Truth in Advertising ... And Blue Jeans

If you have coffee (or cocktails, especially cocktails) with women of a certain age, at some point in the conversation you'll hear these three words:

"My body's changed."

Generally, this statement is accompanied by hand gestures that communicate helplessness at best (hopelessness at worst). Our bodies are changing and I'm here to tell you that it's frustrating as hell.

When I was younger (and thinner), I used to wonder why so many older women wore caftans and muumuus. Now, I know.

Because their jeans don't fit anymore!

I was never skinny-skinny, but I was fairly fit and trim. (Actually, looking back at photos, I didn't realize how fit and trim I was. What's that funny eCard? "I wish I was as thin as I was the first time I thought I was fat.") Nevertheless, I used to have some trouble buying jeans. Invariably, the hips would be too tight or the waists would be too big. When I did find a pair cut to my ... um ... proportions, I would happily wear them day-in, day-out until they pretty much disintegrated.

Until this past week, I had two pairs of jeans in my closet. Neither is threadbare and they are — allegedly — my size. But, something's happened. You guessed it ...

"My body's changed!"

Suddenly, the thighs, hips and derriere are baggy. Under any other (pre-menopausal) circumstances, this would be good tidings of great joy and much celebration would ensue. But now, any self-satisfaction is cancelled out by the fact that in both cases, the waists are too tight. Like way too tight. Like I can barely breathe and I've developed that most dreaded of all figure features: the muffin top.

OMG.

I realize that my evolving shape is not the end of the world. But, c'mon. On top of internal heat waves, I have to buy new jeans? Not fair. Not cheap. And not even easy. Every pair I've tried lately has given me the same issues. Too tight where they used to be loose. Too loose where they used to be tight. 

My sixteen-year-old daughter, meanwhile, has at least a dozen different pairs of jeans, each of which fits her like a glove. Abercrombie, Delia's, Aeropostale, Urban Outfitters ... it doesn't matter. She's like a one-teen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. All things denim magically wrap themselves around her perfectly.

This past weekend, we set off on our first college visits with some good friends. The rest of the long weekend was spent shopping together. At Nordstrom Rack, we found a display of marked-down NYDJ. For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, it stands for "Not Your Daughter's Jeans." They were 45% off. They were unabashedly "mom jeans." But, I had reached the point of denim desperation. I broke down and tried them on.

OMG.

What a difference a cut makes. That and some stretch. The NYDJs actually fit my waist and my butt and my hips and my thighs. At the same time! They're cut higher than anything you'd find in my daughter's closet. And, suffice it to say, that's fine by me. As you can imagine, I bought them. In fact, I'm wearing them now, with an embroidered blouse and a pair of classic Frye boots.

I definitely don't (definitely, definitely don't) look sixteen. But I look pretty damn good for 51.

What can I say? These are not my daughter's jeans. Truth.

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Tweenage Wasteland — Then and Now

Here's how it always starts.

"When I was your age ... blah blah blah." (Insert idealized memory that makes each of us sound like a character from some Laura Ingalls Wilder novel.) "Milk was a nickel." "We didn't have computers or cell phones or paper clips or diet soda." "I walked six miles to school in the snow, uphill, both ways."

Every generation romances its own past and despairs for the future.

And, with today's tweens and teens growing up in the digital age, there really are some great differences. I mean "great" as in unusually or comparatively large in size or dimensions, not necessarily as in wonderful, first-rate, very good. (Whatever did we do before dictionary.com? Oh, right, we used a big fat book!) Media has radically changed and, consequently, tween and teen media consumption has as well.

At a glance, it seems as though everything is different. We've jumped from Leave it to Beaver to The Jetsons. But are 14 year old girls in 2011 really so different from their ancient ancestors of ... say ... 1976?

Sometimes I wonder.

Here are some typical tween traits one might have observed then and now:

Blind Brand Loyalty

The very very first words of one of my very very favorite Elton John songs: "Blue jean baby, L.A. lady ..." Blue jeans were and are important. The right ones mean you get it. The wrong ones? Well, you might as well find a seat at the lunchtime loser table. (And sit down fast so no one can see the stitching on your backside pockets, the tell-tale sign that your mother found those disgraceful denims at some discount store rather than Abercrombie or Hollister.) As a harried working mother in the middle of middle age, I want to say "Jeans are jeans!" But, as a one-time tween, I know better. Back then, nothing came between me and my Calvins.

Fancy Footwear

The shoes to choose these days are suddenly Converse All-Stars. Not to be confused with Converse One Stars. As my tween daughter logically put it, "Why would you want only one star?" Your average tweenage girl needs several pairs — paint-splattered, plaid, two-toned. To my unknowing eyes, they look like any other canvas athletic shoes and they cost more. But, I remember needing (not wanting, mind you, but needing) Adidas sneakers in the 70s. Trust me, they weren't giving those little stripes away.

