'Parents forced me to go wedding dress shopping with them, proceeded to body shame me.'
"Parents forced me to go wedding dress shopping with them, proceeded to body shame me."
This happened over two years ago, but I still remember it to this day. I was a busy resident physician at the time, working over 80 hours a week in a very stressful job. My parents knew about this. Husband was also very busy with his job.
Between maintaining the home and my job...no, I didnt have time to exercise 4 hours a day or look like a model. Despite wanting to, I could NOT just go all day, not eating, because that would deem me unable to do surgery on patients. I was at a normal weight, with a normal body (according to doctors) but I did not have the look of a model. I had dark circles under my eyes.
My parents insisted that I take a week to travel all the way to India for dress shopping (we are of Indian origin). I explained to them just how busy I was-and that many Indian women in the US shop at Indian stores here in the US.
But my parents threw a hissy fit. They made me take off that week, my job won't give me off anymore at one time. Traveling to and from India and getting over jetlag left me just 3 days to really shop.
It was a total, ridiculous mess. my parents showed no regard for me, or how I was doing. The entire trip was spent body shaming me, even though I was of normal BMI. They didn't care that I worked 80 hours and just got off an exhausting flight, they criticized me for the circles under my eyes.
I cried multiple times every single day. It struck me, I was a woman in my late 20s, a doctor, being bullied by my parents. At one point I even offered to straight up quit my job-quit the years of training and sacrifice-to work on my body to match their ideals, but NOPE, they said they wanted me to both be a great doctor and also have the body of a model.
The cherry on top? I had little to no say at first in my wedding dress. My parents had already spoken to their "family friends" (jealous people who are not well wishers) and decided I had to wear a simple, funeral like dress.
For those not familiar with Indian weddings, they are fancy affairs, and this would have stuck out SORELY. I ended up having to face time in my MIL and husband and get them to convince my parents.
The wedding they held was ultimately not to make me happy. It was to make their friends happy. They treated me as a show piece and nothing more than that. I did not even know/was not close with most people at my wedding, they were random friends of my parents'.
These were jealous people, who made rude comments about my henna not being dark enough, about my in laws giving me too much gold as a gift (wtf), who came over to me, picked up my skirt, said it was too heavy and gaudy and criticized me. My parents worship these friends to this day.
Now trying to plan for my first child (hopefully), and the idea of pregnancy and the weight gain with it makes me cringe because I know they'll throw a hissy fit. My mother was a SAHM, my grandma came and took care of the kids so my mother had time to exercise back to her normal weight in no time...as a physician now, I don't think I can be back to my pre-pregnancy weight within 3 weeks of giving birth.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Why are you still in contact with these people?
They don't like you or respect you.
Block them, and go NC.
They’re awful people.
I would not want any of these people around my children! As hard as it may seem, cutting ties with your toxic parent(s) is such a stress relief!
How many more happy memories will you allow them to ruin? Cut them off. they're so poisonous. Enjoy your pregnancy. Enjoy the arrival of your precious baby and enjoy motherhood.
Time to break the mold of the obedient Asian daughter and woman. Time to grow a spine and stop try/want to please them all the time. Let them throw their hissy fits.
No offense, but in most circumstances the idea that an adult’s parents can “force” them to do anything is just simply not true unless they are somehow kidnapping you, requesting time off for you, hypnotizing/threatening your wellbeing you to make you comply to get on the plane, etc.
Manipulating and being extremely unreasonable absolutely. Very difficult to resist demands also absolutely yes. But at the end of the day this sounds like it was a choice to me… unless I am missing something? Not saying this situation wouldn’t be awful for you, but I do think in the future you have more power to protect your own peace than you maybe think!
Whatever boundary issues might be at play here, I am very sorry that you were body shamed like this. Especially by family for a really important and emotional event like this. My mom has body shamed me as well and it is awful.
I know the dynamics in families from India are different from most American families, we do have many terrible people here too though, but how long are you going to allow your parents to hurt you? You're a grown woman, a doctor FFS, you accomplished more them most people ever get to.
Take pride in all that you've done in your life and cut out the people that want to put you down and hurt you, parents included. Do you want to raise a child, especially a girl, in this toxic mindset? The world does not need another generation of haters no matter where they're from.