'AITA for wearing a two-piece to my kids’ swimming lessons?' SMALL UPDATE
"AITA for wearing a two-piece to my kids’ swimming lessons?"
I (27f) am a mother to quadruplets aged 2. This is their first year taking swimming lessons, and, at their age, the lessons require one-one-one with the child/adult as well as an instructor to teach.
So me, my husband, and two of my husbands friends came along. (Unfortunately all four of the kids got booked for the same time). They started the lessons on Monday and ended today (Friday).
At the lessons, all the other kids had their mothers/female guardians with them, and all of them wore shorts/shirt swimsuits. My husband/his friends had trunks with no shirt, and I wore a two-piece.
Nothing bad, everything was well covered, but obviously my stomach and back showed. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I honestly didn’t even notice what everyone wore until probably Wednesday. And it was fine because everybody (including me) was modest.
However, they finished their lessons today. When everyone was getting changed to leave, a few mothers came up to me. They said they didn’t want to mention it earlier to make classes awkward, but they and a few other mothers were uncomfortable with how I was wearing a two-piece to the lessons all week.
The suggested if I do another class with my kids here, I cover up my stomach because nobody wants to see it Because of the stretch marks from my pregnancy. (Which is a lot more than average because I had quadruplets). I asked if they had an issue with how my husband/his friends didn’t wear a shirt at all, and they said the didn’t care because they didn’t have the “baby belly” like I did.
Now I’m back home, and I can’t decide if they were being rude or just were honest. They made sure to tell me it wasn’t about the modesty, it was just my stomach. I never thought about it, so maybe it’s my fault for being careless and not thinking of everyone else. My husband says I was fine, but all the mothers there apparently don’t think so. AITA?
I’ve worked in aquatics, and I’d report this to the pool/facility manager and have them speak to the moms. No one who runs a pool wants patrons body shaming one another. It’s way out of line. NTA.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
NTA— of course they were being rude. Does everyone have an obligation to cover every body part that is different/damaged/unusual? Their rudeness and entitlement is grosser than any stretch marks. People have stuff happen to their bodies— that doesn’t obligate them to hide their bodies.
OP should be proud of those stretch marks. They're evidence of bringing life into the world. They're evidence of strength. They're evidence of love. So there are more of them, that just means she dealt with more than many/most of us do when pregnant and giving birth.
Quadruplets, I can't even imagine it. We all have the marks of living. These other mothers being self-conscious of theirs (and probably jealous of OP's confidence) is no reason for OP to not embrace hers.
I swear mothers are mothers' worst enemies, sometimes. NTA.
You've had 4 babies (damn, good luck moving forward, OP, that has to be scary at times !), your body is the way it is because it carried them, and I'm glad that shame didn't occur to you, or at least not prior to these women feeling entitled to telling you to hide.
There is no reason to cover stretch marks, they're not inappropriate at all, but particularly not when they tell a story of epic motherhood. Keep wearing whatever you want. Let these women desperately try to airbrush their own bodies IRL if that's what makes them comfortable, but they're not entitled to trying to extend their own issues to you.
Who made them the fashion police? Tell them to pound sand NTA
Small update from OP the next day after reading the comments:
Edit: I did not expect this to blow up so much! I’m so thankful to all the kind comments, I’ve spent 20 minutes reading and upvoting there’s just so many Lol. This has made me feel much better about the situation.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) this isn’t our usual pool and we’re done lessons until next year so I won’t have the chance to say anything you suggested to those people 😂.