The other day, I was waiting at the supermarket check-out and felt this little frisson when I looked in my shopping basket. I had realised that its contents - with 1 litre of no-fat milk, a block of chocolate, cat food and an impulse copy of “NW” magazine – represented a “Single Girl Shop”. I felt all footloose and fancy-free as I walked out to the carpark – there was almost a little skip in my step – but by the time I had climbed up into my 1986 Tarago, noticed the snot streaks on my black tracksuit pants and then the strains of Angela Lansbury singing “Beauty and The Beast” on the car-stereo, the spell was broken and I drove back home with a heavy heart.
It took me back to about a year ago, when my friend JS (she who star-jumped off the wagon with such glee – see “Kicking the Habit“) persuaded me to come into the CBD to meet her and a few girlfriends for a drink or two. It started off badly: I caught the bus in, I couldn’t find the bar because it was too cool to be clearly signposted, and the bouncer looked young enough to be a child of my loins. And then, when I finally located JS and her friends, I saw that they were all fabulously frocked up and drinking exotic cocktails, while little old me (old being the operative word) stood awkwardly with my glass of cheap fizz, in three-quarter length trousers and a large floral hand-bag over one shoulder like some kind of poster girl for Miller’s Fashion Club. As I caught the bus home (which, upon reflection, was even more tragic than catching the bus there), I concluded that I probably would have felt more comfortable wearing a garbage bag held together with gaffer tape and was grateful that nobody had had me escorted from the premises for looking like Somebody’s Aunt.
In my own habitat, I still feel just a little bit cool. I wear vintage cardigans! I’ve never owned a pair of white trainers! I wear “New Media” glasses! My hair is interesting and well-cut by a funky lady! (No-one needs to know that she comes to my house to do it). I had the first pair of Crocs out of everyone I knew and even before Meg Mathews (ex-wife of rumoured ex-member of ex-It band “Oasis”, Noel Gallagher) was featured wearing them in UK “Heat” magazine!! (Okay, so strike that last one). Listen, goddammit: I’m a cool mum!!
I guess the telling sign in that proclamation is that I can’t honestly just say “I’m cool” – I have to put the word “Mum” in there, which is a little like saying you’re an “uproarious funeral director” – both words kind of cancel each other out. Some people like to use the term “Yummy Mummy” but that just rubs me the wrong way whenever I hear it applied to anyone who’s not all laid out on Hannibal Lecter’s dining table. I don’t know why it drives me so crazy – but it does. It’s almost as bad as people saying “It’s All Good” when, clearly, it isn’t *all* good, nothing ever is, and to pretend that it is “All Good” is to be walking around in a state of perpetual delusion.
But anyway, I digress. Last night, when I was still musing on this post and my own state of “Mumsiness”, I found myself walking into the local supermarket with my bicycle helmet still on, a stained t-shirt which kept riding up and an old pair of pregnancy trousers that kept falling down. To protect the public from the Horror That Is My Midriff, I promptly pulled the trousers as high as they would go, so the stunning result was as bad as Simon “Harry Highpants” Cowell would look like if he wasn’t surrounded by American Idol stylists 24/7. Much to my delight, I ran into a fellow mother-of-three wearing her netball skirt and a heavy metal tshirt from a band her brother was in during the 80s. We regarded each other with the respect we deserved – after all, nothing we were wearing was inside out or could be classified as nightwear and – here’s the most impressive thing – there we were, both chillin’ in the dairy section of Coles, without our children while our husbands were at home doing the childwrangling. Now that’s cool.
‘My hair is interesting and well-cut by a funky lady! (No-one needs to know that she comes to my house to do it)’
I’m sorry, this is like a dream come true as far as i’m concerned – shouldn’t that be appearing on a ‘despite it all i have a private hairdresser’ list of cool-retained life aspects rather than the reverse??
That was cool. Especially the “uproarious funneral director.” I think we all worry about losing our cool. I worry that one day I’ll look around and realize I’m not in fashion, or worse, I’m worrying clothes too young for me, looking more like some crazy woman desperate for her youth. I keep wondering when I have to start wearing clothes more like my own mom. Shudder.
I met up with my best friend recently to see a movie together (her first solo outing since having her baby). We became friends as teenagers and in those days would spend many hours getting ready (hair, makeup, trying-slightly-too-hard-to-be-fashionable early 90s ‘threads’) before going to the cinema. Fast forward to 2008 and we both dash into the Odeon 15 minutes late, driving glasses still on, swathed in ‘practical’ waterproof jackets (it was, in our defence, raining heavily outside) and, in my friend’s case, with a liberal goop of posset masquerading as a epaulette. Mortified? Far from it! Just like you, NDM, we embraced the moment of liberation with something akin to gleeful delight at the realisation that we were OUT (woohooo!) and giddy at the fact that our children were being looked after by other nominated personnel. That said, on reflection, I am equally thankful that our destination of choice involved sitting in darkness. Waterproof jackets being what they are.
This is hilarious. I can’t wait to read more. Thanks for dropping by my blog.
At 38, I find myself in a stage of awkwardness, much like a second puberty. I’m not young anymore, but neither am I old. And I haven’t the faintest idea what’s considered appropriate attire for “a woman my age.” So I stick with the stained t-shirts and jeans. Guess I’m going for timeless cool.
And I must agree with dr L: my hairdresser moved in across the street and it’s *seriously* one of the coolest things that has happened in my life since becoming a mom.
Hey, NDM you know and use the word “Avatar” which makes you instantly cool. And you don’t dress like your kids in a Harry Enfield “people think we’re sisters” kind of way. Which is cool.
Which is better; finding a happy medium of everyday-practical and aspirationally cool or living the delusion of youth? Like me when I swan about like a past-it rockabilly thinking I’m Joe Strummer despite the requisite minimum hair allowance.
Great to see you get stuck into the vocabulary of the Yummy Mummy. Slice and dice, honey.
[Not Drowning Mother], this one speaks volumes. for me, for others, for mums galore. loved it. and the notion of stubbygray’s that this weird mid-30s time is like a second puberty. i’m still listening to youth radio, but can’t wear flat shoes so well. it is a strange place and to top it off i am a mother to kids who go to school!! xx omedetoo!!
Hey, I remember that night. And a) the NDM looked great, vintagey and quirky and unfussed and b) she stayed way, way WAY past when she said she would because everyone adored her and found her funny and COOL and wouldn’t let her leave and bought her cocktails and got her phone number. Let me just say that cool is as cool does and for once I don’t buy this sheepish chic stance. She was the life of the party and our Special Guest Star.
Being out of your element can always be hard, and like, stubbygray, I feel displaced in more than one way – not just no longer cool in a young single way, but unable to find the ‘new cool’ of being a Mum. I look hopelessly at the women wandering through the schoolyard with their kids, relaxed, wearing just the right kind of blue denim and some form of european comfortable shoe and a stripy t shirt and carrying a handmade bag from a local market and with kids and dogs and shopping and vegetables all in a happy, wash-faded, floral mix. And I look at my sober suit and awkward high heels and feel self conscious in my red lipstick and think ‘when will I be cool like the other Mums???”
And so it goes.
I smell what you are cookin’, sister! This is a constant struggle for me too…also 38, also covered in kid slime 24/7. Can’t wear the cool hip jeans like the 20-somethings because of my Shar-Pei-like-muffin-top tummy/baby bag (“To protect the public from the Horror That Is My Midriff” – love it!)… refuse to wear the high-cut Mom Jeans that make me look even older and frumpier than I already feel. Totally in style limbo. Depressing. But thanks for making me laugh about it and not feel so alone! Love love love your blog. Can always relate, even a hemisphere away.