Dear Abigail,
My mid-20s daughter is overweight. She wasn’t always. She grew up playing sports and dancing. She more or less avoided the “freshman 15” when she went off to college. But I think the stress of grad school contributed to the gain.
She has since moved far away for a job, and distance is a barrier to heart-to-heart talks about any subject, much less about her weight. I find that when we are together, I can’t bring it up, because I don’t want to ruin our time together.
I raised my daughter to make healthy decisions but did not always succeed in modeling that behavior myself—my weight has fluctuated, and I seek comfort foods in times of stress. So I know how it feels, and I worry about her.
I feel that as her mother I should be able to talk to her about this and encourage her to actively lose weight, but I am unable to find the words and say them out loud.
I am braced for your tough love. Thank you in advance!
—Philippa, 55
Philippa,
When my twin boys were toddlers, my husband and I took them one Sunday morning to a park near our home. I was pregnant with our daughter at the time and a little muddleheaded. I looked over at the woman pushing a little boy in the swing next to mine and recognized her as the wife of an old classmate of my husband’s. We chatted for a bit.
Then, I did something from which I will never recover.
I said, “When are you due?”
The beat she took to register my question still resides, on ice, in my spinal column.
“I just never lost the baby weight,” she said.
To this day, on the rare occasions when I run into her, it is all I can do not to leap behind a hedge. I had thoughtlessly violated one of the ironclad rules of social engagement: When is the right time to ask a woman if she’s pregnant? Never. Never is the right time.
