress, not the tiara and heels, thankfully) to the park last night to play, and she did attract a fair amount of attention from other kids she didn't know, and immediately got cast in the role of princess in their play. It's an identity she can slip into. She's never had a blankie, or a pacifier, or another loved object, but she has shown attachment to items of clothing from time to time, such as a favored fuzzy jacket (luckily, living in the Pacific Northwest, it was rarely too warm for her to wear it). These days, she's starting to understand that she has "dress-up dresses" and "school dresses" -- and that she can't wear the "dress-up dresses" to her new preschool.

I think that what it means to be a princess is to be a daughter growing up with privilege, and inheriting some amount of power from that privilege, and learning how to manage that power. SHP is, as strangers tell her, beautiful. She is also small for her age, strong for her size, has more than everything she needs, is surrounded by loving adults and a caring community. Even thus far, it hasn't been a pristine path for her, but in many, many ways, she is privileged. And I want her to understand that with power comes responsibility (and not just Spiderman gummy candies). She is at least equal parts SuperHero and Princess. She likes to lead. She could stand to learn more grace, to share her gifts more (I know there is time), and to use her power for good, and not evil. She is mortal, divine, human, magical, special and ordinary. I often feel like I can't get enough of her. When people told me a few months ago that "this was a fun age" I nodded but thought, "Fun?!? Exhausting!" but now I see what they mean. It is fun to be around her, her silliness, wildness, limitlessness, expansiveness.

She could use a sword AND a shield. And a princess dress to wear under her armor. Maybe we can glue a tiara to a safety helmet for her?

* Here's what I think I'll say: When people die, they aren't in their bodies anymore. They can't move, or talk, or do the things we usually do. But they aren't gone altogether. We carry them with us. In our memories, in our thoughts, and in our bodies. We are all made up of the same stuff -- stuff that a long time ago came from stars. And the stuff from those stars made up the earth, and sun, and moon, and planets. And the earth was just right for the stuff to come together to make the first plants, and animals, and dinosaurs, and mammals, and eventually, over a really, really long time, people. And when each of those plants and animals and dinosaurs and mammals and people died, their bodies went back into the earth, which then became soil for more plants to grow, and animals to eat those plants, and people to eat plants and animals, and everybody gets recycled that way. But our thoughts, and how we treat each other, and how we love each other, that lives on in how other people think, and feel, and live. Okay, now I'm crying again.

Jon Robison, PhD, MS, will be offering a workshop and closing presentation at the Healthy Worksite Summit in Bellevue, Washington, on October 8, 2009. The workshop is titled "Weight Loss at The Workplace: A Smart Investment in Tough Economic times…or Money Down The Toilet?" He's also presenting the next day at the Summit in Spokane, Washington.
Visit his website for other upcoming events where Dr. Robison will be presenting.

Meowser, treasure of the fatosphere that she is, has hit another one out of the park with the most recent essay in her "What Does Health Care Reform Really Mean to American Fatasses?" series. She calls this the conclusion, but I hope it she will continue to write on the topic. The question she asks, "How Expensive Am I Really?" is blunt and right on target.

I've been really bothered by the slicing and segmenting of the U.S. population's health costs by BMI status.
To those who do this number crunching and publicizing, they don't see it as any different as identifying the costs associated with tobacco use, diabetes, heart disease, drug addiction, alcohol abuse or other ills. (And there are certainly ethical considerations pertaining to that work, too.) The "redlining" of health and life insurance policies has been done by insurance companies forever, and that is why women pay more, and fat people pay more (if they can get insurance at all).
We don't get a bill at the end of our life for all that we've cost society.
We might "pay as we go" to a certain extent (and there's really no justice in who pays how much -- some people -- generally poorer ones -- pay a much higher percentage of their net worth than others), but most of us who are employed and our employer pays our health insurance have been subsidizing the current system -- including those unable to pay. We pay for Medicare and Medicaid for those currently insured by those programs through our taxes. Our employer factors in our benefits with our salary and any other costs associated with employment as our "total package" and we are paying for our own health insurance, in essence, with lower wages. If I were to be employed as an independent contractor for the work I do, I think I would need to charge upwards of $100/hour to be able to afford to feed, clothe and insure my family. There are cost efficiencies to my employer purchasing health insurance and health care collectively. Is my employer losing money on me because I am so costly on the health insurance/health care side of things? I think my employer is getting a bargain, or at least a fair deal, because I'm uniquely qualified and productive in the specific work I do. Could they find someone less expensive (and possessing of a more socially acceptable body) to do as good a job as me? They had a chance to, and I was the candidate chosen.

