History of Mom Jeans
By Jimmy Chen
In the late 20th century, perhaps as existential concession to the futility of remaining attractive after marriage, and in part due to the late capitalist compulsion to buy crap indiscriminately, something awful happened: Moms across western part of the free world (i.e. North America, Europe) began wearing pleated denim jeans tightly belted above the navel, somewhat masochistically tucking in their shirts under the already constricting waistline — not to show off their hourglass figure (if they still had it), but because they had sort of went insane by all the baby-talk, suburban hum of distant lawnmowers, and daytime television.
One main attribute of Mom Jeans is that they are worn without the cognizance of being worn. Of course, the Mom knows she is wearing jeans, just not the fact that they are “Mom Jeans”; hence, obliviousness to the phenomenon is an imperative of the phenomenon. When teenagers and embarrassed husbands have tried, nicely, to explain (a) what Mom Jeans are, and (b) that they are unwittingly wearing one, the Moms simply dismissed such claims, similar to indignant crack addicts when told they might be addicted to crack. This may point to a dangerous fact, contradicting aforementioned assertions: that Moms who engage in such behavior are actually complicit in their mutual allegiance to continue the Mom Jeans revolution for future generations, bestowing on to their daughters this sad legacy.
When a girl is a teenager and in her early- to mid-twenties, she wants to secure a suitor, and a low-rider pair of tight jeans whose waistline is barely above the pubis and ass crack is a visually alluring device meant to incite natural feelings in the sperm giver, inclines which result in conveyance of genetic material. This is how the human race has survived for most of the 20th century. This is how the world works. Don’t hate the player, hate God.
Now imagine this young lady has secured a husband and had 2.5 children. It’s 6-8 years later, and 40-50 minutes away (usually inland) from the nearest metropolitan city. The utter lack of incentive to look attractive is aggravated by the prevalence of T.J. Maxx, JC Penney, Marshall’s, Kohl’s, Ross Dress for Less, and other places in which Mom Jeans are not only available, but offered at aggressive discounts, unabashedly displayed on mannequins whose san-face preempt the dour look of failure in life. The Mom, once a sensible young lady who just wanted some cock now and then, is now tired, celibate, and perhaps just a little tad resentful and mildly depressed. Alienated from popular “relevant” culture, Mom Jeans suddenly don’t seem like such a bad idea.
When a dozen Moms in Mom Jeans get together for Church, a bake sale, soccer game, or a PTA meeting, they culturally affirm one another, legitimizing their aesthetic plight with delusional lies such as “nice jeans!” “you look great,” and “[insert comment about how one’s ass is not as large as the wearer perceives it to be].” While African-American, Asian, and Hispanic woman have worn Mom Jeans, it is essentially practiced by white women, implicating socioeconomic parameters which suggest that Mom Jeans is a middle-class privilege; specifically, of being able to look horrible and still have one’s life somewhat in tact. That there are no real problems in life is often the problem.
Most unfortunate and notable of Mom Jeans is the “front butt,” a loose mound of lower-abdominal fat which resembles — with the help of Mom Jeans’ peculiar cut and design — a scaled down 66.7% version of the wearer’s buttocks, whose contour is corroborated easily by the Mom simply turning around. This “front butt” is an extended camel toe, which some have tried to rename the elephant toe, given its stately and daunting presence. On anniversaries, “front butts” have been fucked, and men have had nightmares.
The median age of the Mom Jeans wearer is 40, thus confirming that life ends at 40. Free-market democracy gave us malls and the ennui of complacency, and we have answered with Mom Jeans, some even acid-washed and pegged, a nod to former sluttier times. Every Mom was a babe, before time turned cruel. If there is a hell — as the whipped husbands who brave such jeans will testify — it is under the clammy puff a Mom Jeans’ crotch, barely tepid like a hopeless hot air ballon trying to levitate towards the heavens, as if such place could even possibly exist in a world with Mom Jeans.