By Jaime Mathews

Why Moms Should Keep Their Favorite Pre-Pregnancy Jeans

Healthy Living

The Sweet Life

December 1, 2021

For the first time in nine years, I have been able to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Boy am I glad I didn’t give them away!

From skinny and jegging to bootcut and flares, and even from boyfriend to mom, there is a jean style for every woman. The styles come in, they go out, and then eventually, they come back in again (and again). But from this mom of twins and a toddler, I encourage all of you mamas to keep your favorite pre-baby pair of jeans.

Who Came Up With the “Mom Jean” Anyway?!

Before I even begin to discuss the why, let’s talk about the who. Like, who the heck came up with the mom jean style and why on earth did they name it the mom jean? I may be dating myself right now, but I, as a mom who birthed three children, would not be caught dead in that style of jeans. And to be honest, I’m a little offended that such an appalling style of jean would be named after the women who carry little humans in their bellies for nearly nine months only then to go through hours or days of labor and delivery. I don’t know about you, but I think jeans named after moms should be trimmed in gold, adorned with diamonds, and made of the finest material the world has ever known. Nope! We are given cheaply made, ripped and torn, figure-deforming jeans that are often not long enough to be labeled a pant but too long to call a capri or even an ankle.

After shopping with my niece this past weekend (who by the way, loves mom jeans, much to my disapproval), I decided that I just had to learn how and why mom jeans came about. Who would name such a questionable piece of clothing after moms, the people who bring life into this world? In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the high-waisted mom jeans were mainly worn by middle-aged women who were considered to be unhip by those younger (and trendier) women. In 2003, Saturday Night Live did a skit about about a fake brand of jeans, Mom Jeans, again mocking the nerdiness of this jean trend (thanks to Tina Fey’s hilarious skit writing). Mom jean characteristics include: a high waist jean, usually rising above the navel, which makes the buttocks appear disproportionately longer, larger, and flatter. Moms, do you want to wear clothes that make anything look larger and flatter? I didn’t think so!

Why Moms Should Keep Their Favorite Pair of Jeans

We mamas have so much to deal with after we give birth. Our bodies are completely out of whack both physiologically and physically for up to two years after we deliver our little bundles of joy. And for some (like me), losing the baby weight can take years. Years! But that doesn’t mean we need to throw in the towel and head to Old Navy for our own pair of comfortable yet horrifying pair of mom jeans. Becoming a mom does not mean that we need to relinquish ourselves to being “unhip” and playing into society’s ideas of what a mom (and a mom’s body) might look like. 

I, for one, have always loved flare jeans. Since I was young, I was always a sucker for a good old pair of bell bottoms. And honestly, that’s what looks best on my body type, even after pregnancy. But of course, all of my favorite jeans that I wore tirelessly before I got pregnant did not fit after my twins were born, or even after my son was born three and a half years later. In fact, those jeans didn’t fit for so long that I finally put them in the giveaway pile. But I never actually gave them away. Giving these pants away after holding on to them for so long felt like the end of an era. They sat in my closet for nearly nine years. I brought them down after I had done an intense fitness program and although I had gained a ton of muscle, I still couldn’t squeeze those bad boys past my hips. So I sadly folded them back up and put them away in my closet, hoping that one day I would be able to wear them again. To me, that was a way to feel like I had come full circle with my life before kids and my life after kids. It was as if I was finally weaving together my life in its entirety, instead of the fragmented way it had been feeling for quite a while. 

You see, keeping your favorite clothing items from another time in your life can be a reminder. It can be a reminder of where you would like to get back to one day. For me, I knew I was carrying more weight than was ideal for my body. I did not find this out by obsessively weighing myself (in fact, there isn’t and there never will be a scale in my house). I knew this by the way my clothes fit and by the way my joints and overall body felt. I knew that for my body structure, I needed to stay within a body size that was ideal for my optimal health and wellness. And for nearly nine years, I was not there. Not until today.

These past few months, I have been on a rather intense detox program. I have been detoxing my body of harmful foods that have caused severe inflammation on a cellular level. I have been detoxing my mind from negative thoughts (“stinking thinking”) and have been ridding my life of what I know does not serve my greater good any longer. It has been a time of dedication and discipline; and there have been ups and downs along the way, much like someone might experience doing alcohol or substance abuse detoxification. But after a few months of this detox, I have noticed monumental improvements in my life. And today, as I tried on each of my very favorite jeans from what seems like a lifetime ago, I saw the circle of my life connect. Because after nine years, they all fit perfectly! 

Mamas, don’t give up on what you hope and dream for. I’m not only referring to weight loss, although if that’s what you really want, then that’s okay! Just because we are moms does not mean that who we were before becoming a parent has gone by the wayside. We are still the same woman, even though we tout around a baby and an oversized diaper bag. We are still the same person, even when we have preschoolers and elementary school students. We do not need to bury our lives pre-kiddos and become someone else just because we now carry the name, mom. And for the love of all things holy, we definitely do not need to conform to the world of mom jeans just because they are named after us. Rock your style, any old way you want to!

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Jaime Mathews      Author

Jaime is a woman of many hats: follower of Jesus, wife, mama of three, homeschooler, business owner, blogger, writer and aspiring homesteader. Follow her on instagram @jaimeleemathews.

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