The notion that I am "too expensive" because of my fatness has caused me considerable thinkiness, and some degree of pain. Given the circumstances of my life to date, the only way I could be less expensive would to have been successful in a suicide attempt earlier in my life. I will be slightly arrogant here for a moment and say that I think, on balance, my being here now benefits society at least as much as it costs society. But that's where this thinking about "who costs too much" leads. The only way I could have survivied to this moment is by being who I've been, which includes: fat, with type 2 diabetes, PCOS, infertility, pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, hypothyroid, depression, various and sundry acute illnesses and only by sheer luck not yet facing an immediately life-threatening illness or one that would limit my ability to provide for my family.

When I hear that I cost more because I'm fat, what I hear is that someone would prefer I not exist to save them money.

Now, I can hear the health economists saying "that's not what we meant! We just want to raise awareness." In other words, "We want you to exist, but we just don't want you to be fat (and expensive)." Well, good luck with that. I've been in this life, this body, for 40 years and I haven't figured out how to both exist and not be fat, and god knows, I've tried. Ultimately for me, the choice was: Exist in this body, or don't exist at all.
I will refer here to the research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and their impact on adult health. Even with none of the ACEs, my genetic endowment meant I was predisposed to certain of the conditions I now face. That genetic endowment also accounts for a good portion of what makes me valuable in the work I do. (I can only take some credit for my skills and abilities, recognizing that just as I'll never be a professional athlete or neurosurgeon or rocket scientist or renown artist, there are some things I do particularly well without really trying -- combined with the privilege I was born into that allowed me to be relatively highly educated and "do well" in spite of those ACEs).
I am more than happy to continue to pay taxes, copays, deductibles, cost-shares, for myself and my family, and pay toward those who aren't able to come up with the cash to cover those things. I think, when spent well, it's a great thing to spend money on. I don't need a nicer car, or nicer house, or more cash (although a more secure retirement, including how I'm going to be covered, health-wise, is something I think about). What I do need is to feel that the path I've been on, chosing life over the alternative, has been the right one. I know there are many people in my life (not the least of whom is SuperHeroPrincess) who would say I have chosen correctly. Those people who say things along the lines of "a fat life isn't worth living or paying for" are not going to be providing me with the reassurance I'm looking for, so I need to look elsewhere (and much closer to home). The ferocity of that "a fat life isn't worth living or paying for" perspective is scary, though, and for me, echos dehumanization that is a precursor of genocide. When it comes from people who are members of other groups commonly dehumanized in the U.S., I think it's a matter of perceiving competition for that status of humanity, scrabbled upon the backs and bodies of others (Dan Savage, I'm looking at you).

There are moments when I feel like I'm in a certain place at a certain time for a reason.
Today was filled with moments like that.
Maybe it's kismet.
Maybe it's serendipity.
Maybe it's caffeine.

