If they ask me what the most challenging part of living with my family on campus is, people are often surprised with my answer. They expect me to talk about the “exposure” my kids have to the “evil influences” that they presume are all around us in campus life (drugs, alcohol, Animal-House-esque-insanity). Or, if they are asking me personally about my own challenges with living on campus, they expect me to talk about having to “deal with students” 24×7 or never “getting away” from my work. At least, this is what they usually tell me they expect. What they hear from me, though, is unexpected.
It has been unexpected for me too. I hadn’t anticipated it before moving on. But the thing that has been most difficult for me personally, and most concerning for me as a parent, are the body image issues that are rippling right at the surface of the predominantly upper-class, historically white, northeast, private, well-endowed, relatively-elite college campus.
The college I attended (Colby College), and the university at which we now live (Lehigh University), have many things in common. One of those things is the prevalence of eating disorders and the pressure for a specific “look,” including thinness-to-an-extreme, which is very rigidly defined on these campuses — and many like them — as the cultural standard for female beauty. At Colby I was shocked by the number of my female peers who were bulimic and anorexic. I was even more shocked by how many of my female friends there were obsessed with their appearance — specifically, their body shape, size, and weight. When I arrived at Lehigh as a new professor I was similarly shocked once again by the body image issues that I saw in the students I taught. At Lehigh, I believe, it is even worse than it had been at Colby. I don’t know if that is a manifestation of the geographic location of the place, the demographics of the students who attend there, or if it is simply the result of it being twenty years later in our American Beauty Ideal. Regardless of all of the (many) root causes, the fact remains: being on a campus like Lehigh makes body image issues, and issues related to female “beauty,” impossible to ignore. To say that they dominate the culture of the place is not an understatement.
As a “normal” professor, it was somewhat easy to avoid it, turn a blind eye, or just push it out of my mind. In my first ten years at Lehigh I had several students come out to me as anorexic and/or bulimic, and I confronted many others when I was seriously concerned about their health or well-being. It was pretty common for me to deal with these things in my interactions with students. However, it was’t a major issue for me personally; I could always keep it at an arm’s-length-distance and put it out of my mind when need be; I rarely discussed these issues with other faculty/staff; and I could manage it more as a mentor/counselor/“normal”-professor. But when I crossed the line into “abnormal,” and moved onto campus, and started to actually live with the students, and have my life and my family’s life mesh with students… it became impossible to not have the body image issues of the campus seep into my deep-and-surface-level day-to-day consciousness.
Growing up, I was the perfect candidate for a serious eating disorder. To this day, I am truly amazed (and a little bit mind-boggled) as to why I did not develop an eating disorder or struggle in a significant way with body image issues. The caveat to all of this is the acknowledgement that — of course — you cannot be a woman in contemporary American culture — let alone live for any period of time on a predominantly upper-class, historically white, northeast, private, well-endowed, relatively-elite university campus — without having these issues effect you. So, like most all women, I am affected. But I haven’t ever battled, in any serious or significant way, an eating disorder or a body image disorder. I have some loose theories as to why this is (mostly related to my own mother’s parenting of me and the approaches to these issues that she employed), but I can’t really explain why I did not fall victim to the body-beauty-‘stuff’ that so many of my bracket-of-peers did. I have always been grateful for that, but I am especially grateful now. Because…
At age 40, when I moved onto Lehigh’s campus, with my then 4-year-old daughter, the body-beauty-‘stuff’ that dominates the campus smacked me right in the face good and hard. Suddenly, just as I was turning 40 (a notoriously tough milestone for American women), I was completely surrounded by 19 and 20 year olds at the prime of their lives, fully immersed in a world of toned and sculpted people who are working out daily (many of them obsessively), and who are incredibly fixated (many of them compulsively) on their image. It is intense, and it is overwhelming, and it is sad. It also results in a campus full of absolutely drop-dead gorgeous modelesque people who look strangely similar and strangely beautiful — granted, within in a very “typical”/status-quo/conformist defined standard of “beauty.” You can easily critique it (“they are so victimized by materialist culture!”), you can write it off (“they all look the same!”), and you can degrade it (“how pathetic are they?!?!”). But, none of that really does anyone any good. And it definitely doesn’t make it go away. When you live there, it is all around you, and you can’t explain it away, think it away, or ignore it away. It seeps in, and that is — I’m pretty sure — unavoidable. Unavoidable whether you are 40, 4, or 18.
