The New F Word or You Can Be an Asshole, But Not a Fat Asshole

Friends, if you know me well, you know that I swear like a sailor. I am not saying I’m proud of this trait but it does seem to be well-engrained. The one thought that helps me sleep at night is that at least my children will know how to drop a swear word here and there properly because nothing makes you look sillier than stringing random swear words together in the attempt to look cool – people will know that my kids mean business when the swear comes out of their sweet little mouths. Naturally I’ve set ground rules which are, unless you are in severe pain, you cannot swear until you pay income taxes, in which case, you’ve earned it.

Now there are only a few words I won’t utter. Most of them refer to female anatomy which I find just vulgar. Can a cuss word be uncouth? But there is another word I won’t say when referring to a human (animals are exempt because well, they are animals) and that is the F word. Now you are thinking, hmmm…she is a liar because I’ve heard her say “fuck” in front of her own mother and just last night I whispered very quietly “for fuck’s sake” as my sweet Sugar Bear pitched a whining fit for 20 minutes in the car because I didn’t take him to the gym (I was trapped and was exerting all my effort to not yell.)

No Friends, I’m talking about the other F word. It’s a word that has been tossed around forever and used casually but viciously. I’m talking about the word Fat.

I thought we had an unwritten rule in our house that we don’t use that word as a derogatory adjective about people. Sure, I call my cats fat all the time – because they are fat and my cat Sydney is lovingly called Fat Syd or Shamu (she is black and white and likes to bite so this is really a genius nickname if I do say so myself.) But I was having a conversation with my Moose and we were talking about a kid he doesn’t like. He told me that he calls the kid Fat XXX (leaving the name out for obvious reasons) within his circle of friends. I was stopped in my tracks with horror. “Absolutely not! We do not ever use the word Fat to put someone down! You won’t say it again. I don’t care what else you want to call him – jerk, asshole, douche – whatever. But you will not say the word Fat. And you can tell your friends that Fat is the ONE word your mom won’t allow.” (Side note, I think I will also outlaw the word Cunt but that’s for another time.) I was shocked that my sweet demeanored baby would say something so hurtful; all I can think is that he really doesn’t understand the damage that the F word does. I’m not going to get into how society perpetuates beauty with success, blah blah blah. I could get on a soapbox and never stop typing but let's be honest, you've read it all before. It’s crazy the power shapes holds in our society but it is life in America until we see a major change in thinking. Fat is the one last acceptable form of discrimination (btw, it’s not acceptable.) But I’ve got a more personal reason why the word is simply not allowed.

See I come from a long history with the F word. Somewhere during my teens I decided that nothing could be worse than being fat, which has led to a twenty plus year cycle of either starving, over exercising, or binging - all with a healthy helping of self-hatred. I wish I could explain how insidious an eating disorder is, that even when I look healthy or even (gasp) fat, I am constantly battling with it. You could call me the worst name in the book and I wouldn’t think twice but if you say I’m fat or big-boned, I will literally curl into a fetal position for 12 hours. After more than two years of therapy I am finally getting to a point where a setback in life doesn’t equal a fast. Much like an alcoholic, I realize that this will be something I will likely deal with forever. Honestly I wouldn’t wish it on anyone - and sadly there are a lot of anyones out there dealing with it too. I recognize that I can relapse at any time and what’s fun about an eating disorder is that when you are really skinny, people cheer you on, which just further perpetuates the behavior, until you look like a skeleton and people think “Ew, gross.” And it all starts with the F word. Which brings us back to this moment.

I don’t think my Moose understood the hurt that the F word can cause. He’s not the kind of kid that looks to destroy people’s feelings, which is why it’s important to cut him off at the pass early. He’s going to meet a lot of people in his life and if he can avoid inflicting major damage, even if they deserve it, he will sleep better at night when he’s 80. He’s got my permission to call people a Motherfucker for all I care (well, maybe we’ll save that one for high school.) But just don’t call them a Fat Motherfucker. Because then you’ve crossed a line.