Whatever it was, one such moment was when I was driving my car back from the repair shop (where I wasn't charged for a minor repair, and a bit of coolant) and listening to the radio, I hear a story the radio (on The Story, this story) about the synergy of bullying, childhood abuse, fury, Facebook, guilt, regret, redemption. Listening, I realized how much I had in common with the subject of the story -- and yet, at some point in the story, the subject was talking about how much larger, "out of shape" (you could hear him biting back the word "fat" in a very negative manner) guys intruding on his space at the gym, and how even though he's physically much smaller, he has a stance of "fighting to the death" and how much he resents the way these larger guys use their larger bodies as a means of intimidation, or at least, that's how it seems to him. That didn't stop me from connecting with how he felt, though, in having survived and adapted and then realized that he might be able to set down some of his defenses. It was a quintessential story of someone in their 40s.

Something about the story released a wave of internal compassion, and I ended up reflecting on something I emailed to a friend today and have thought about from time to time. I feel like I'm from a long line of people with big appetites in small bodies. But rather than a disadvantage, I saw this as something protective. Not only against famine but a more everyday situation of not very much food and a lot of labor. These days, the labor I do is largely intellectual. But not very many generations ago, the ability to gain muscle easily, subsist on few calories or carbohydrates, not waste extra calories on something as superfluous as a few extra inches of height likely conferred a survival advantage. Insulin resistance meant that blood sugar could remain high enough to labor on few calories and that any precious extra calories would be easily stored.

I saw a graphic recently that showed all the different mechanisms that our bodies have to "turn off" the default signals to eat. That is, our bodies, were these systems not in place, would be sending nonstop signals to eat. These signals to stop eating last only for a few hours at most (which is good, because if they didn't, the drive to eat would be suppressed for too long to sustain us) and it seems that many things can interfere with, distort and override these signals to turn off the drive to eat. So, it's entirely possible that my drive to eat is "breaking through" more often than some other people's drive to eat.

I'm not saying I eat too much. I just eat more than the minimum number of calories that my body requires to maintain a low weight. And this isn't because I'm gluttonous, I think that I respond similarly to many other people to those "eat now" messages. I certainly don't mean to imply this is the case for all other fat people, or most other fat people, or doesn't apply to slimmer people as well.

There was this lifting of guilt and shame when I had these thoughts. That it's not I have some secret drive to eat for psychological reasons or that I want to protect myself in layers of fat. It's not that I've caused myself to have diabetes, or that I am somehow a failure for not managing to be thin. It's not that I have a genetic defect, or come from bad stock. I am how I am meant to be. I am in the right body, in the right place, in the right time, in the right mind.


I had another experience today where I was asked to speak on something that might have in the past caused me anxiety, but now I feel like I'm exactly the right person, and it's just the right challenge. This is one of those "just showing up as myself is radical" moments.


And another thing -- I was looking at some pictures today of an event I attended where I really, truly wasn't trying to be in front of the camera, but I was in tons of pictures. There were flattering and unflattering ones, and I happened to be wearing an extremely bright item of clothing so I really showed up, even in the background, "Where's Waldo"-style. And my hair looked really good at the beginning of the day (less good the longer the day went on). In the pictures, I looked like, well, just like me. A friendly, smiling, goofy, gaudily dressed 40-year-old, with frizzy-curly Jewish hair, and short and round and curvy and strong. In other words, just right.

Four questions for a mid-August night:

For the parents out there -- what do you think of Montessori? We're considering a local Montessori preschool for the year before Kindergarten for SuperHeroPrincess, and wondering if it will be a good fit for our fun-loving, creative, dynamic spitfire who wants to wear princess dresses and tiaras to preschool nearly every day.

For the level-three self-acceptance masters out there -- How do I replace the thoughts that other people find me unpleasant to be with (look at, interact with, etc.) with the more recent (okay, so the last 25 or so years) of experience to the contrary?

For the other undiscovered athletes out there -- How do you recover from a strained hip flexor caused by an annual game of volleyball? (I've been using ice and tylenol 3 for now.)

For the really good gift givers out there -- What do you get your best friend who lives more than 1,000 miles away for her 40th birthday when you won't be able to be there in person (and that's the present she wants the most)?