For centuries, the existence of female bodies has been deemed “a problem” by some people. Some women’s bodies are declared too beautiful to be shown in public. (Don’t they understand that uncovered shoulders might stir impure thoughts in poor helpless men?)
Or bodies are too fat or old or “misshapen” to be on display. (What are they thinking wearing a miniskirt after the age of 40: don’t they know that’s not attractive.)
Too little coverage, too much coverage; too fancy, not fancy enough. The only way to win this game is not to play, as demonstrated by one woman who took to Reddit’s “Am I The Assh*le” to ask if she was in the wrong for wearing a two-piece bathing suit as a mom of four.
The Redditor created the post with a burner account (not uncommon on the AITA subreddit). She explains that she’s a mother to 2-year-old quadruplets who have recently started swim lessons. Since the kids are so young, they require one-on-one supervision, so the anonymous poster and her husband recruited two friends to come along so the toddlers could all be in the same class.
“At the lessons, all the other kids had their mothers/female guardians with them, and all of them wore shorts/shirt swimsuits,” she explains. “My husband/his friends had trunks with no shirt, and I wore a two-piece.”
While she notes that her bathing suit was “modest,” she does note that her stomach and back showed. She thought nothing of any of this. But a few days in, things took a turn.
“When everyone was getting changed to leave, a few mothers came up to me,” she recounts.
“They said they didn’t want to mention it earlier to make classes awkward, but they and a few other mothers were uncomfortable with how I was wearing a two piece to the lessons all week. They suggested if I do another class with my kids here, I cover up my stomach because nobody wants to see it because of the stretch marks from my pregnancy. (Which is a lot more than average because I had quadruplets). I asked if they had an issue with how my husband/his friends didn’t wear a shirt at all, and they said the didn’t care because they didn’t have the ‘baby belly’ like I did.”
The exchange left her questioning if the other moms “were being rude or just were honest.”
It hadn’t struck her, she says, that her stomach would be objectionable, and maybe that was on her.
“AITA?” she asks.
And… *takes a deep breath* OK! Let’s get into it…
Redditors overwhelmingly supported the “OP,” declaring her “NTA” or “not the assh*le.” In fact, many were (understandably) aghast at the terrible behavior of the other moms at the pool.
“Their rudeness and entitlement is grosser than any stretch marks,” wrote one.
“I swear mothers are mothers’ worst enemies, sometimes,” lamented another. “You’ve had 4 babies; your body is the way it is because it carried them, and I’m glad that shame didn’t occur to you, or at least not prior to these women feeling entitled to telling you to hide. There is no reason to cover stretch marks, they’re not inappropriate at all, but particularly not when they tell a story of epic motherhood.”
“I’ve worked in aquatics, and I’d report this to the pool/facility manager and have them speak to the moms,” suggested a third. “No one who runs a pool wants patrons body shaming one another.”
The only folks who deemed the Redditor “the assh*le” were those who couldn’t even believe this actually happened. Surely, they posited, this is made up.
For the original poster’s part, however, she updated the post with a message of thanks.
“I did not expect this to blow up so much!” she wrote. “This has made me feel much better about the situation. Fortunately (or unfortunately) this isn’t our usual pool and we’re done lessons until next year so I won’t have the chance to say anything you suggested to those people.”
Whether or not she gets the opportunity to give the cadre of rude moms what-for, we hope she’ll go on rocking a two-piece!
