Lady in Black

I was recently telling my son about the outfit I wore for my kindergarten school photos, and how I loved it, and the silver caps on my front teeth. "I thought those were so cool."

My son replied, "So, what I'm hearing here is that you've never had any fashion sense." Nope. Never. None.

I've finally figured out how not to be completely inappropriately dressed, I think. Not inappropriate as in revealing - I'm not an exhibitionist - but just a deep, inborn inability to figure out what goes with what, what looks good, and why.

Someone once asked me if I owned so much black because I thought it was slenderizing. (I am nobody's idea of goth, and never have been, so that option is out.) I thought that was very funny. First, it's hard to "slenderize" someone of my bulk. Second, I don't think that anyone needs to be slender in order to look good.

Third, and most important, I just can't summon much interest in looking fashionable, or shock value unfashionable; really, in wondering too terribly much what anyone thinks. I try not to be offensive or otherwise sabotage any chance of functioning smoothly in everyday life, but that's it. I had a baby at 20 and another at 21. When you're responsible for keeping another human being alive and safe, nothing else seems very important at all. All I had room for in my head and my day were things that directly affected my children's health or safety. I couldn't possibly spend that time wondering if my shoes "went" with my pants. I barely summoned up interest in whether something was flattering or not; comfort is king.

That's where black comes in. You can't mess it up. Everything matches it - darks, brights, pastels, patterns, florals, winter wear, summer wear; black is universal. It also doesn't show messes very readily - something that is important when you have small children in your life.

I also needed a lot of black, including maternity clothes, to work backstage on the theater productions on which I spent a great deal of time.

It's just not possible to go wrong with black.

Then, I discovered that there is a downside to black clothes.

I tend to assume that people mean what they say and say what they mean, so I don't spend a lot of time looking for subtext. (I know. Stop laughing.) When I'd be in all black in the dead of a Nevada summer and someone would ask, "Aren't you hot?" I would assume that they actually wanted to know if I was comfortable, and that being assured that I was was enough.

We have relatives, though, who are sure that any direct question, and any direct answer, are rude. I had no experience with this kind of thinking, and still find it difficult to navigate a landscape of hints. I spend my time giving literal answers, and they spend their time wondering why I'm clueless.

Years ago, my little family of four was at an extended family picnic in July, and I was oblivious to the fact that I looked out of place. I hate changing my clothes, and try to avoid it unless I'm very dirty or having to wear something uncomfortable. Otherwise, I put on what I'll need to wear at night first thing in the morning, and wear it all day. This was especially true when my kids were very young, and a lot of what I did, including any theater, meant a 45 minute one way drive. I was not about to pack basically an overnight bag just to go into town shopping or visiting relatives, then change for the show if I was tech crew. (Costumes, obviously, are in a different category; you don't want to take a chance ruining or staining them.) So, at this picnic, I wore a black top, black pants, black socks and black lace up canvas shoes. In July, in Nevada. It made sense to me, my husband and my kids, and I didn't really think about anyone else.

Most of the other women were dressed one of two ways - denim shorts and expensive athletic shoes, or floaty floral dresses and sandals. I knew that I didn't look like that, but I honestly didn't think anything of it. Then, after an hour or two, my five year old niece approached.

"What, are you going to a funeral?" she demanded, hands on hips, looking me up and down. I could sense her mother being horrified, but I was totally charmed by this. If you want to know, ask.

"No, I'm working backstage on a play later. We have to be in all black so the audience doesn't notice us moving things on and off stage."

She looked slightly puzzled - the concept of "play" may not have made sense to her - but she said, "Oh. OK." She waltzed away, and I became aware of a ripple going out through the rest of the relatives, starting with the ones at the table next to me. There were exclamations of, "Oh! "OH." "Oh!" rippling across the yard. Apparently, the fact that I was "inappropriately" dressed had been the subject of much speculation, but they all considered it more polite to discuss and theorize amongst themselves than to ask me outright. There was a great deal of relief that "there's a reason."

I was left thinking, thank heaven for my niece. Who knows what bizarre theories were being floated? Come on, folks, just ask!

I still didn't fully comprehend that I may occasionally look out of place.

A few years later, I was head of stage crew for a musical. I loved the show; it's still one of my favorites. I frequently wore the button with the name and logo of the show, with the dates and theater information in small print.