This is something I just hadn’t really thought about, and that definitely nobody had mentioned to me: the body-image-beauty-issues challenges that would come with living on a college campus as a family.
Two years later, about to turn 42, with Meera now 6, we have spent two years living on campus amongst the “campus bodies.” I’m sure this has impacted Kyle, Owen, and Braydon in many ways, but there is no denying that — primarily in terms of Meera and me — it has been my biggest challenge and my biggest concern related to being a Faculty in Residence Family. And this is just not something I had predicted or anticipated.
For me, it is just more exercise in the life-long exercise (granted a pretty extreme phase of this exercise) of practicing my own self-sovereignty and refusal to cave in to the body-beauty-ridiculousness. I am a sociologist, I know all about this stuff, I’m well-educated in gender and all the related issues, and I’m confident to hold my own. I see it, and feel it, all around me when I’m at home (i.e., on campus at Lehigh), and it is a challenge. What 40-something woman wouldn’t be at least mildly challenged by spending the vast majority of her time — day and night — immersed in a world of incredibly, albeit stereotypically, extremely-beautiful-and-extremely-thin 20-year-olds? Just picture it: in cold weather— the skinny jeans, in warm weather— the skimpy sundresses, in every season— gorgeous, meticulous faces with perfect, shiny hair. But, really, I’m alright. I really (amazingly), actually, am.
But it is Meera I am most worried about. What will come of this where she is concerned? Not only is she immersed in this unrealistic, mini-world, campus microcosm that is our home, but she’s immersed at a very young and impressionable and foundational age.
I spend quite a lot of time discussing this openly and overtly (even in front of Meera at times) with Lehigh students. They tend to share my concern once I raise it, although — like me, and like most people — they really hadn’t thought of it before I brought it to their attention. I regularly ask them, gently, to be careful with what they say and how they say it (“What should I wear to the party? I feel soooo fat today!” and “Oh my God you look soooo awesome, you are soooo thin!” and “I can’t eat for the next week because I ate soooo much pizza last night!” are typical sorts of expressions). And they appreciate, so much, when I raise this. Seeing Meera there will usually make them quickly change direction and re-phrase, and re-frame the entire interaction. They want better for Meera, and they do better for the sake of her. That has been a pretty incredible experience for me to be a part of: to see the students see how dysfunctional this all is for real life. And I can only help that all of this helps, and will help, Meera navigate the rough terrain of body-image-beauty-issues now and in the future.
As with the other social problems we confront as the result of living on campus (for example, the drugs, alcohol, Animal-House-esque-insanity that first come to mind when people think about raising a family on a college campus), with the body-beauty-‘stuff’ I tend to try to use our experience as a way to confront it directly and head-on within our family. Despite the fact that she’s only 6, I have been talking about these issues — pretty openly — with my daughter. Just like the rest of it, it is slow-going, and we tread carefully into this territory with tiny baby steps. But we are going into these conversations young, because we have to. And it is very, very challenging. It is, for me, like I said at the start here, the most challenging aspect of living on campus.
It has been such a great respite and retreat to spend time on the beach these past couple of weeks. Whereas for most women, the beach is an insecurity-trigger, for Meera and me it seems to be a confidence builder. I suppose it is like many things, right?— everything is relative. When you live on a college campus, the beach is easy-peesy-lemon-squeezey where all things body-image-beauty-issues are concerned. It is such a breath of fresh air for me to be around body shapes and sizes of all ages and varieties, letting it all hang out, donned only in bathing suits. It is a treat to be around all sorts of ladies from all walks of life with their hair not done and their make-up either ruined (from sweat or water), or — as in most cases — not done in the first place. How refreshing! What a pleasure!
I can see the impact on Meera too. It is good for her to get a break from the unrealistic-reality that is her life back home. Here she sees that girls’ bodies, and women’s bodies, are all over the spectrum, and that hair isn’t always perfect, and that bathing suits come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors and patterns and nobody really cares much about what you’re wearing. On the beach she gets to see that female people — all sorts of female people — can rock the bathing suit and strut their stuff walking down the beach or riding a wave or floating on their back. It is ironic that the beach bodies can be so soothing. But soothing it is, at least for me and my girl.
And so, our southern summer continues, and we find some relief, and some healing, in the beautiful beach bodies that surround us during our important (important in so many ways) July get-away.
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