WHEN A PARENT FAT-SHAMES THEIR CHILD

'I'm fat, I know that... but constant criticism just drains any motivation' - "What would Jo Say?"

Each week I answer a reader’s dilemma, drawing on my 26 years' experience as a therapist. Therapists don’t dish out advice - but here, I’m using those skills to reflect on dilemmas and offer up possible ways forward.

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Question

Dear Jo,
I’m a child of divorce, and my parents fought constantly until my dad finally left my mum and took me and my brother with him. My mum did try to reach out, but dad blocked her—honestly, I’m glad. She was kind of a psycho, emotionally manipulative, and I never want to talk to her again. Still, losing the only female figure in my life left a void.

I grew up around only men, and I think that’s made me emotionally distant, cautious, and more boyish in how I relate to the world. My relationship with my dad is complicated—he’s done a lot for me, but he also constantly makes hurtful comments about my weight and my mum. I keep it all inside because I feel guilty speaking up.

I’ve always struggled with body image, especially in my family where people openly comment on appearance, not only mine but many other people too. I’m fat, I know that, and while I should be dieting and exercising for my health, the constant criticism just drains any motivation I have. I can never look in the mirror and think I’m pretty.

When random relatives make comments, I can brush it off—but when it’s my dad, it really hurts. His words make me feel less than human sometimes. I know they say it in good faith and just want to encourage me but it demotivates me more. I know this mindset isn’t healthy, and it’s affecting my self-esteem and my relationships. I want to change, but I feel stuck and don’t know how to begin.

Answer
Thankyou for your letter. You’ve faced more than your fair share of difficulty in life. It’s hard to imagine, from the outside, what experiencing a mum whom you describe as manipulative and a psycho might have been like for you as a child, on top of witnessing your parents fighting in the time before they finally split up. It sounds like you experienced little stability, happiness or healthy kind of influence from home, which we ideally need to be our Safe Space when we’re growing up. It sounds as if you learnt early on to fire-fight instead.

This will have caused a significant emotional scar for you. The fact you are here, speaking up for yourself and what you want from life is testament to something - an inner force that you should feel proud of! There’s fight in you to find something better.

I wonder if it helps to think of your family as a ‘system’, that runs back through the generations like a chain, over time. Each generation struggles because their own parents lacked certain skills, never experienced unconditional love themselves, so they too grew up fire-fighting in their relationships, then had their own children and passed on these gaps in knowing how to be, or what safe, loving connecting felt like. In this way, you can see that your parents were likely repeating the dysfunction they learnt through their own childhoods. It sounds like your mum has a mental health problem that’s not been addressed with the necessary support/therapy. Where and how does the damage stop? Your reaching out and seeking help is how that chain can be broken.

What does ‘more boyish’ mean for you? I think that you’ve learnt to be more ‘emotionally distant’ and ‘cautious’ not necessarily because you’ve grown amongst males but because of the damage you’ve suffered in toxic environments (there are men in the world who connect emotionally, are kind and loving). You’ve learnt to split yourself from overwhelmingly painful emotions, where you’ve had no safe space in which to feel accepted or loved for yourself. Your dad took responsibility for you, but you were not cherished or nurtured. You’ve experienced yourself overwhelmingly through your parents’ eyes.

Having the capacity to reflect on things and reach out for something better is a vital first step, and you have taken it. The attachment-style you describe with your dad is one of the most challenging: he was the ‘good’ parent who stuck with you when your mum deserted you, yet he’s also let you down with his constant criticism and body shaming. So you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Is this why you feel you ‘keep it all inside’ and feel too ‘guilty’ to bite back at his hurtful comments?

A good place to start is to think of how you would like to raise your own children. Write a list; what kind of parent do you want to be for them? What won’t you be like? Here’s the beginning of your Manifesto for your own boundaries in relationships. You deserve to be treated in exactly the same way - and need to give yourself permission to expect better. We all have a right be be spoken to with kindness, not cruelty.

I suggest reading the book: ‘The Book you wish your Parents had Read (and your Children will be Glad that you Did)’ by the brilliant psychotherapist Philippa Perry, because it will help you to formulate these new boundaries that will apply as much to yourself as any future children. How would you speak to a beloved friend? Now treat yourself in this way - support yourself to think about eating more healthily, exercising regularly - with kindness, not in the critical, mean voice that you’re used to hearing from your family. Think about how you tell your family ‘no, you don’t talk to me in this way’.

You’ve made a great start by writing in - now keep moving forwards.

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