My 'Tween in Heels: Chicken Little's Debut

Chicken Little has grown quite a bit over the summer; her feet are now the same size as mine, and she has been experimenting with fashion and paying more attention to hygiene. Sunday, I picked up my twelve-year-old daughter from a slumber party before church."Look!" she exclaimed as she came down the stairs, "I did my own hair with a curling iron all by myself, and I didn't even burn down the house!" Yes, while she was darling with a curled tendril draping one side of her face, the rest of her hair brushed neatly back into a low bun, she was also wearing sparkly blue eye shadow, a clingy shirt revealing the fullness of growing breasts, and a short, sequined skirt. I mulled all this over as I thanked the host mom and drove back to our home for a brief stop before heading to service.

"Baby girl, let me just give your make-up a little touch-up." I used my fingers and a little powder to blend and reduce her swipes of sky blue to a subtle glow. She then ran upstairs to change from her sandals, and returned sporting high-heeled cowboy boots. She posed for a moment, waiting for my approval, and all of a sudden I saw her as others might see her-- a bit Lolita-like as she tenderly, but awkwardly strove to reach beyond her early-girlhood. You know that moment of parental crisis-- the one when only you hear the thunderclap? You are called to duty. Should you choose your words recklessly, you potentially damage her trust in your opinion and her confidence in herself. I searched for words that would redirect. "Sweetheart, that is a great outfit for a party. Why don't we substitute something to make it a little more appropriate for church?" Minutes later, we painlessly emerged from the home, a long flowing skirt and belted sweater complementing her blossoming form.

After the church service, I noted my daughter slump-shouldered and stomping beside me. "Baby girl," I coached once more, "If you are going to wear heels, you need to learn to walk in them." I pulled her shoulders back and encouraged walking heel to toe. Now, I didn't buy those shoes for her, nor would they have been my choice. They came from her step-mother, and while I appreciate the generous gesture, I resent the privileges of maturity being presented to her so casually by someone I will always consider a stranger. Giving a girl her first pair of heels is a kind of honor reserved for the woman who makes most of the decisions about that child's transitions. My own mother sweetly started me off in eighth grade with kitten heels. The shoes were a perfect height for girls attempting to look like young ladies. I remember being thrilled by learning how to walk in those miniature heels, and would practice in the hall of my home. I remember how I thanked my mom for letting me have those shoes. In them, I felt elegant.

Those momentary adult-like privileges, once given, can be so quickly taken away, reminders of a child's place aptly flagged at moments of necessity. Minutes later, when my daughter began to use those cowboy boots to kick her brother, I turned to her: "You can't dress like a young lady if you plan on acting like a child!"
"Yes, ma'am," she frowned.

Yes, still twelve. The only thing easing this transition is the knowledge that she'll grow out of those boots in a few months... and then I can wear them!

Motherhood and Image

One Saturday a couple of years ago at the park, I noticed a pair of twenty-something mothers. Did they consult each other before dressing that morning or were they in competition to out-hot-chick each other? Razored bobs and pairs of bedazzled sunglasses framed their faces. Taut black tank tops only barely housed generous portions of exposed breast (the artificial quality of which could be debated). Their jeans were torn and low-rise, and separated from peeks of flesh by sparkly black belts with studs. The only real differences between the two women were the graphics on their shirts, and only one of the women had visible tattoos. To have one such momma-candy on the playground would have been enough; two however were like a high-pitched ringing alarm. Several minutes passed before I could name the sensation rising inside me: I don’t want to be like the Hooters chicks on the playground. Interestingly enough, as the young women cavorted about, the other parents ignored them.

What is it about motherhood that makes some of us rebel in our image? Well, we’re moms, but we still look cool. There was a point in my life when a “hot mom” comment made me grin. Now? I’m in a different place. The last thing I want my daughter to hear is, “Your mom looks hot.” On a visit with a close friend months prior to the Hooters-at-the-park episode, she discussed her own appearance. She was no longer the string bean she had been in college. She’d become, well, a mom. The qualities I always had loved about her were present ten-fold: gentleness, wisdom, natural beauty that radiated from within.

“My kids don’t care how thin I am,” she said. “They just want me there to love them, want me soft when we hug. When you are loved like that, the other stuff doesn’t matter. Besides, the way my husband loves me, it doesn’t matter how much I weigh to him either.” For a moment I thought about the velveteen bunny and his desire to be loved, and therefore real. “When I take my shirt off,” continued my friend, “Joe still goes crazy.” Well, not so velveteen bunny all of a sudden, but I wanted this—the freedom to just be who I was, to be loved like that, and to not have my spouse measure his approval on the size of my waist, breasts, thighs, or even the length of my hair and nails. Later, when I was growling over the way my biceps jiggled, she glanced at me and said, “You need to live in a place where there’s less emphasis on appearance.” At that point, my whole life was changing. Little did I know how much it would change or how my vision of myself would change with it.

My girlfriend, by the way, was right about everything. I was living in semi-rural-suburbia meets matching-mail box-hell. Women in the neighborhood drove golf carts to visit each other. (Nota bene: no golf course in the neighborhood.) We had our tennis teams, our merchandise parties, pretty cars in the driveway. If one basement was being remodeled, everyone else’s basement was next. Workouts at the gym were light competition. We congratulated ourselves on being fit, firm, and looking younger than our mothers did at the same age. We said that we did this for ourselves. Knowing what I know now, that’s not true at all. It was a very shallow way of life and I was glad to leave it. And I left it all: the house, nicer cars, conspicuous consumption, gossipy neighbors, and sooty self –image. Gone. I have never looked back, and have found instead, an incredibly rejuvenating re-embracing of motherhood and everything that comes with it, internally and externally. What I used to worry about is baggage left behind in a three car garage and attached McMansion.

That day at the park, as I relaxed against the bench and watched my kids play, the two young women chasing their kids struck a chord inside me. When I returned home, I emptied my closet of every item of clothing I still had that was tight, too short, too clingy, too young, too unbecoming of a mid-thirties mother, and I gave it all to a twenty-one year old family friend. It was the last bit of any image associated with my previous life, anything that I tried to be and was not. I felt like a new person: respectable. Not a trace of Hooters waitress anywhere and no need to earn a mate’s approval by looking that way. Better yet, proud and thankful to look like a mother.