In honor of Mother’s Day–and because reading all the Mother’s Day posts in the blogosphere this week has gotten me thinking about her–I’ll be posting about my mother all week.

This essay was originally published in Skirt! magazine.

When I was a girl of about 11, probably just having gotten my hands on a beauty magazine, I decided to ask my mother one of those womanly questions that I just knew had to be weighing on her mind.

“Mom,” I said, “If you had to change one thing about your figure, what would it be?”

“Change?” she asked, looking at me blankly as though the thought had never crossed her mind before, her hands resting on her normal-woman-sized hips as they often did.

“Well…hmm.” She twisted her lips, deep in thought, mulling over the question. “I guess it would have to be my saddlebags,” she finally said without much conviction.

“Saddlebags? What are those?” I asked, picturing a leather parcel slung across a horse’s back.

“Oh, you know,” Mom said, patting the space under her behind. “When you are young, everything in this area stays pretty tight, but when you get older it starts to sag a little. I guess if I had to change something, I’d tighten it back up again. ”

“Oh.” I said, wandering away. I vaguely remember being disappointed that she didn’t choose something more glamorous, like a boob job.

My mother did not identify as a feminist. She had never been a hippie or burned a bra. She wore makeup, in shades of Avon black eyeliner that had been rolling around in her makeup case since the late ‘60s and rose rouge that swirled up on a thick, creamy stick. Mom wore dresses and high heels to church; at home she was jeans and sweaters. She dyed her hair and shaved her legs. But she never obsessed about clothing, hair or makeup, never commented on the shapes of other women, and never, ever made a big deal about anything having to do with her own body image.

I try to picture my mother’s shape when I was a girl. Was she average, thin, heavy? I can remember her feel during a hug—soft in all the right places, definitely not skinny. I try to peg her size in my head. 10? 12? I think. 14?

And then it occurs to me that I’ve always had this “problem” noticing weight on other people. I’m always the last to notice when a friend has dropped a few sizes; always the one saying “huh?” when an acquaintance complains about how overweight she is. I lost 20 pounds in a matter of months from nursing my constantly-hungry infant, and didn’t notice until my pants literally fell off my hips. Likewise, I never seemed to notice that I’d gained weight until nothing fit and I was making an emergency trip to Target with my jeans held together by a diaper pin.

For most of my life, there were three kinds of women: extremely large, extremely thin, and everybody else. The vast majority of people, “regular” people, soft, curvy, flawed people, fell into the “everybody else” category.

When watching the movie “Chicago” on the big screen over five years ago, I had a revelation when Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger appeared on screen next to each other.

“Wait a second,” I thought to myself. “Catherine Zeta-Jones isn’t skinny!”

Later, I mentioned my discovery to a friend. “Yeah,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed that before?”

Oh. I guess I didn’t, until I saw the way she dwarfed the waifish Zellweger on screen. She’s a movie star, and she’s gorgeous—I guess I just assumed she was also 100 pounds. And sadly, now each time I see Zeta-Jones, a part of me thinks “Wow, she’s gorgeous even if she IS bigger than the average star!”–as though ravishing beauty and normal weight are usually mutually exclusive traits, with her being the exception to the rule.

As much as I’d like to think I exist on some plane where media images don’t affect my psyche, I’ve begun to realize that Mom’s influence is fading. Assaulted by the constant onslaught of tight, thin bodies in magazines, movies and videos, I find myself starting to notice things I never did before—a few inches of meat on a woman’s thighs, softness in her belly, a roll of flesh under her bra strap. I can look at a friend or acquaintance and within seconds mentally judge her size, whereas before, an 8, 10 and 12 all looked essentially the same. Now I differentiate, sort, classify.

At least this awareness didn’t come as a young teen, while my body was being christened into adulthood with pimples, flat hair, a flat chest, and big feet. I eventually realized that my thighs are different from the thighs of a supermodel, but the realization didn’t come on the same day that I didn’t get my hoped-for date for the Prom.

I didn’t keep my innocence forever, but it was good while it lasted. Thanks, Mom.