Mother's Day Fashion

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope yours started with a late morning lie in and breakfast in bed! Mine began with a 2:07am wake-up call and an all-lights-on search for fever reducing medicine. I fell back asleep in Manika’s bed with a plastic teddy bear nose digging into the back of my head. Two hours later, Manika declared herself “done sleeping.” No amount of understanding from my husband, or tears, or talking to my mother could raise me out of my foul sleep-deprived mood after that. In fact, it was the lowest I’d felt about being a mother in a long time.

Why so long? Because the past few months of effort finally tipped my life balance from stay-at-home mom frantically chasing after work, to working-mom chasing after time to stay at home (and blog). I haven’t had time to think or be too up or down. As the demands of my life twisted and turned me back and forth between suit-wearing consultant, writing teacher, new bilingual-cookbook promoter, children’s book reader and playground mom, my identity flapped in the wind too. I didn’t stop to digest it all though until I noticed spring was almost gone and I was about to enter summer with some serious holes in my wardrobe.

I went to the Gap. I love the Gap. Since I left the US, Gap Inc has become my anchor, my beacon of Western life and convenience still glistening off in the distant sky. Each time someone comes from America, their suitcase inevitably contains Gap kids clothes for the kids, or a Banana Republic shirt for me. Each time I go home, I pre-shop for hours on all of Gap’s many websites. Now that there is a newly opened outpost here in China, I sometimes fight the blues by popping in to test run a few clothes and balk at the 40% tariff-taxed prices while listening to some good old American-mixed Musak,

So the disappoint was profound on that Tuesday. I went in search of retail peace, but could not find anything I liked. Mind you, it wasn’t because there was nothing likeable in the two-story store, but that I found myself wandering the shelves having no idea what I was in the mood to try on. Some button down shirts and a new trench for the working girl? A don’t-dare-bend-over-to-retrieve-a-sippy-cup sexy mini? A practical pair of nautical inspired shorts? Some baggy t-shirts? A fitted tank top? I found myself completely paralyzed by both the physical and existential crisis. Who was I now? I feel sexier and more in control now than I have during my past three years of motherhood. But I also spend much of my time running around between meetings and playgroups. My wardrobe stopped growing after Manika’s birth in 2007. How to fill the gaps in time, styles, myself?

I pushed Avik onto Uniqlo hoping for some more Asian-cute inspiration. One pair of denim capris later, bought ambitiously tight rather than practically baggy, I was starting to despair. Avik insisted on a steady stream of raisins to keep from fighting for independence from the McLaren, which was definitely killing the mood. I started to walk faster, and then began a sprint through the next five stores down Shanghai’s equivalent of 5th Avenue. It didn’t help that all of China is half my size and boob-less. What I did like didn’t fit right. After Zara’s, I decided to take a break and head off to feed the now truly pissed off kid. He inhaled a bucket of pasta and then set off on foot to flirt with the staff in the next few shops I dared visit. No one paid any attention to me and the day was declared done when he began to stink up Theory with his poop-filled diaper. Despite their admiration of his cuteness, the ladies didn’t look amicable to me using their dressing rooms to change him.

“So let me get this straight, you’re upset because you didn’t spend money today,” my husband said when I called him.

“No, I’m upset because I did not find the perfect five items to inspire and uplift my depressing wardrobe. You work in fashion, you should understand.”

“I do business analysis. It’ s a little different.”

That night, I decided I had to step my up game. My husband came home to find me tossing out three fourths of my closet.

“Um, what are you doing?”

“I hate everything in here. My clothes are either dowdy, old, meant for teenagers or make me feel fat and sloppy.”

“And you’ll wear in their place?”

“That’s the point. If I have nothing to wear, I’ll be forced to branch out.”

“Didn’t we sort of discuss a budget for this?”

“Yeah, about that, I think this is going to take a little more money than I thought.”

The rest of the week, I internet shopped. I spent hours scrolling through websites, imagining myself wiping a nose in that t-shirt, running off to teach a student in those sandals, going off to date night in that black dress with my husband. My mind began to stress around the edges. What did I really need? Washable practical cotton. What did I really want? A new Armani suit and a pair of platform pink platform heels? Could justify I buying them both? Could I work them both in my life? The clothes began arriving at my mother’s house. Packages started coming to Asia. And yet, I still wasn’t sure. Did that gingham blue shirt look too picnic-y or stylishly casual? Did that navy blue tank dress scream MILF or a mom who has given up on anything other than dark color blocks?

Then Mother’s day arrived and I had nothing to wear to lunch. In an attempt to cheer me up, my husband suggested we all go out but my empty closet filled me with dread. It was my special day and I did not want to wear what a 90-degree sunny day with two sick kids calls for – cotton shorts and a t-shirt. But I also had to realistically plan to be puked on.

I chose a white and blue color striped mini-dress. That was for me. I put a pair of more conservative dark blue Capri leggings underneath it. That was for the kids. I put on red lipstick – for me. I pulled my hair halfway back – them. Finally, the tiebreaker was in the shoes. Orange platform heels. They were old, bought before the kids were born, not meant for walking but painfully stylish. I slid on my Marc Jacobs sunglasses and for a few moments, I thought I’d won.

Then I caught a glance of myself in the restaurant door and I began to realize I looked completely ridiculous – not clothes-wise so much as by the expression on my face. I was trying so hard to look like those kids behind me coughing and screaming were not mine, that with the heels and sunglasses, I had finally managed to rise above it all. I felt like a liar and a joke. All through lunch, I kept catching myself in other reflective surfaces and feeling incredibly uncomfortable with what I saw. I didn’t see me. I saw someone awkwardly trying to be an older version of me, while living in a totally different life.

A few hours later, Suresh and I were taking the kids to the hospital. The coughs and fevers were refusing to abate and we desperately needed to stock up on antibiotics. The time between lunch and the stroller re-load was so frenzied, I just retied my hair back in a ponytail, washed my face, tossed on my flat loafers and ran, forgetting all about my earlier concerns with my appearance. When I did see myself again, it was in the reflection of the hospital doors. Manika was hugging her Dad. I was carrying Avik and I could see pouches of my flabby post-baby belly being pushed out by his thigh resting on it. I didn’t care. I felt purposeful, completely unselfconscious, and beautiful in my own natural way. I felt fully alive in myself.

Of course, that didn’t dead stop the longing for more fashionable times. When I got home, I still glanced at some runway styles after the kids went to sleep. I started to think again about the new swimsuit I wanted to get. But the torment of it all was gone. I could see clearly that I am no longer the twenty-something mini-skirt wearer hoping to get a man to notice me, or the thirty-something career girl dressing to get the world to take me seriously. I am also no longer the baggy-clothes baby-weight carrying stay-at-home mom trying to hide her own insecurities and fears about herself and talents on the playground.

I guess I’m sort of a tight jeans, forgiving looser top, stylish flats, lip-gloss wearing kind of girl. Most importantly, I think I’m okay with that.

So can any of you mom’s out there give me some suggestions on where to go shopping now?