I once asked a friend of mine what he missed most about his dancing career.

“The applause,” he said.

I can relate. I loved acting in plays when I was a kid because I could get applauded for being someone I wasn’t.

At age twelve, I was shy and tall. All the boys at school came up to my belt buckle. I stood out like a goal post in class photos, even when I slouched, which was mostly always.

I come from a family of tall slouchers where it’s in our DNA to be hunched over. Some of our family portraits of great aunts and uncles resemble a bouquet of wilting tulips. I wish that all it would take were dropping a penny in my shoe to make me stand up straight (an old trick my grandmother taught me to keep her tulips from swaying to their death). But it doesn’t come naturally to my bone structure.

Pilates and yoga have helped, and even a short stint with a personal trainer threw my shoulders back in time for me to look like a presentable bride at the altar. But my back has never been as sore as the day after my wedding, and my twenty-four-hour effort in convincing the photographer that my heels weren’t the only reason he had to adjust his tripod.

But “posture” has always been a word that irritates me. It sounds proper, stiff and formal – precisely the sort of thing against which I wanted to rebel, especially growing up. Yet seeing myself hunched over in photographs projects an image that makes me cringe. I look insecure and unhappy which does not usually reflect how I feel inside.

Nothing really helped me stand up straight until I landed a small role in a high school play of the court jester. It was an odd choice of a role for building confidence since I performed more slapstick than monologues in tricking a devilish king into mischievous acts. In multicolored stockings, a striped leotard, a tutu and inches of white mime make-up, I tap-danced while singing a musical solo under hot stage lights. My performance earned me an eight-year-old fan who insisted to her aunt, a friend of mine, that she meet the jester backstage once the curtain went down. I knelt down to her eye level to greet her.

“You were mean to the king,” she said, and slapped my cheek.

Weren’t little girls in pig tails supposed to say cute things and have their photograph taken with an actor? For this one, there was no distinction between actor and character or costume and civilian clothes. I liked to think that my stellar performance had convinced her that I was someone else entirely. I walked away from the dressing room that day laughing and holding my chin up high.

Don’t get me wrong: I was no great actor. But it didn’t matter because somehow performing in front of an audience helped correct my posture. Offstage, I was timid, self-conscious, and dreaded sticking out tall in a short crowd. I hated having to tell a story in public, before a group of friends, with everyone staring at me. Onstage, I loved the spotlight and thrust my shoulders back like an eagle. I hung up my shyness on a hanger backstage and reveled in stepping into someone else’s costume. With lines memorized and timing perfected, I had control over ensuring the proper reaction of an audience. And I loved the applause.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a pattern in my bad posture: it haunts me through growing pains. As a teenager, I didn’t want to stand up tall because I didn’t want anyone to notice my bra, my flat chest, or my long legs. I wasn’t comfortable in an adult body.

Lately, I’ve seen that pain in my back is resurfacing as I embark on a new performance in my role as a new mother. The return of the pain, and the need to stand up straight, makes me question if my inability to do so is, perhaps, a hesitation to embrace with confidence my recently-earned role as a mother.

Being pregnant was hard enough. Varicose veins and cheesey cellulite found a new home in my thighs, making bikini-clad summers on the Mediterranean my worst nightmare. Only floating could I stand up straight. My hormones were constantly on edge, and my posture was hunchback at best. I felt like an understudy in a role I wasn’t sure I could handle.

Eventually, once my son was born in a C-section delivery, I struggled from wanting to fold over instead of flatten out. A girdle-esque bandage helped me stand like a Victorian grand dame when I was feeling like a couched potato.

Now, with my son weighing in at twenty pounds, I feel my slouching returning. I am tired, and, on certain days, I’m unsure as to how I’m doing as a mother. The result? I slouch. Is it out of insecurity? Pure fatigue? Surely, both.

Yet when I push my baby carriage down the street, I feel a skip in my step, a sense of pride for being a new mother. I stand up tall with pride when strangers and friends compliment my son. In the end, I guess I crave a standing ovation. But I’ll settle for an occasional round of applause.