Spoiler Alert For Judgey Moms: We All Get Old Like Kris Jenner
Kris Jenner is a fifty-six year old grandmother and the media is all furious she’s not always wearing a velour pantsuit with a crocheted afghan draped around her shoulders. I’ve always spoken out about ageism. I get all cringe-y when I read an article that slags on an older woman not “dressing her age” or “acting her age” because not only am I THAT age (42, cough), I feel like when women and moms reach a certain age they should be able to wear whatever the hell they want.
Our friends at The Stir recently ran a piece about Kris Jenner that made me pull a face that only added extra wrinkles to the ones I all ready have. The Stir article reads:
Kris looks, in a word, ridiculous. I might say anyone over 35 is too old to wear this dress, let alone a 56-year-old mother of 20. Everything from the girlish cut to the fabric to its length to the bows (DID I MENTION THERE WERE BOWS), a woman Kris’ age has no business wearing this dress. Her coy pose and the headphones just add insult to horrible, horrible injury.
Us old ladies, we cannot haz? Listen, Kris Jenner is not exactly the type of woman I look to for satorical or mothering advice, but with all the judgey judgey judging women and moms are subjected to on a never-ending non-stop relentless hell-basis do we really need to add age-shaming to the mix?
Spoiler alert: we all get old. Younger moms, older moms, grandmas. We all get older. And with amazingly brilliant people like Ari Seth Cohen and his Advanced Style blog and lots of other glamourous and fashionable older moms and grandmothers isn’t it time we all realize that just because a mom reaches a certain age, she can still be interested in fashion and beauty? Even if it isn’t what some of us feel is age appropriate? Because I don’t care about what Kris Jenner wears. She could mother her flock of Kardashians wearing a bikini for all I care.
We have all been conditioned by society and the media to believe a mom should look a certain way. From the iconic image of June Cleaver in her apron and pearls to every single stock photo of a smiling mom standing next to a minivan clad in some pleated pants and twinset from Coldwater Creek in magazines we are shown that moms are wash and wear, fashionably safe, and ready to do anything from chauffeur the kids around town to bake a pie to…. bake a pie. Say what you want about the Real Housewives franchise, at least it has shown the world that some moms, even moms past the age of forty, are still interested in fashion.
There are moms over the age of forty who have tattoos and brightly colored hair. Moms who wear leather and moms with piercings and moms with hair extensions and moms who have breast implants who like showing them off in cleavage-baring tops. There are moms who are older who wear miniskirts and skyscraper heels and moms who live in sweatshirts and mom jeans. It makes me sad I have to illustrate the different types of moms, including older ones, like my own mom version of a Dr. Seuss Satorical Guide but I guess we aren’t quite at a place where we can let moms look how they want, no matter how old they are.
Kris Jenner doesn’t dress in a way that I want to emulate, but she should be allowed to wear whatever she wants without the constant barrage of insults about her age and what the media feels a mom her age should look like. This is one aspect of the mommy wars we should all stop participating in. Because you know what? We all get older. And maybe some day we want to be able to wear a ridiculous girlish dress like Kris Jenner too and not feel like the ageism police are going to bust us for it.
(Photo: Wenn)
