Chubby Kid

Being picked on, because of the way I looked, how your careless jokes, can hurt your own children, translated…

The children’s book author, Jing-Luen Lee has a cute book published, “Spit Out Those Seeds”, the main character is a pig with a round face, he’d always eaten his food very fast and take in a lot of food, one day, he’d eaten an entire papaya whole, is he, going to, have a papaya tree growing out of him?

I’m the story mom of Mimi Chou’s class, and, I’d told this story to the class one day, and, before I got them into the discussion of “What happens when he’d swallowed so many papaya seeds?”, at the moment when the protagonist, the chubby pig made his appearance, he was attacked by the kids hard.

Imagine how he feels, not my photograph…

Because, the chubby pig always came out under the following introductions, “of ALL the pigs, Chubby was always the first one seen, because he has, a huge face”, “Chubby is very quiet, and all he says were, ‘eat more, eat more’.”, “Chubby always gulfed down his food, and took in a lot of food”, “Chubby always finishes his food first in his class”, “Chubby has a round and fat face”, “Chubby is a glutton”.

In the adults’ eyes, Chubby is simply, too cute, but, that’s not how the children thought about him at all. I’d heard them discussed, “Fat Pig”, “Stinky Pig”, “Mimi’s mom, we have a fat pig in our class too”, “Lazy pig”, “So-and-so is fat as a pig”.

I’d glanced over at the classmate they were talking about, he’d become, somewhat, unrested, but showed that stature of “they’d NOT talking about me”; I felt, that although he was only in the first grade, but because of his chubbiness, he must’ve gotten attacked this way pretty often.

But do you believe that the rest of the kids are attacking him out of malice? Not necessarily, they were merely, responding to the story I’d told them, expressing their beliefs of the stereotypes of how “Pigs are lazy and stupid”. And, toward the end of my story, I’d even asked the class, if anybody want to act out the character, everybody all raised her/his hands, and rushed toward the front of the room.

as we grow older, entering into the teens, not my photograph…

And you know what, at this time, so-and-so stayed seated, he didn’t want to play the character of “Chubby” at all; the other kids wanted to portray “Chubby”, because they’re NOT chubby, and they were merely, “playing a role”, and would NEVER fall into the situation of “getting laughed at because you’re fat”.

I’d always told the kids, that you must love yourselves, love the way you looked, but, the chubby children had always been at war with everybody who’d pointed toward them, “You really should eat less”, “Stop eating,” “You’re the FATTEST kid in the class”.

Every day was like this for her/him, with the constant negative criticisms about her/his body type, how, is the chubby kid supposed to, love her/himself?

A lot of the chubby children, as they grew up, they’d strategized and became, easy-going chubby people, telling oneself, “I am optimistic, and everybody like the fat funny person”, or, “If I make fun of myself before someone else does, then, I wouldn’t feel that I was picked on.” And, being called fat, can become internalized in ways we’re not even aware of, as the adults all felt, “Fat is bad”, how are they, to TEACH their young, to NOT attack someone else, with a different body type?

a child being bullied by an adult here, not my artwork…

So, this, is a SERIOUS issue that this story mom noticed, and, because of the feedbacks about our selves are received from our parents first when we were very young, we naturally start to, internalize what those god DAMN parents nicknamed us as, and carry that into our adulthood years, and, many of us, not realizing this, will bully our own young later on in life too.