Sister is pregnant and says we need to stop being toxic around her baby

[Anonymous]

I give her a lot of credit for setting boundaries from the start. It could also be that she also finds your conversation topics to be toxic to her own well being and she is trying to reset the environment to remove the negativity.

[Anonymous]

Team sister. Your family dynamic sounds awful for a young girl to grow up around. Now is the chance for all of you to acknowledge you have body image complexes, and do the hard work now to undo that. It will benefit all of you.

Kids can be harsh mirrors. It’s difficult to see your own flaws reflected back at you, but I see it as life giving us a second chance to become kinder, better people. Don’t turn away because it’s uncomfortable.

- a mom who has limited interactions with family members due to toxic behaviors

[Anonymous]

Agree with sister. I was amazed to her DDs talk about dieting in3rd grade. It really does impact girls early in their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My younger sister is pregnant with a girl and has warned the rest of us that she will ban us from engaging with her child if we continue toxic behaviors around her. The toxic behaviors she is citing is as follows:

- comments about having a bad hair or skin day
- comments about losing or gaining weight
- comments about beauty and being pretty

We are a large family with 5 sisters so obviously a lot of our talk is about who lost weight who started a new workout who iss eating what meal plan etc.

I know she means well but it seems a bit extreme. We feel like we must walk on egg shells around her.

No, this is not "obvious" - it's toxic. I have a big, close group of long time women friends, and this kinda stuff comes up, like, 5% of the time. Your sister is right. You're so deep into this you don't see how unhealthy it is for you, for your family, and absolutely for this new baby for this to be such a huge part of your mental and social energy. At an absolute minimum, you need to cut this stuff out in front of your niece. But honestly, I hope you take this as the wake up call you need. There is more to life than what you look like and what you weigh. Do you talk about... the news? Your jobs? Parenting? What you do in your free time? Good TV you've been watching?

The fact that you find this extreme and that you're walking on egg shells means that this is a huge part of your thought and conversational patterns. Honestly, that's so sad. You have this one amazing and wonderful life. Find something else to focus on. Not just for your sister or your niece, but for you.

[Anonymous]

I never talk about those topics with my sister or girlfriends.

[Anonymous]

This is a level of agreement never before reached on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

OP you sound a generation behind. That's very much how my mom and her sisters and friends talk -- who's lost weight, who's gained, who's on a new diet or joined Weight Watchers or Tops or whatever, who has started a new walking routine with the express purpose of losing weight, etc.

Those women are all in their 70s and 80s. They've been worried about their weight for 80 YEARS. Their mother was obsessed with weight, too, and started teaching them that their bodies were wrong and needed to be controlled and manipulated as soon as they could comprehend language. It's really sad.

I am so glad to have grown up in a time where I learned to not listen to my mom, and to be able to raise my own daughter without that baggage. She gets to just like her body and find it useful and not spend her whole life trying to fix it. What a gift. Your sister is asking you to help give her daughter the same gift, and in the process maybe rescue all of you from this stupid obsession. Think on it.

[Anonymous]

That is extreme. Talking about people’s dresses/looks after a big family event like a wedding is fun. Also, talking about diet and exercise can be useful, I learn a lot of tips and share my own (I’m thin but have family history of type 2 diabetes so need to be careful). You shouldn’t change your behavior because of her threats—let her act on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My younger sister is pregnant with a girl and has warned the rest of us that she will ban us from engaging with her child if we continue toxic behaviors around her. The toxic behaviors she is citing is as follows:

- comments about having a bad hair or skin day
- comments about losing or gaining weight
- comments about beauty and being pretty

We are a large family with 5 sisters so obviously a lot of our talk is about who lost weight who started a new workout who iss eating what meal plan etc.

I know she means well but it seems a bit extreme. We feel like we must walk on egg shells around her.

No, this is not "obvious" - it's toxic. I have a big, close group of long time women friends, and this kinda stuff comes up, like, 5% of the time. Your sister is right. You're so deep into this you don't see how unhealthy it is for you, for your family, and absolutely for this new baby for this to be such a huge part of your mental and social energy. At an absolute minimum, you need to cut this stuff out in front of your niece. But honestly, I hope you take this as the wake up call you need. There is more to life than what you look like and what you weigh. Do you talk about... the news? Your jobs? Parenting? What you do in your free time? Good TV you've been watching?

The fact that you find this extreme and that you're walking on egg shells means that this is a huge part of your thought and conversational patterns. Honestly, that's so sad. You have this one amazing and wonderful life. Find something else to focus on. Not just for your sister or your niece, but for you.

+1 I have a sister and a group of girlfriends I see weekly. We rarely talk about what we are eating or who lost/gained weight. If food comes up it's more in the frame of "I'm bored with what we're making for dinner these days, have you tried a new recipe?" or sharing a great new restaurant someone tried.

[Anonymous]

Team sister. Are you really this shallow and boring that talking about books you're reading, movies you've seen, current events, your hobbies - literally anything other than people's bodies - presents a hardship for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My younger sister is pregnant with a girl and has warned the rest of us that she will ban us from engaging with her child if we continue toxic behaviors around her. The toxic behaviors she is citing is as follows:

- comments about having a bad hair or skin day
- comments about losing or gaining weight
- comments about beauty and being pretty

We are a large family with 5 sisters so obviously a lot of our talk is about who lost weight who started a new workout who iss eating what meal plan etc.

I know she means well but it seems a bit extreme. We feel like we must walk on egg shells around her.

I have three sisters and we almost never talk about these topics.

[Anonymous]

Team sister. I had to have this conversation with my mom before my son was born. We don’t talk about people’s bodies. Full stop. Zero conversation about dieting or weight or anything like that, about yourself or other. Do not talk about your body or anyone else’s body, there is no need ever. Same with all the other stuff. Why on earth are you bringing this stuff up? It’s horribly toxic and of course she doesn’t want her daughter exposed to it!! You need to grow up.

[Anonymous]

Team sister here as well.

As an adult, I hate when people focus on looks and weight. And it is so boring to hear someone prattle on about their new diet. You and your sisters can have those conversations when the kid is not around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't talk about anything other than your appearance when her daughter is around? Really?

OF COURSE we can! That is not the point. It’s natural for the conversation to steer into these topics usually directed by HER.

It's not natural, and good on her for recognizing that it's not healthy and trying to change the dynamic for the sake of her daughter.

[Anonymous]

Good for your sister. This sounds like an uphill battle and I'm glad she's willing to take it on.

Do some reading on toxic diet culture OP. You are part of it.