I was 26; you know how 20-somethings are frequently fashionistas? Yeah - not me.

My oldest daughter, in kindergarten at the time, had a Girl Scout activity in town, an hour away from home. I had a show that night, so, of course, I was in head to toe black. I had also put on a string of small multicolored beads, since my husband was always encouraging me to accessorize in colors to spice up the unrelenting blackness. They were small enough that I could keep them on during the show without them being distracting. I also wore the publicity button for the show, "Assassins."

Yeah; you probably already see where this was going. I didn't.

I stood there in my sunglasses - it would be another few years before I had prescription lenses that darkened outdoors - my black clothes and shoes, and my big red button that had the crosshairs of a gun sight and the word "Assassins" in bold letters, waiting for my daughter to be done. The room was full of adorable little cherubs in Scout uniforms, including mine in a bright blue Daisy smock. The other mothers formed those groups that everyone else seems to form so effortlessly, and chatted. No one chatted with me, which was fine, but a few of them kept throwing me wary, sidelong glances. I had no idea what that was about, but little inclination to figure out why. Humans are a mystery.

Finally, a woman I knew from church left her little group and walked over to me, I assumed to say hello. Instead, she said, "Assassins, Sharon?" in a tone of outrage.

Whoops. Yeah. Not sounding very child friendly, is it? And here I am in my sniper clothes.

"It's a show. At the university. I'm head of stage crew." She continued to look at me uncomprehendingly. I felt compelled to keep talking. "It's about people who have killed, or tried to kill, presidents of the United States." Still no real response. I kept talking. "It's really funny. It's a musical."

Finally, a reaction: "A musical?"

"Yeah. It's great. You should come see it."

I was not successfully selling the concept.

"We have a show tonight. These are my stagehand clothes."

"Oh. I wondered."

She went back to her little group, where I saw her mouth moving, and the O formed by the mouth of the woman next to her, as she received the explanation.

Yeah; not selling any tickets here. Whoops. Unsuccessful attempt at publicizing my show.

When the event got over, and my little cherub ran up to hug me and started to chatter about all the things she'd done, I saw some of the other moms look even more amazed. Come on, ladies; would you have liked it better if I and my "Assassins" button were hanging around this event without my having a child there?

They probably still feel bad for my daughter and her tragic upbringing.

And I still wear a lot of black clothes. But not because they're slenderizing.

Keeping Up Appearances

I always wondered why my sister Lynne was so appearance conscious. Our mother wasn't. I wasn't. But Lynne very definitely was.

I have always been a function over form person. I really don't care what something looks like as long as it gets the job done. Like most kids in families of limited means, though, I was also very self conscious about anything that singled me out as poorer than the other kids, so I decided that that was what Lynne was thinking.

I was sure there had to be some environmental cause. I grew up believing that all taste was environmental. I have long since conceded that I was wrong.

My oldest daughter is so much more like Lynne than like me in her desire for impressive outward appearances. Since I was born when Lynne was 11, I didn't get to see her as a baby or toddler. I would watch Lana as a baby, displaying behavior that was totally foreign to me, and think, "Where did that come from?"

When she was only about six months old, Lana began to be stressed out by wrinkles in her crib sheet. Really. I would lay her down, and she would frown at the sheet, then begin making a frustrated noise as she smoothed her hand over the wrinkles, trying to wipe them away. Of course, even when she was successful in smoothing them out, any tiny move on her part would cause new ones. So, she'd start smoothing again, going, "Uh! Uh! Uh!" Thankfully, in fairly short order she would look away or be too tired to keep it up, and she would fall asleep.

She announced when she was barely two that she wanted to start going potty in the bathroom. I was sure she had no idea what that entailed, but after she hounded me for two weeks, I figured, fine. We'll see how this goes. It only took her a week or so to get it down to the point that she was dry all day. I was surprised and she was happy.

What annoyed her tremendously was throwing away the diaper she still wore overnight. After I took them off, I had always rolled up diapers and used the tapes to tape the bundle shut before throwing them away. I think most mothers do. It incensed Lana that she did not know how to roll them up herself and I refused to do them. I wanted her to take the diaper off herself and just throw it away. She hated that. It looked wrong! It was messy! She was totally undeterred by my insistence that it was OK for things to be messy in the garbage can. I wanted her to function independently, but she wanted things to look right.

