Author and mother Jill Robbins has "always hated" her stomach — but it hasn't stopped her from "letting it all hang out" when she's at the beach or the pool or the water park.
"I have a bikini body - I put a bikini on my body and go swimming," she wrote in a Facebook post.
That being said, she was still taken aback when, during a trip to a water park, her son threw his arms around her and said, "Mommy, I love your belly."
"We were at the waterpark yesterday and when I remember that moment when I whisked off my coverup," she wrote. "There's always that 'here we go' moment and it always seems like the moment I bare my imperfect skin to the public is when I see some tan, toned twenty something frolicking by."
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Though she initially brushed off her son's comment, he continued, "I love your belly because it's so soft and squishy and you give good hugs."
At first, Robbins wrote that "my ears honed in on the 'squishy' because no one likes to hear their stomach is squishy, at least not me. But then I thought about it. I thought about the difference in the way I look at my body and the way my kids see me."
The change in perspective made her look at her body in a different way, she said.
"Think about that, moms," she wrote. "The thing you're most down on yourself about might just very well be the thing that your kids love and appreciate about you the most. Think about the view from their eyes. It's definitely a new perspective."
"And, it's hot out there," she added. "Put on your bathing suit, stop worrying about what you look like and get in the damn pool with your kids."
Refinery29 has reached out to Robbins for comment, and will update this post if we receive a response.
It's your body. It's your summer. Enjoy them both. Check out more #TakeBackTheBeach here.
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