Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image by Hillary L. McBride

Author:Hillary L. McBride [McBride, Hillary L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2017-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

GIRLS PLAY HOCKEY TOO

Carlee’s parents allowed and encouraged her to be strong in her body: she and her brother played hockey together with her dad on the home-made ice rink behind their house. But, Carlee addresses how she also comes from a long line of seeing the women in her family be ‘strong’. As women, we have a powerful ability to connect to other people, especially the women who have come before us, and after us24. By recognizing the strong women who have come before her, she has been given an example of what it could be like to be a woman in the world, in a way that she can see strength and power within herself. Here is how Carlee tells me about this part of her story: “I come from a family that on both sides there are very strong women like my Oma … and my great grandmother, and I learned recently that when she was younger she played hockey with the boys, like this was like yeah! right? And I heard that and I was like ‘yea she did’ right? I come from a family of very strong women and strong men… also sensitive men, like my grandpa is so sensitive, he’ll cry when praying for the meal… to me a man can cry and a man can be strong and firm, it’s the same”

It makes me smile when I read this part of Carlee’s interview, because I can hear and feel the delight she has in knowing that her grandma was gutsy and defied the rules too. Her great-grandmother was a hockey-playing woman back in her day, which says a lot about her ability as a woman to defy the norms that were even more rigid in that generation. It makes sense that Carlee, and her mother Sherry, are powerful women—they were shown what that could look like by the women who came before them, instead of having to figure it out on their own. The image that comes to mind is of the old stone streets in Europe—the more they’re walked on, the more the groves form in the stones and mark a path of where people have walked before you. The stones are less rough and harsh, but clearly define which way a person could go. I can imagine that if a young girl was trying to decide if she could play hockey or not, that if she knew her grandmother and great-grandmother had done so, even when it was more taboo, that it would give her the courage to do so.

It’s also worth noting that she talks about the men in her family as being both strong and sensitive. It’s clear from how she understands strength and sensitivity, that neither term is used only for one gender or the other. What a world it would be, both for women and men, if strength and sensitivity were not seen as mutually exclusive, rather appreciated together in the bouquet of the complexity of each human, adding intricacy to who we are.

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