Mom Jeans

            I miss my Mom Jeans.

            Mom Jeans came all the way up to your natural waist.  If your top slipped up, they hid your bellybutton.  Unfortunately they showed how far it was from your crotch to your waist, making someone look like they had a humongous caboose.

            But here’s what they didn’t do.  Most of the time they didn’t show a muffin top above them.  They buttoned at the slimmest part of your torso.  Women didn’t have that roll of doughy flesh hanging over the top of the waistband when they were wearing Mom Jeans.  It was all below the waistband controlled with denim.  Have you noticed that pre-pubescent girls are the only ones without a muffin top above their jeans these days?

            But the best thing about Mom Jeans is they didn’t show your Plumbers’ Crack!  I’m sick of seeing women reveal way too much when they bend over, squat, or even sit. Go to any shoe store and watch women trying on shoes.  It isn’t pretty.

            That backside-reveal necessitates tank tops or t-shirts that are eight inches longer than they used to be under everything.  The bottom of the tops and t-shirts creep up because they’re stretchy and are seeking a place of less resistance – your natural waist.  So every time you stand up, you have to pull the top back down. 

            After about six washes, the tops shrink and can no longer do their coverage duty.  It doesn’t matter if you bought the top at Old Navy for $7, or at the Ann Taylor Outlet for $25.  They shrink in length!  And you have to constantly replace them.

            I will concede that Mom Jeans made you look like your backside was huge, especially if you tucked your top in.  But after a certain age, it’s not the huge backside that’s the biggest problem.  It’s the squishy dough around the middle.  Current styles of jeans only emphasize our bread dough middles. 

            So what do we do?  We buy big fluffy blouses and shirts to go over our tops to hide all the soft pillows of flesh billowing under our stretchy cover-it-all tank tops. 

            Those big, fluffy tops are long enough that you would have to lift them up and peak under them to see where someone’s jeans buttoned.  I could probably hide some Mom Jeans under it.  But sadly, I don’t have any Mom Jeans anymore.  I tossed my last pair during the last purge of my closet.

          I miss my Mom Jeans. 

         Weeeeellll . . .  maybe not.