The award-winning actress shares her battles with body and fight for her kids. Photo / Supplied
The award-winning actress shares her battles with body and fight for her kids. Photo / Supplied
Welcome to season two of the Herald's parenting podcast: One Day You'll Thank Me. Join parents and hosts Jenni Mortimer and Rebecca Haszard as they navigate the challenges and triumphs of parenting today with help from experts and well-known mums and dads from across Aotearoa.
If you've ever found yourself muttering the words, "I'm sorry you got my [insert embarrassing body part here]," to your child, you're not alone. While it's common to feel bad for passing particular physical traits on to our kids, it can often be what triggers a child's insecurities about aspects of their own appearance.
Maybe it's a strong pair of legs, their grandfather's ears or a flecked complexion - to a child it's just part of them, that is until we as parents, often inadvertently, declare it a "flaw".
For actress and mum of two, Morgana O'Reilly, it's a conversation she's had with herself and with an audience in a bid to "change the lens" through which we see ourselves - and then impress those views upon our kids.
"It makes me really sad to think that I wanted my kids to have certain genetics from me and certain ones from my husband," shares O'Reilly who wrote and performed the hit play Stories About My Body.
"I've looked at my daughter and thought, thank goodness she's got my husband's body type. It'll be better for her. My son, I can tell he's probably got my body type and he'll probably get a bit juicy in adolescence and beyond. And it's actually upsetting to hear myself admit that," says O'Reilly, who reveals she's experienced how quickly children can pick up on their parents' negative comments about appearance.
"Sometimes it's a challenge in those darker moments of just wanting to say out loud personal comments about your own body. I try so hard not to. I don't in front of my kids. I said something once and it was amazing how quickly it backfired ... I said something flippant about getting into my old wedding dress like, 'Oh, I've got to do more exercise.' Then the next day my daughter said, 'Mummy ... you've got to do more exercise.' I was like, 'Argh! Trigger! And I just gave you that.'
Morgana stars in the Three comedy series, Mean Mums. Photo / Supplied
O'Reilly's theatre show, Stories About My Body, also unpacks her relationship with her body and addresses themes such as body dysmorphia.
"It's always been a bit weird, my relationship with my body," she says. "I turned 15 in the year 2000. So you can see where the formative years dropped ... I think at the time we thought they were really progressive years for feminism. I remember people always being like, 'It's the 90s.' In hindsight, I think there was some pretty toxic body image stuff going on."
O'Reilly says it's now an ongoing challenge to get the conversation right with our own kids, but you can always find an opportunity to reflect with them in order to make a change.
"Even when you're really well-meaning, you can make mistakes. But you can also renege on them and talk through things with your kids. I think there's actually nothing more powerful than apologising to your kids," says the actress, who has starred in Aussie shows Neighbours and Wentworth and leads the Kiwi show Mean Mums.
Of course, as parents we want our tamariki to love themselves and be satisfied with how they look and feel. O'Reilly says the key to achieving this for our kids comes down to how we frame their view of themselves.
"We make the rules about these aesthetics. You can frame it like, 'You've got the beautiful whatever.' It's changing that lens that's important."
• To learn more about Morgana and how we as parents can change the way our kids view their bodies, listen to today's episode of One Day You'll Thank Me.
