Obama's 'mom jeans?' Don't insult moms!

Maria Andreu By Maria Andreu The Star-Ledger
on July 16, 2009 at 1:21 PM, updated July 16, 2009 at 1:57 PM
Obama throws out the first pitch in "mom jeans."
President Obama threw out the first pitch at an All-Stars game but the press didn't pick up on his ball-throwing abilities. Instead, what is everyone talking about? His jeans. Obama's 'mom jeans' to be precise.

I don't want to take offense on behalf of President Obama (although I think we should cut him and his choice of jeans some slack). I want to take offense on behalf of moms everywhere. Just why (and when?) did "mom jeans" become pejorative? And what does it mean about what we believe about moms and women?

Coining a term like "mom jeans" paints mothers everywhere with a brush so broad that it covers both Angelina Jolie and your own mom. First, let's define the term mom jeans," which means a pair of high-waisted jeans that haven't been in style since, say, 1986.

Saturday Night Live even did a skit about it, with a line that says, "This Mother's Day, give her something that says, 'I'm not a woman anymore, I'm a mom.'" I'm not too uptight to acknowledge that the skit was pretty funny.

But the suggestion behind the term "mom jeans" is that choosing clothes for comfort, whether you're President Obama or a mom, makes you an object of derision.

If you're a mother, it means you're giving up your sexual identity. Unless you're primped and packaged up like a Hollywood mom ("Look at me, I gave birth 3 weeks ago and now I'm modeling underwear on a runway"), you're a hopeless dork, relegated to "mom jeans" and a big tub of Haagen Dasz to ease the pain. As if it's not hard enough to be a woman (not to mention a mom) now you've got to worry that you're no longer fitting into Abercrombie and Fitch low-rise size 0s.

And, when you're considering whether it should be okay to coin a term to goof on women who happen to be mothers, imagine replacing the word "mom" with "black person" or "Hispanic." Would we all think it was so funny then?

I'm a mom, therefore, by definition, all my jeans are mom jeans, including my skinny little Guess jeans I've got to fast 3 days to fit into. Leave me and my mom jeans alone and come up with a different term to make fun of President Obama's pants. Or better yet, leave him alone too.

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