As A Plus-Size Mom, I Feel Immense Relief That My Two Kids Are Boys

I love being a woman, and I love being a mother. I’m incredibly close with my own mom, have wonderful girlfriends I rely on, and I always assumed I’d have that same relationship with a daughter someday. But when I found out my second, and last baby was another boy, I felt something I never expected: relief.

That relief didn’t start with baby number two. The fear behind it had been sitting with me since my first pregnancy, when I saw those two pink lines after two years of trying. That’s when I was flooded with all the normal, life-altering fears that come with becoming a mother. Would the baby be healthy? Would I miscarry? Would I tear during childbirth? Where the hell was I going to buy plus-sized maternity clothes? But underneath all of that was another fear, one that hit much closer to home. Something I knew I couldn’t control, plan for, or outrun: Genetics.

I’ve spent most of my life knowing what it is to be a bigger girl in a world that makes sure girls know exactly how much space they’re allowed to take up. Quite literally. And knowing that genes are most definitely real, I wondered what would happen when I passed these “big bones” of mine down to a daughter. Would I be introducing her to the same experience of being a big girl living in a normal-sized world?

The trauma that came with being a plus-sized girl since toddlerhood was actually too much for me to relive through a daughter of my own… like the yearly trips to the pediatrician office, where I would cry in the car with my mom begging not to go in. I cringed at the thought of the male doctor showing my weight at the very top of the line graph and explaining to me what “morbidly obese” meant for the sixth time. The follow up conversation with teenage me was that I was on the scary, but inevitable path to diabetes. The side-bars he and my mom would have after those visits were about the new fad diets and other restrictive meal plans that could help me get "healthy" and on the “right track”. Nothing says carefree childhood quite like having a Weight Watchers strategy before you enter middle school. Did you know a skinned apple has zero points? I did. Thanks for that sponsorship, Oprah!

Never mind the social aspect of it all, and how as girls we learned so quickly where we didn’t fit. Like in every store at the mall when going back to school shopping with friends, knowing I couldn’t fit into the trendy spots, so I would shop in the accessories section, buying time until we moved on to the next store. If someone asked me why I wasn’t hitting the dressing room, the pressure of thinking quickly on my feet, or recycling the same excuse, such as “there just isn’t anything I like here”. When in reality, I liked it all. I wanted it all, and I wanted so badly to be able to show my friends that I fit in those clothes and I fit in everywhere else.

This was something NO one had talked about while I was entering motherhood. Something I didn’t see while doom-scrolling Instagram and TikTok late at night. This specific use case had not yet reached my algorithm. This was the fear I have faced every moment of my life since I could remember. And knowing that it started so early in my life, how would I shield my future daughter from this sort of natural outcasting? How could I make sure that she never, ever felt those feelings? How would I protect her from a world that might make her feel small simply because her body wasn’t? I actually couldn’t bear the thought of it. So instead of wanting to build the brand, reproduce more strong bodied and minded girls to even out a generation obsessed with our looks, I ran from my own trauma and prayed for a boy.

Of course, I knew having boys didn’t mean they would automatically dodge said genetics. I know that’s not how it works. But from where I stood, there was a very different tone around being a “big guy” versus a “big girl.” Boys could be big, broad, husky, solid. Girls didn’t get the luxury of those kinder names. And having spent my entire childhood on the receiving end of that distinction, it was girlhood I was scared to relive. Boyhood felt more like a “figure it out as we go” journey. Or, better yet, something my 6-foot-4 “husky” husband could deal with.

And now, here we are. Motherhood has forced me to confront my own relationship with my body in ways I never expected. It’s made me wonder whether I was ever equipped to guide a daughter through struggles that, at 34 years old, I’m still figuring out how to navigate myself.

But maybe I had it backwards.

Maybe instead of letting my own trauma convince me I couldn’t raise a girl, I should have been thinking about what it might look like to raise one differently. Very “be the change” Gandhi-type stuff, if you will.

I got a glimpse of exactly that last week, courtesy of my five-year-old niece.

I was having a completely normal conversation with my sister-in-law when she looked at me and said, “You look skinny!” It was obviously meant as a compliment. First of all, I have never looked skinny a day in my life, so thank you for your generosity. Second, I’m four months postpartum, and this is the kind of thing women have been saying to each other forever, hoping to make someone’s day.

But my niece heard it and immediately snapped at her mom: “MOM! THAT’S NOT NICE! YOU SHOULDN’T SAY THAT!”

The room went quiet.

It was like she had just heard her mom deliver the insult of the century. At five years old, she already understood that commenting on someone else’s body, even when you think you’re complimenting it, isn’t something we need to do. Someone had taught her that before she even made it to kindergarten.

So instead of responding the way I wanted to — “Wait, but like…how skinny?” or, “It must be the high-waisted maternity underwear doing God’s work” — I swallowed my words, told my niece she was absolutely right, and promised we’d do better.

And that, my friends, is called societal GROWTH. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.

And maybe I was more capable of raising the daughter I was so afraid to have than I ever gave myself credit for.

Mary Burnham is a plus-size boy mom of two who manages software by day and chaos by night. She’s highly susceptible to a viral product and even more susceptible to self-diagnosing the latest health scare. Virality at all costs. Follow her at @maryuburnham.