A friend posted this article on Facebook today and I couldn’t help but tear up reading it. Like the author of this post, my mom is my hero, too … for a multitude of reasons.

And I am forever grateful that it wasn’t until much later in life I ever heard my mom mention her weight. If she had thoughts, she kept them to herself. I never saw her preening in the mirror, “body-checking” or complaining to my dad about her body. She never made me feel bad about my own weight — nor did she ever draw attention to hers. She was just MOM.

In our family, weight was just not a discussion topic. And for that, I am forever grateful, because I can see what it can do to a little girl … like the author here in this article, this little girl thought her mom was the cat’s meow … and it absolutely killed her that her mom didn’t think so … that she was so consumed with her weight that she couldn’t see past it.

How sad an existence is that?! A life consumed by weight?

Yet that could have been my life just a couple years ago–and I shudder at the thought.

One of my biggest fears as a parent has been transposing my own body image issues onto Maya (and now our future son — boys can develop body image issues just as easily as girls).

Though I am fully recovered from my disordered eating past, I still — like all women out there — have “fat days.” Even so, I keep it to myself. I don’t talk about weight, size, or anything of the sort in front of her; I learned my lesson.

The absolute last thing I want her to do is develop a complex of any sort … or have her think her mommy doesn’t love herself. I want to raise a strong, independent young woman … and I want her to know — and believe — her mama is one, too. And I want her to know that strength and independence has nothing to do with physical appearance and everything to do with confidence and positive self-esteem.

Some days — especially now, pregnant and getting bigger by the day — are fake-it-til-you-make-it days. But on the whole, I would never want her writing an article like this someday. And I pray to God she never needs to.

How about you? Did your mom ever discuss her weight in front of you? How did it make you feel?