At age two, she also started stressing out about wrinkles on her socks. You know how your foot is usually extended when you put your sock on, but when you flex it back or stand up, it creases across the front of your ankle? Lana hated that. It drove her crazy every day for literally years. She could not understand why this did not bother me, why I figured it was just OK to walk around in wrinkly socks. She dealt with this by pulling her socks up with great force many, many times a day. That stretched the socks out, sometimes to the point that the fibers were breaking, so now the socks not only wrinkled but sagged. This made her just about frantic. I wondered how many years it would take before she started taking our advice and just leaving them alone. Pointing out to her that our socks also wrinkled across the front did not appease her. To her, that was just proof that we were too clueless to know how socks should look.

In kindergarten she added a new sock worry. Now, it caused her a great deal of distress that the seam across the toes of the sock meant that the front end was more squared off than rounded. She would look at socks after she'd pulled them on and start making the familiar frustrated huffing sounds. "Look at that! They stick out!" she would say, pointing out some tiny protrusion or squaring off on either end of her toes. "They're fine," we'd say. "Socks do that." She became even more frustrated, wondering how her parents could be so utterly clueless.

Again, she dealt with the situation by pulling on her socks. She would grab the offending spots and pull them down under her feet, then carefully slide her feet into her shoes so the "corners" would be held down and out of sight. Naturally, this meant that getting her shoes on could take quite a while. And again, the major effect of this was stretching and pulling the socks out of shape, until the toe seams were two or three times the width of the rest of the sock. This did not actually bother Lana, because the wider the socks, the easier it became to wrap them around her foot.

She stopped being so obsessed with her socks quite so much about the time she started obsessing about the rest of her wardrobe. She had a very clear set of wardrobe dos and don'ts at a very early age.

During her kindergarten year, we bought a pair of ballerina flats that were, I thought, slightly large. They were on sale, though, and too large eventually becomes just right. When she put them on for school one morning, I asked if they fit. She assured me that they did, and I didn't think too much more about it in the morning rush.

When I picked her up that day, Terry and I were walking instead of bringing the car. I don't remember quite why. Even though we lived close to the school, we had to go down one of the busiest streets in town to get there. It wasn't exactly a serene stroll, so we didn't do it often. We set off for home, hampered by the fact that Lana's shoes came off every two or three steps.

At first, I thought it was some form of clumsiness. Then I started looking more closely. Her feet popped out of her shoes literally every step, and once out of every three or so times the shoes would fall all the way off. They were obviously still too big for her.

"Lana! Have your shoes been doing that all day?" I asked.

"Well, yeah," she said. "I tried to fix it." She slid her foot out of the shoe to show me that, across the bottom, she'd folded socks and laid them the length of the shoe to take up some of the extra room. "It didn't work, though."

"So your shoes have been falling off your feet every two or three steps all day today."

"Well, yeah."

"Lana! I asked you this morning if they fit! They obviously don't! Why would you wear shoes that are too big for you?"

She looked at me as if this was a patently stupid question. Then she looked down at her immobile feet. "Look how pretty they are," she said.

She went through a stage of insisting that everything she wore, even her underwear, had to be the same color. She started insisting that her hair be "done" for school when she was about seven. Ponytails were one of her favorite styles until she wore one for picture day in 5th grade. "I look BALD!" she shrieked when we got the photos back. "I look like I don't have any hair at all!" I don't think she ever wore a ponytail again. Dressing for the weather was always a problem; she would plan her wardrobe for days or weeks in advance, and was always thrown when told that she couldn't wear something because of the weather. She was happiest dressing in outfits that came with two pieces, so she was sure that everything "matched."

Coats were a constant struggle. "It's puffy! It makes me look fat!" she'd wail, at the ripe old age of nine and ten. We would insist that she leave the house in a coat in cold weather, knowing full well that she'd ditch it as soon as she was out of our sight. Terry, normally blasé about clothes, followed suit with a coat aversion of her own. It was maddening.

We'd get phone calls from friends, offering us coats for our kids. "They looked so cold walking home from school today," one friend said. When I told her that they both had coats in their backpacks, and that they refused to wear them until they were a block away from home, she thought that I was too embarrassed to admit that we didn't own any. Another friend refused to take my word for it, and simply showed up on our doorstep with hand me down coats for the girls. It wasn't the first, or the last, time we would be given coats. It didn't matter if we bought them or if someone else did, if they were new or used, Lana and Terry refused to wear them except in our presence. That problem wasn't solved until high school when they got letterman jackets. Those, they would wear.

Even into high school, Lana would try to put her clothing into "outfits." She would decide that a particular pair of jeans went with only two T shirts, and refuse to wear the pieces with other garments. We would tell her that jeans, any jeans, went with any of her tops, and she'd look at us as though we were crazy. We'd tell her that black and white went with any other color imaginable, and she'd look horrified. To her, black or white went with black or white.

When she was invited to her first formal, she insisted on extensive jewelry shopping, so she could find jewelry with stones the exact color of her dress. We told her, over and over, that pearls, diamonds, gold and silver would all be appropriate with a formal. She thought we had absolutely the worst taste imaginable. To Lana, you could only wear pearls if your dress had pearls on it; ditto for diamonds, gold or silver.

She was mortified when we couldn't find maroon shoes to go with her maroon dress and garnet jewelry. She was sure that her black shoes would look "stupid," and cause her to be a social outcast. She only wore them because it came down to wearing black shoes or staying home. She came back from the ball amazed: "There were other girls there in maroon, and they wore black shoes. There were girls wearing black shoes with blue and red dresses, too," she marveled. It has never done any good to point out that we knew this beforehand.

She still has trouble dressing for the weather. At college, she's been known to wear her favorite mesh slide shoes in six inches of snow.

While I take reasonable care not to look like a homeless person, I am not particularly "into" clothes. And with my children, the most important thing to me is that they function independently. As long as their clothing is clean and at least close to the right size, I will only veto it if it poses a health or morality issue. I don't care if my kids want to wear orange and purple together.

I once let my youngest daughter go to church in a Snow White dress up dress. When she put it on, I thought briefly about asking her to change. Then, I thought: it's a dress. It's clean. It fits. It's not too revealing. She looks adorable in it. Plus, she's 4 years old. So, she wore it, and actually got quite a few compliments. Life works that way when you're 4.

Poor Lana was always frustrated by my willingness to let her younger siblings dress themselves. She gave up trying to influence Alex too much, theorizing that, as a boy, he'd be hopeless about clothing issues. She would frequently tangle with Terry and Hallie.

Terry, being just a year younger, fared better than Hallie, upon whom Lana felt she could wield greater influence. Lana would try to coax very independent Hallie into clothes Lana had chosen for her. Their arguments would filter out into the hall and occasionally down the stairs.

"Honey, wouldn't you like to wear this shirt with those pants, instead?"

"NO!"

"But sweetie, these would look so much better."

"NO!"

It would finally drive me crazy enough that I'd intervene. "Lana! Go downstairs and let your sister dress herself."

"But Mom! She has no idea what looks good together."

"I don't care. Downstairs."

Poor Lana would sulk away, convinced that no one understood. How had she gotten stuck in a family of stubborn, styleless women, she wondered. And how could I not appreciate her efforts to "help" her sister?

Hallie is a bit older now, and often makes an attempt at matching her clothes. Still, she's young, and her choices don't always make sense to adults. In kindergarten, she wore her velvet dresses as everyday clothes, and chose sweatpants and a T shirt for picture day. Well, OK. It's her photo. She was clean, comfortable and happy.

A year later, she's in first grade and has just performed in her first school music program. She wore a pastel striped sweater under a denim jumper with red and black accents. Again, she was clean, comfortable, happy and even in a dress for a special occasion. She had a great time, and was very proud. We took tons of photos and clapped loudly. I just knew, though, that when I e-mailed Lana a photo at college she would groan and say, "Why did Mom let her wear that?"

Skin Deep

I'm musing here on size and appearance. I guess a little of that is inescapable.

It's been a few years since I wrote this. My once painfully thin daughter is now much rounder. Now I hear about how I should put her on a diet. That's just as annoying as hearing that she's too thin.

Why doesn't anyone ever think that someone is, in Goldilocks terms, "just right"?

*********************

I have, hanging over my dining room table, a replica of a newspaper ad from 1891. It's for a product called, "Fat-Ten-U-Food." "Respectfully tell the ladies," the headline blares, "Use Fat-Ten-U-Food to get Plump!" The copy is a scream. It trumpets your ability to become "plump and rosy, with HONEST fleshiness of form." It makes a point of saying that the pads, bustles and such in fashion at the time were dishonest and deceitful. Both the before and after images show women in their underwear, which, granted, cover more than most modern summer clothing, but was worn under all the additional pads. "Don't be like the poor unfortunate" in the "before" image, it warns. "Shorn of her artificially inflationary pads and devices, she must, in the confines of her bedroom, through shame, try to cover her poor, thin figure from the gaze of her beloved spouse." By today's standards, the "poor unfortunate" isn't even particularly thin. The look on her face, however, tells you that she's obviously mortified. She's holding her arms in a way that shields her bosom, indicating, of course, a flat chest. But wait, the ad promises, all is not lost! When you take Fat-Ten-U Food, you can walk "confidently through your bed chambers, conscious of YOUR PERFECTION of FORM!" The "after" image shows indeed, a plump, rounded woman. She's beaming and tossing her hair back. She has an ample bosom, dimpled knees, a well rounded stomach, and padded hips and bottom. Gone is the chiseled jawline of the "before" image. She looks like me with more hair.

 All this is followed by the requisite testimonial and photo. "In four weeks Professor William's famed FAT-TEN-U FOODS increased my weight 39 pounds, gave me new womanly vigor & developed me finely," the woman writes. She's sent in a photo of herself and her two sisters, who followed her lead and now, she writes, they all receive leading roles in the Grecian dance productions in Philadelphia. They too are wearing clothes best described as lingerie – fairly scandalous in that day and age, and certainly not designed to camoflage the body. They're very round and generously proportioned. My copy doesn't quite do justice to the original, which was displayed in the shop where I bought my print. In it, you can see far more detail. Believe me, you can pinch far more than an inch.

In my bedroom, I have a print of a Botticelli painting entitled, "The Three Graces." They're wearing diaphanous robes that again, are not designed to hide anything, including pounds. They're rounded and dimpled – no worries about cellulite there!

I display these things to remind myself, and everyone else, that the current obsession with being thin is very, very new. For most of history, thin people were pitied as being weak, sickly, and probably poor. Looking back through more ads of the nineteenth century, there are similar products sold to fatten up thin babies. The wording there plays heavily on parental guilt, and hints that people are saying unkind things about your poor, scrawny child behind your back. (Another benefit of these ads is to remind us that while we jeer at snake oil salesmen of the past, we're just as susceptible to miracle product claims as our ancestors were.)

It took me many, many years to be comfortable in my own body. That's true for almost everyone, I suppose; some people never do feel comfortable.

Marilyn Monroe was 5 foot 6 and weighed 145 pounds. MARILYN MONROE. In high school, I was 5 foot 8 and weighed 155. It was the early 80s, three decades too late to be considered Marilynesque. It was widely accepted by one and all that I was just too darned fat. I wore 12s and 14s while 7s were considered as large as you should ever be. The "guides" in magazines and such identified me as being "obese," more than 10 pounds above "ideal." My best friend since third grade wore size 3.

Even people who were trying hard to be supportive would say things like, "If you'd lose some weight, do something different with your hair, buy nicer clothes and learn to put on makeup, you could be pretty." I know they meant no harm, but it left me thinking: So, if nothing about me was the same as it is now, I MIGHT be considered acceptable? Gee, thanks. I feel warm and fuzzy all over. More usual were comments like this one, courtesy of my dad: "If you keep eating like that, you're going to get big as a house."

In my favor, even at my current, much higher than high school, weight, I've always had an hourglass shape. If I'd been able to carry myself back then with confidence, I would have been much better off. I'd still have been considered fat, but people wouldn't have constantly bugged me with their ideas for improving me. Judging by some of my photos, I could have passed for pretty as long as the viewer didn't have a waif fetish.

Just as annoying to me were my friends' efforts to change my hairstyle. I had long, naturally wavy, and, once upon a time, thick hair. I wore it straight down with nothing done to it for years, but by high school I was clipping back one or both sides with a barrette. That was it. Other girls, especially those with short hair, were itching to get at mine and make it over. Every now and then, at a slumber party or some such, I'd submit to having my hair done, usually to shut somebody up. I've never enjoyed that process. Anyway, most often they'd attempt to put my hair up in some fashion, because they could. I have a round face and a receding chin – if you put my hair up, I look like a senior citizen. I was a constant disappointment to girls who kept complaining, "Well, it should have worked." My favorite was the comment made after I'd had my hair French braided back: "You're right. You hair looks good by itself, but it doesn't look good on you."

Even my husband has never particularly considered me attractive. In his eyes, that's a good thing. He's always said that pretty women are conceited and high maintenance, which is why he doesn't want one. He'd also be unhappy with a wife people were hitting on behind his back. So, according to Dan, my not being pretty is good.

I finally came to the conclusion, well into adulthood and weighing much more than "ideal," that if people don't like the way I look, it's because I don't fit their taste, not because I'm flawed. Everybody's taste is different, and influenced much more by their culture than by any kind of objective standards. If I'd married a Polynesian man and moved to the islands, I'd still be considered scrawny, and they'd be trying to fatten me up. One size will never fit all.

I face the flip side of this coin with my children. You have no idea how much willpower it takes to be civil to people who say, "Don't you ever feed that kid?"

For whatever reason, I have children who have picked up the genes most apparent otherwise in my half sister and her second daughter. They're built like greyhounds. Much to my sister's, and sometimes their own, dismay, her other two daughters were built lush and curvy – more like me.

I am tired of relatives saying to my son, when he's wearing shorts, "Cover up those skinny legs!" I am tired of people telling my oldest that she doesn't eat enough. I am tired of hearing that my youngest has "a stick body." I am sick to death of body shape comments, from anyone or to anyone. I even hate it when they're positive comments. We are not cut out cookies, made by the same cookie cutter.

My youngest was fairly rounded at birth, but as she got older she thinned rather dramatically. I asked her doctor, when she was about eight or ten months old, whether I should be concerned. I wondered if, in the mess of her eating habits, she might not be getting enough to eat. His first comment was a flippant, "Oh, yeah, you've really got to watch that nursery peer pressure. It can be murder." He then told me that she was hitting all her developmental milestones and obviously happy, so not to worry. I still did, but I tried to keep it in perspective. All my children have had slight builds. If Hallie was smaller than her siblings, well, she's a different person. She's not going to be the same. Besides, I was aggravated to the point of screaming by the responses I got whenever I mentioned to someone that I was worried about her. "Oh, tall and thin – I wish I had her problems!" was typical. One friend said, "But you want little girls to be petite." We heard more variations on that theme. I was continually told how thrilled she'd be later in life. I wanted to slap people and say, "SHE'S ONE YEAR OLD!" I decided it was best to say nothing.

When she was thirteen months old, she was hospitalized with severe anemia. As soon as we arrived at the hospital, the nutritionist swooped down on us to talk about an iron rich diet. Hallie was still drinking formula at that point, because I was concerned about her, and formula has more nutrition, fat and calories than milk. Of course, one of the first things the nutritionist wanted to know was what kind of formula we'd used. I told her we were still using it, and handed her the container. She blinked and looked puzzled. "Well, this is exactly what I fed my kids," she said. After a few more questions, she was even more puzzled, so she ended up just dropping a bunch of literature on us and then leaving. We never saw her again.

After Hallie'd gotten well and been released, we were referred to a viral specialist, to see if she could confirm our doctor's hypothesis about the cause of the anemia, which he suspected to be human parvo virus. She seemed far more concerned with the baby's weight than with anything else. After the exam and review of her blood tests, she sent us on our way, telling us we wouldn't need to make a return visit. Then, she phoned our doctor and gave him an earful about how thin the baby was, and how it just wasn't right, and how she didn't think we were "concerned" enough about it. I'm sure the upshot of all this was that she thought we were unfit parents, and he had to get the baby out of our home immediately. The poor doctor spent the night awake, terrified that he'd missed something important, and called us into his office first thing the next day. His first comment when he came in to examine her was, "Well, that's just what Hallie looks like." She'd gained back a pound of the 1 ½ pounds she'd lost in the hospital, her color was back to a healthy pink, and she was cheerful and lively. Still, we put her on a new formula since she seemed to have a dairy sensitivity, and we went back and weighed her fairly frequently for the next few weeks. She gained slowly but steadily, the way she always had, and the doctor was satisfied that he hadn't missed anything. And lo and behold, she was still tiny. I don't think she ever got above the 5th percentile on the height/weight chart. He relaxed and wondered why the specialist had been so alarmed. We wondered how many other people we would run into who were sure we were lousy parents because our daughter was thin. They were as bad as the "thin is good" crowd, and quite possibly dangerous as well. A friend of mine had a miserable time sitting with a woman from Child Protective Services, trying to assure her that yes, her thin child ate as much as any other family member. The CPS woman was unconvinced, and my friend herself is built like a greyhound. I can just imagine the horror on a social worker's face when, gasp, fat parents have thin kids. You'd think with all the hysteria about childhood obesity people will be thrilled, but no.

I spend a great deal of my time telling my adolescents that they should no more expect people to have the same shape and size than they should expect them to have the same voice. My son plays sports, and we have never even hinted that he has to work harder than the burlier boys, or that the rounder kids are at a disadvantage. I won't allow anyone else to say such things to him, either. I'm fighting an uphill battle. WE SHOULD NOT ALL BE THE SAME SIZE OR SHAPE.

You Look Marvelous

 

Today I read a blog post about vanity over 40. I am well over 40, and not a fan of vanity, in any form. I should have skipped the post; I know that. Still, I didn't. Instead I read, yet again, how women my age are supposedly obsessed with drooping bottoms and crows feet. I would love to dismiss these thoughts, but I know that, by and large, they're right. This post, probably because the writer lives in LA, dealt mostly with cosmetic surgery.

Then I read this: "On the other hand, there is the opposite problem: an over 40 lack of vanity. You know what I mean, those women wandering around in sweats with graying hair and zero makeup, and kind of reveling in it, as if it's a virtue. One friend proudly mentioned to me that she was out in a group of women, and 'none of us had a stitch of makeup on.' Ok. Why is this an accomplishment any more than saying all the women in the group had tons of work done? It's sort of like reverse vanity: 'I'm so evolved and less vain than you.' " She, like most bloggers, had space to leave a comment. I thought about it, but what I have to say is far too wordy and involved. I can't dash off two or three pithy sentences.

I do not feel that I am more evolved than anybody. I am quite probably less vain than some.

Full disclosure here: I wear makeup. I have since I was a teenager. As a kid, I wore blush, eyeshadow and mascara. Since I was in my early 30s, though, I've worn concealer, foundation, blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara. Why? Because it's hard enough to get people to take me seriously without flouting convention daily.

I also shave my legs and armpits, pluck my eyebrows and yank my ridiculous, black whiskers out of my chin. I don't mean "dark" or "darker," I mean "black." I'm sure these are a hereditary gift from my Eastern European ancestors.

I hairspray my hair, every day. I fought for years to avoid daily "styling," but at a certain point the intelligent concede defeat. I also Rogaine it, since I started losing it almost 30 years ago and without the minoxidil, I and the very few straggly hairs left on my shiny pink pate would be totally socially unacceptable. Still, I don't curl it, straighten it, dye it or pull out my gray hairs. I wash it, comb it and spray it.

I resent every second of the "beauty" routine. Take the shaving and plucking: I think we should all get a handle on the fact that we're MAMMALS. I find something so deeply wrong with the idea of laser hair removal, waxing, men shaving their backs. It's ridiculous. We look back at the long ago era in Europe when eyelashes were considered unattractive, when women especially had pots of gold powder to rub onto their lashes to make them disappear, and we jeer. We laugh at portrait painters who left lashes off their subjects. And while we're at it, we howl in derision at high, white powdered wigs. Then we go back to using our Latisse, mascara, Botox, facial peels, highlights, hair extensions and Brazilian bikini waxes.

I was out a Girl Scout leaders' meeting this week, and I realized two things; 1. I was quite possibly the oldest woman in the room and 2. I was the only one wearing any makeup. Any. These are women with expensive haircuts, professional highlights, gym memberships, manicures – all of these things are foreign to me. They are very attractive women. And I'm the only one in makeup. It seemed very odd and silly.

