My mother once told me if you don’t have anything good to say, say nothing. It was the first Sunday of January 2021; the 3rd, day to be precise. I was scrolling through Instagram mindlessly and I saw something that triggered me. A friend of mine who recently had a baby shared in her stories that she went to church and was approached by someone who said they did not recognize it was her and the person used these exact words “oh I never knew you could get this big.” As you can imagine, my jaw dropped, I felt it for her and I could see through the IG stories video that it hurt her.

I sent her a long message of encouragement and reminded her of the amazing miracle her body did and how proud she should be of herself and not to allow anyone to shame her just months from having a child. I reminded her that she was beautiful, I reminded her she was doing a great job still looking amazing while juggling the demands of work and marriage and motherhood. I hated the thought that this was still something that happened in 2021 and I am still puzzled why anyone will think it is okay to say that to anyone let alone someone who recently had a baby.

It just had me asking myself …..what happened to kindness? What happened to give a compliment on her outfit, or her makeup, or her hair, or congratulations on your baby, what happened to a simple hello, how are you doing?……why go for her weight? One thing she said in the stories is “Please let’s not do this in 2021,” and I couldn’t agree more. Let us choose to be people who show love and extend kindness to others. Let us choose to be people who sprinkle joy around wherever we go and lift people up instead of tearing them down. Let us be people who make others feel better about themselves and give people a reason to smile. Weight gain during and after pregnancy is such a sensitive topic and I have come to learn over the years that you never really know what people are going through. After a person has a child they are more self-aware of their body and remember what they used to look like. For the first few months and sometimes years there is a period where they are trying to reconcile what was, with what is; and trust me when I say they are very self-aware of every ounce of weight they have gained. When you see a person, your job is not to comment on their weight; consider acknowledging the person for who they are; they have a mirror at home and know they look different, they have chosen to love themselves that way and most importantly love the new season of motherhood they are in. Some are on the road to their fitness and some are not, and both are equally okay.

This is obviously something that hit home for me because I am a mother of two and I know the work it takes to lose weight. Even before having my kids, in my college years, I was overweight and I know how much effort went into that journey of losing 40 pounds over a year. I also know that the reality for some mothers is no matter how much weight they lose their bodies will never look the same way it once was and to make anyone feel less than themselves is wrong. Okay, I will admit I am ranting, but if nothing else, I hope you take away from this to be careful of the words you speak. To choose to compliment people instead of tearing them down, to choose to have empathy and compassion even if you have never worn a person’s shoes and most importantly to remember that greetings don’t have to be observations, sometimes if you don’t have something good to say, maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all.