Hot mama dilemma

A friend saved a copy of the More magazine for me to peruse. While this magazine may be geared towards women in their forties at this point in my twenties it all seems relevant. Even the numerous anti-aging advertisements didn’t shock me. I recently read somewhere that women didn’t have to start worrying about aging until after the ripe age of 21. Apparently, my being almost 24 makes me older than younger.

In my perusing of More I happened to come across a feature addressing the “Stacey’s Mom Dilemma”. I am no mother yet of a teenage daughter, but I definitely remember my own mother’s passage through this phase and have observed many other mothers contending with this dilemma.

Karen Karbo writes “If my daughter had become the hottie in the house, then what was I, aside from her chauffeur?” Thankfully, instead of the usual fighting the new hottie with weight-loss, tanning, and buying too short skirts, Karbo concludes that she should “…err on the side of momishness.” I write thankfully because while women who are mothers have every right to be attractive and sexual in their other roles, teenage daughters just want their moms' momishness.

I admit this does not seem fair. Often we equate the shutdown of sexuality and beauty with aging therefore when it is encouraged for women who are mothers to turn the hot factor off it could mean they are getting old. And it does not take a genius to figure out (just flip through any magazine) that this culture is definitely anti-aging, especially for women.

I believe motherhood is just one role that women have among many roles, which should allow women to express their sexuality sans all the anti-aging bullshit. We, me in my twenties, you in your whatever, are not old or getting older.