I would love to wander around unshaven and without makeup. Most people, I've discovered, assume that I don't wear any makeup. In one way, that's a big compliment, because it means that I apply it very well. When my middle daughter's coworker was trying (in vain) to talk her into a makeover, she said, "Is it because your mom doesn't wear makeup?" "My mom wears more than I do!" said my daughter, whose routine consists of eyeliner and mascara.

When people see me actually without any, though, they've been known to actually gasp or recoil. I spent a week as a tent mom at our church girls camp, and the last day was visitor's day, with parents and leaders coming up to join in the closing activities. Several of the visitors who knew me were visibly astonished by my appearance. You'd be amazed at the many and varied ways to say, "Wow, the woods have not been good to you" without being offensive.

I don't believe that wearing, or not wearing, makeup indicates anything about a person's self esteem or values.

I have a niece who sells makeup and skin care products. She's very good at what she does, just earned another promotion, and makes a pretty good living. She's also lovely. She's an amazing woman, and I applaud her.

Another niece not only doesn't wear makeup, she doesn't shave, at all. She's a brunette, too. She wears skirts, and at the beach, she wears a bikini. She's also lovely. She's an amazing woman, and I applaud her.

Each of these women has excellent hygiene, interpersonal skills and values. Each is living an "authentic" life, her daily actions in tune with her beliefs.

Me? I espouse one thing and do another. I have reasons, valid ones, I think, but I'm hoping age is a factor. I'm waiting for enough time to pass that I can give up the routines that I find unnecessary. My mother is 82, intelligent and lovely, but I'd think that dementia was setting in if she asked me if I thought coral lipstick worked with her outfit or if I recommended waterproof mascara. I wonder what the magic age is at which I can dispense with cosmetics and shaving and still be considered socially acceptable.

I am deeply annoyed by superficiality. I am an artist, a photographer, actor and set dresser. I understand aesthetics, beauty and their effect on humans. I just can't see unduly elevating appearance, and I think our definition of beauty is far too narrow. (Don't even get me started on what's considered "fashionable.")

I am still annoyed by 27 year old criticism of Walter Mondale's brown suit. In case you've forgotten, or never knew, Walter Mondale was a mainstream party candidate for president of the United States. What took the most criticism: his foreign policy, his tax plan, his views on education or his brown suit? Yes! The suit! Can you imagine? A man is one election away from being leader of millions, the "Leader of the Free World," and we're worried because his suit was brown? Apparently, black, gray and blue are acceptable, but brown is not. Are you kidding? And, says who?

In high school, I worked for a law firm. One of the attorneys was intelligent, well educated, well informed, dedicated, informed and hard working. His favorite suit was a bright green and yellow plaid. (He also had extensive facial scarring from a childhood burn.) It did not keep him from being an effective litigator.

See, here's the thing: he could do his job in pajamas, or in the tub, or wearing worn out denim coveralls. His brain is unaffected by his wardrobe. Everyone's is.

Since being frugal is becoming fashionable, I keep waiting for being superficial to become unfashionable. I keep thinking that since we have record unemployment, record foreclosures, failing businesses, failing schools and millions of children in poverty, it will become supremely unacceptable to worry about laugh lines. I am still waiting. TV commercials are bad enough. Billboards are worse, and radio commercials are enough to make me violent. WHY are we telling people to use their tax return money for liposuction? How is it that ordinary, middle class people are feeling pressured to look like airbrushed and Photoshopped magazine covers? How is that OK?

Does anyone remember another time in history when ordinary people have felt compelled to surgically alter themselves? We think foot binding is barbaric, we sneer at groups that put plates in their bottom lips, we are aghast at women who put metal rings around their necks, so heavy that their shoulders finally collapse. We think ritual scarring is primitive.

Tattooing and piercing, on the other hand, we find ordinary and acceptable. Cosmetic surgery is so common that it's offered at "spas," and I hear commercials for it routinely on my country music radio station. (Country music!)

Can we PLEASE stop worrying about what people look like?

So, Ms. Over 40 Blogger, that's why it's more acceptable to say that you're wearing no makeup than it is to say that you've had extensive cosmetic surgery. Whether you believe that God or nature is the highest authority, the natural state of humans is good enough. Believing otherwise is a bad idea, indicative of feelings of low self worth, and the cause of a good many behavioral disorders.

Ordinary IS attractive.