The relationship we have with our bodies is a pretty personal one, but it is heavily influence by our culture, our media and the people who come in and out of our lives. Our romantic partners, for instance, have the ability to either help us feel wonderful about our bodies, or help us feel defeated by them. This is especially true for new mothers but, thankfully, there are ways every dad can help his partner accept her postpartum body. While it, honestly, shouldn't take another person (even someone as close to us moms as our partners) to remind us that our bodies are incredible and worthy of love, sometimes it does and, hey, that's OK.
I had a difficult time learning to love my postpartum body. In the early weeks after my son was born, I allowed myself to fixate on a specific number on the scale, the size of my milk-producing breasts and my post-baby belly that looked four months pregnant. I didn't feel like my body was mine anymore, and I was somewhat disappointed that complete body autonomy and self-love didn't hit me the moment my son was born. However, it took a few in-depth conversations with my partner, his endless support and a plenty of dedicated moments of self-care, and I started to realize that the last thing I should do is hate the body that made me a mother, my partner a father, and my son an actual, living, breathing human being.
Thanks to prevailing and unhealthy beauty standards perpetuated by an unkind culture that tells women their bodies are only worthy of respect and love if they look a certain way, it can be hard to learn to love your body at any time in your life. It's hard to value yourself when our society tells you (almost begs you) not to. It's equally if not more difficult to do so after you've had a baby, and our culture demands that women hide the evidence that their bodies were ever pregnant, ever birthed a baby and ever sustained a baby. This is when dads (and all partners, regardless of gender) can step in and encourage their partners to love their postpartum bodies in the following ways: