Delicate
Condition
Mickie
McGee
Dear
Hearts, have you noticed the new trend in maternity clothes? The
let-it-all-hang-out bared-belly look? Am I the only one who thinks
a woman who bares her pregnant belly looks like a python that’s
swallowed a watermelon?
Frankly, I think it’s disgusting. Okay, so some of you think
a pregnant belly is “beautiful,” that it makes a woman
feel more feminine when she can bare her navel and her myriad
stretch marks to the entire world. I disagree.
Some things are just private, folks, and baring your bulging belly
when you are in your third trimester is one of them. As Mammy
of Gone With the Wind fame would say, “It ain’t
fittin'. It just ain’t fittin'.”
Whatever happened to real maternity clothes? You know, the ones
that those of us in my generation were so anxious to wear that
we started wearing them the day of our pregnancy test. The ones
that had tops and bottoms that actually covered your private parts,
your belly and all points immediately north and south. Remember
those?
Discretion. It all comes down to discretion. I, for one, wouldn’t
have dared to disgrace myself, my unborn child, and my husband,
or God forbid, my mother, by exposing my stomach in public when
I was in such a “delicate condition.”
Times have changed, you say. They certainly have. Look inside
any fashion catalog and turn to the maternity section. It looks
more like a Playboy spread than ads for mothers-to-be. And most
of the models are so pencil thin they'd be hard pressed to carry
a full meal, let alone a baby.
Skin. It’s all you see these days, but--and this is my humble
yet accurate opinion--pregnant women of all people just should
not succumb to this fad. Have you seen the women who are great
with child and wear low-rise blue jeans? I kid you not. I hate
those things anyway but on a pregnant woman they are downright
obscene.
And I don’t know about you but I see all the skin I need
to when the plumber comes to call; I don’t need to see the
backsides of women whose fronts are 8 1/2 months along.
There’s an absolutely beautiful girl on Fox News who is obviously
quite pregnant, yet she chooses to wear short, short skirts and
skin-tight tops that leave nothing to the imagination, including
her bulging belly button. I’m sorry. That’s just not
attractive.
If she’d like to take photos of herself in varying stages
of her pregnancy, even scantily clothed…heck, naked even…then
why not take them in the privacy of her home with her husband
and the family cat? Must we be forced to watch her spandex strain
every day for the next seven months until it bursts?
“Finding
appealing clothes for the mother-to-be has been next to impossible
the last few years,” says Mariah Flynn, a Toledo, Ohio, maternity
shop owner. “Expectant women have been frustrated at the
lack of stylish wear for a long time; now finally they are able
to purchase chic, sexy clothing no matter how far along they are
in their pregnancy.”
Surely you jest, Ms. Flynn!
Is this really what keeps pregnant women awake at night? Worrying
about the availability of sexy maternity clothes? And all this
time I thought it was their bladders!
I’m just sorry; I don’t quite understand the need for
looking sexy at this time in one’s life. Pretty, yes. Glowing,
yes. Exuberant, yes. But sexy? C’mon.
It’s apparent the soon-to-be mom was, and very recently I
might add, at least somewhat sexy or she wouldn’t be in this
condition in the first place. Why can’t she just enjoy her
Haagen-Dazs, stay home and put her swollen feet up like the rest
of us?
I do understand the desire to look attractive during these difficult
yet fulfilling months, however. It is a wonderful time in a woman’s
life. I’ve been there three times. But I can promise you
this. The majority of pregnant women in the throes of pregnancy
do not look like Victoria Secret models, nor should they feel
they must.
They are tired, bloated, sometimes irritable, can’t remember
the last time they have seen their feet, and wouldn’t be
caught dead right now in a bikini.
Yes, there are women who wear bikinis when they are pregnant,
some as far along as nine months. Now get that picture in your
mind and tell me that that little baby will not wish to kill his
mother for that someday down the line.
Oh, I wore bathing suits when I was pregnant. They were one-piece
little numbers with cute little pleated skirts that covered up…well,
everything that should have been covered up.
Sexy underwear for expectant mothers was not even an option in
my day. Most of us wore our husbands' oversized shirts by day
and at night we wore their boxer shorts. They were handy and besides,
they were all that would fit. Kind of had a little Fruit-of-the-Loom
bonding thing going on there, too. Talk about sexy.
And those tight t-shirts that pregnant women wear today. Those
that don’t meet in the middle and have those hideous little
sayings on them like Don’t Touch the Bump. Or Baby with an
arrow pointing downward. How about, Coming Soon to a Hospital
Near You, or Mom-in-Training, or the worst, Bun in the Oven? Tacky.
Tacky. Tacky.
What I’m trying to say is that I know pregnancy is a special
time and it has to be the most rewarding of life’s experiences.
It is truly a “beautiful” thing. But, hey, so is modesty.
Proverbs 11:22 says: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout
is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.” You tell ‘em,
Sol.
I’m no prude by any means, but some things are just better
left private, to be enjoyed with an exclusive group and not with
the entire planet. Like varicose veins, swelling ankles, belly
buttons, and stretch marks. In other words, inquiring minds might
want to know about your expanding girth but that doesn’t
mean they necessarily want to see it.
Tell you what, ladies. If you won’t show me your naked tummy,
I won’t show you mine. Deal?
***
Mickie
McGee is a 57-year-old Southern born and bred female, raised
in a small town forty miles north of Augusta, Georgia. She has
been married to a John Deere "veteran" for thirty-eight
years and has two grown sons. Her childhood was chocked full of
exciting, sometimes traumatic, events and thus, her penchant for
writing about them. She writes a personal column,"Dear Hearts,"
in her weekly hometown paper and, at last count, had written some
340 of them. As far as she's concerned, one can only write (that
is, with any passion) of what one has experienced, and she has
experienced quite a lot in her half a century of living, and she
gets a thrill each and every time a reader gushes, "I've
been there, done that!"
©
Mickie McGee