I stopped hiding my stomach in every photograph

Dear Delyara, I had three children and abdominal surgery that left a long scar and a body very different from the one I spent my twenties trying to preserve. For years, I stood behind people in photographs or held handbags across my stomach. My daughter noticed. She began doing the same thing at thirteen. That frightened me more than any mirror. I started working with a therapist on the way I spoke about my body and stopped praising weight loss as though smaller automatically meant better. Last weekend, we attended a family wedding. In the group photograph, I stood in the front row with my arms relaxed at my sides. My stomach was visible beneath the dress. Nothing terrible happened. Later, I saw the photograph and immediately noticed the shape I had spent years hiding. Then I noticed my daughter beside me, laughing with her whole body and not covering hers. Self-love has not become constant admiration. It has become refusing to teach my child that a woman must arrange every photograph around the parts of herself she has been trained to apologize for.