Long-Haired Teen Idols

Welcome to the generation gap. I do not have Bieber Fever. Let's face it; it would be kind of disturbing if I did. He's 32 years my junior and the idea of his baby baby-face, singing "Baby, baby, baby, oh like baby, baby, baby, no like baby, baby, baby, oh, I thought you'd always be mine," is more than slightly ridiculous. He does have good hair though. In fact, it reminds me of someone from way back when ... hmmmmm. And they called it puppy love?

Parental Under-appreciation

Remember when you first had a baby and you swore you would never say those things? You know the ones I mean, "Because I said so." "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?" Well, in the last several months, I have become my own worst cliché. "Look at all the things I do for you," I whine. "You don't appreciate me." For the record, my daughter does not appreciate me. However, my daughter does appreciate me as much as any other fourteen year old girls appreciate their mothers. And, I'm sorry to admit it, but my daughter appreciates me as much as I appreciated my own mother. (Sorry, Mom.)

A Flair for the Dramatic

Tween tragedies are nothing new. Remember, Juliet herself was "not yet fourteen." These girls are starring in a Technicolor (or maybe in 2011 I'd better say, a high-definition) movie of their own life. Like any sweeping saga, it has funny moments, romance, twists of fate and grand passions. Best friends come and go. Feelings are hurt. The highs are high, the lows are low. When my husband shakes his head in helpless wonder, I reassure him that our daughter, like Gloria Gaynor back in my generation, will survive.

Music or Noise?

Was there any haven on Earth more precious and personal than your bedroom when you had your stereo on? Music marks the personal journey from child to adult. The soundtrack of my own tweens and teens was fairly eclectic. It included Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Carly Simon, Elton, The Eagles, as well as decidedly uncool but absolutely top of their particular games: John Denver and Barry Manilow. Eventually I moved into new wave with Blondie, Elvis Costello and the B-52s. Whenever I am tempted to diss my daughter's discs, I have to remind myself that I consumed an awful lot of "noise" in my day.

I guess the purpose of this little trip down memory lane (and, I didn't even mention my Dorothy Hamill haircut — oops, I just did — actually, now that I think about it, it looked a lot like Justin Bieber's) is to suggest that tweens today are not so very different from the tweens of yesteryear. We may not agree with their fads but we owe it them to admit that we had our own.

The more tweens change, the more they stay the same.

Like an Old Pair of Jeans

As the mother of a tweenage girl, I'm always making comparisons. How is she like me at that age? How is she not? Is she making the same mistakes I did or coming up with mistakes of her own?

Of course, I'd like to think that she inherited all my strengths (and none of my weaknesses, bien sur). In fact, when she was a baby we used to chant "Mommy's grades and Daddy's athletic ability" as though it was in our power to give her a best of both worlds combination. It's funny how we imagined that we had any control over this at all.

This morning, I recognized myself in my daughter in a rather unexpected way. I walked in on her getting dressed for school. She was lying on her back on her bed, fastening her jeans.

Whoa, talk about deja vu!

I was a few years older than she is, but everything seems to have accelerated these days. The year was 1980, and life was good. I sported a wedge haircut — kind of a cross between Dorothy Hamill and a new wave rocker. I'd been accepted early decision to the college of my choice. I had an exciting summer job lined up with a theatre company in New York.

And, I could squeeze into size 8 Calvin Kleins. "Squeeze" being the operative word.

Do you remember those infamous commercials? Brooke Shields was just 15 when she made headlines in several very provocative spots, packed with innuendo and very definitely selling sex first and denim second. Nothing came between Brooke and her Calvins? Hellooo?!? Nothing could possibly fit between her teenage body and those overpriced jeans.

We all wore them back then. If not Calvin Kleins, then Jordache ("She's got the look! The Jordache look!") or Gloria Vanderbilts (peddled by Blondie, no less). We all squeezed our budding, adolescent curves into the smallest size we possibly could. The smaller the jeans size the greater our self esteem.

Even today, jeans have this illogical power over how we women feel about ourselves. Last Christmas, our family went to New Orleans for a long weekend. When I took a tumble on a bit of uneven sidewalk in the Garden District, I was much more upset about tearing a hole in my beloved "7 for All Mankinds" than about my sprained ankle. Hobbling around the Crescent City the rest of the weekend, I was not only in pain but in a foul temper. I was on vacation and forced to wear sneakers and sweatpants rather than my cute patent leather boots and my 7s!

So how did my daughter learn the lie-on-the-bed-and-hold-your-breath-and-pull technique? She's certainly never seen me do it — I lost the desire to wear skintight pants quite a while ago, thank you very much. I'd much rather breathe. Did she see this in a movie? Did the jeans come with illustrated instructions? Do the girls in seventh grade compare notes?

I have to admit that once the jeans were on, they looked good. They didn't seem too tight and, as far as I could tell, my daughter was getting enough oxygen.

But, I hope that eventually she will choose comfort over constrictive cutting edge style. I hope that she will feel good in her own skin no matter what size her jeans are.

I know this will probably take a while. I'm still working on it myself.