PUNK POETRY: Backseat Driver by Sophie McMillan
I was taught that food was my enemy in the back of a silver Toyota Camry on a day trip to Boston.
Just a baby fat wearing eight year old happily unwrapping a Little Debbie Zebra Cake from the gas station.
My mother - a tall, tan (surprisingly tan for a woman in Vermont), brunette goddess (to me at least) and exercised religiously damn near every day - asked if I knew what calories were.
What I did or didn’t know didn’t matter
because she immediately made it crystal clear:
“Calories are what make you fat. How many calories are in that cake?”
And I looked at the wrapper and I saw the calories and I put the cake back in the wrapper.
And I felt guilt for the first time about food.
And it’s never gone away.
It’s been 30 years and it hasn’t gone away.
And now, now I’m the mom of these two little amazing beings.
A boy and a girl, whatever those labels mean today or later.
And I have to teach them about food and what it does for us.
Telling them is easy.
I can avoid the problematic phrases and labels like “good” or “bad.”
I can preach about how all bodies are good bodies.
I can remind them that social media and entertainment are art forms, based on reality but 99.9% not real.
But showing them, leading by example, now that…
I can’t let them see me skip meals (I only eat one main meal a day).
I can’t let them hear me counting calories (got to keep it on or under 1200).
I can’t let them hear my agonizing guilt over eating too much.
I can’t let them see my thrill at “successfully” eating less than a normal person should.
And I can’t let them hear my sigh of relief when I’m under 125 pounds.
I worry, holy shit I worry, for the age when they start to realize what I’m doing to myself. Kids are smart - so fucking smart - and they’ll see it before I’m even aware they can see it.
Because I was just eight when I was taught that food was my enemy in the back of that silver Toyota Camry.
--Sophie McMillan
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