My mum’s Facebook profile picture is a full-length shot of her running out of the sea in an itsy-bitsy bikini. It’s a very different picture from those of her friends, who are generally found posing with grandchildren. Not my mum, though. I can’t imagine it’s even occurred to her that 67-year-olds generally wear clothes in their profile pictures – age and appropriateness aren’t top of her concerns. She’s always been far more rebellious than that – especially when it comes to that tired assumption of what a mother, let alone ‘a woman of a certain age’, should look like.
Growing up in a suburb just outside Liverpool with my sister and two brothers, where my only goal was to fit in, my mum was the one at the school gates in a studded leather cap; or the one topless, perching on a rock in the Mediterranean. Don’t get me wrong, she still wore a fleece if it was cold – it’s just if there was a sexy option, she’d choose it. While I appreciated her introducing me to high-legged swimsuits in my teenage years and showing me the power of white dungarees as a post-holiday uniform, there were times I found Mum’s disregard for how other mothers dressed frustrating. Her standing out was, well, embarrassing.
I was raised in the ’80s, where the portrayal of mums was all Princess Diana maternity dresses and the Oxo woman ladling gravy for the family. As a result, I had a very clear image of what a mother should look like – dowdy, unfashionable – and, well, my mum made her best effort to not look like that. At times, her choices incited my teenage rage. When I was 15 and on a family holiday in Greece, Mum got her belly button pierced – I was indignant and angry; I saw it as her invading my territory. It looked annoyingly good. Mum’s response? A shrug of the shoulders and a ‘this really isn’t about you, Alex’.
But a defiance of the ‘mum look’doesn’t mean a defiance of the role – Mum lovingly brought up four children and today is a doting grandma. ‘I always wore what made me feel good,’ she tells me now. ‘Every woman should wear what makes her happy and the happiest mums are the best mums.’ It’s true. My mum always made me feel emotionally supported and her openness was beneficial when it came to other areas. She was the one who accompanied me to the doctors when, aged 16, I wanted to go on the Pill, for example – and I credit my confidence with my body and myself to her example.
Secretly, though, I think Mum loved the fact that, as I hit my teenage years and she her sixth decade, my boyfriend’s mates would describe her as a MILF. ‘I can remember the first time a man turned to look and realising that he was looking at your sister and not me,’ my mum once said to us, about what it was like to have a younger version of herself come along.
It’s not that she was in competition with my sister and me, but now I’ve got the benefit of perspective and distance, I think she just wanted to remain vital. She had grown up in an era when being attractive meant a lot, and she wasn’t going to put away the Lycra just because she’d blown out the candles on her 50th birthday cake. Today, my mum says she doesn’t compare herself with her daughters, but she did tell me: ‘I do love it when iPhoto face recognition mixes me up with you.’
The real turning point for me in understanding my mum was becoming one. I learned that having a baby didn’t void the rest of my personality. I still wanted to work, to party – and I hoped that someone still found me hot. I found myself looking back on my teenage behaviour and rolling my eyes at my indignation that Mum dared to enjoy her body. Who was I to police what she did with it just because it didn’t align with my naive idea of a mother? My son is now three and I’ll take great pleasure in embarrassing him, if that means being myself and wearing what I want.
I had a child 44 years after my mum first did and I still find myself fighting the stereotype of what a mother should look like. Can I dress up for Halloween? Post bikini photos? Get a tattoo? The answers are, of course, yes, but society sometimes makes me question otherwise. So thank you Mum, for showing me that mums can be exactly as they please – and that it doesn’t affect their ability to parent successfully.