 One of the sweetest days of the entire year is the Thursday after Labor Day, aka the day the kids go back to school, aka the day that moms everywhere kick up their heels and sing praises to the sky at having their houses and their lives back to themselves.
Don’t get us wrong, husbands and kids: We love you. We enjoyed not having to shake you awake every morning in the summer, not having to pack all those lunches, being freed from hounding you to do your homework. We relished the long days we spent with you, with the leisure to play a game of badminton, to grill hot dogs, to simply sit side by side in the sand reading material not required for work or school.
But there’s a limit, and once September hits, we’ve reached it. We’re oh-so-ready to reclaim the early morning calm of a newly emptied house. To head out on an unaccompanied trip to the gym or the mall, to indulge in a guilt-free lunch with our newly liberated friends, to go back to work without feeling as if we’re abandoning our kids to a swamp of video games, bugs, and boredom.
The return to work and school is frantic, but it can be relaxing, too. The days return to a predictable routine, worries are forgotten in the busyness and buzz of everyday life. Once the morning chaos clears, the house remains blessedly quiet and crumb-free until the hordes return.
Every so often, we feel nostalgic for the lost lazy days of summer, and wish you were back home so we could head off for an impromptu day at the shore or lie on a blanket in the backyard and play a sweet-but-boring game of Scrabble.
But then the first holiday—Yom Kippur or Columbus Day—hits and reminds us of everything we think we’re missing. And very quickly, we get over it.
 |
| UNIVERSAL STUDIOS/Photofest |
When a virtual admirer called me a MILF, my kids had to tell me what that was and then my husband informed me that rather than an insult, being called a MILF was actually a compliment.
The term MILF—if you don’t know what it means, go to urbandictionary.com—was introduced by the movie American Pie and celebrated in the Fountains of Wayne song Stacy’s Mom (she’s got it goin’ on) and the Showtime series Weeds (in which the hottie mom deals MILF weed). MILFs have been around for long enough now that the genus has sprouted several species. What kind of MILF are you? To find out, take this simple quiz.
1. Which statement best describes your body?
a. I do and spend whatever it takes to have a super-sexy figure.
b. Softer, saggier, hairier—it’s all good.
c. I’m too busy running around after my kids to worry about my body.
d. I’m too busy hauling in the big bucks to worry about my body.
2. How do you prepare for a big night out?
a. I get my hair blown out, my makeup done, and my tummy tucked.
b. I wear a bra—maybe.
c. I take a shower and change into shoes without cleats.
d. I leave my BlackBerry in the other purse.
3. Who’s your favorite FILF?
a. Brad Pitt, or anyone surgically altered to look like him.
b. Yoga master Rodney Yee.
c. David Beckham.
d. Bill Gates. I am serious!
4. How’s your sex life?
a. As rejuvenating as genital reconstruction
surgery.
b. As delicious as a hot chocolate chip cookie.
c. As invigorating as a power cycling class.
d. As thrilling as launching a new hedge fund.
5. Come on. Really?
a. Okay. We’re working on it in marriage therapy. But since the Botox and breast lift, I feel really hot.
b. Okay. We’re working on it in our Kundalini class. But since I stopped wearing panties, I feel really hot.
c. Okay. We’re working on it in our couples soccer league. But running around with all those dads in shorts, I feel really hot.
d. Okay. We’re working on it in our negotiation seminar. But since making my first million,
I feel really hot.
KEY
If you answered mostly A ’s, you’re a MANUFACTURED MILF. We’re not saying you’re not gorgeous in your unaltered state, just that, as far as you’re concerned, more is always more. Your hair is blonder, your teeth whiter, your nose perkier and your butt tauter than that of any other babe. You’re willing to invest a great deal of time and energy achieving and maintaining MILFhood.
If you answered mostly B ’s, you’re an EARTH MILF. Earth MILFs are usually blessed with great natural attributes: slender body, wavy hair, silky skin. Your appeal rests in how comfortable you are with yourself and your world. The men most likely to appreciate you are those who prefer women without makeup and perfume and who find a little hair under the arms a turn-on.
If you answered mostly C ’s, you’re a SOCCER MILF. Active, involved, no-nonsense, you’re more concerned with shepherding your kids through their suburban lives than turning yourself into a babe. But all that running around with the peewee soccer league has given you buns of steel and the local soccer dads appreciate the curves beneath your sweat suit.
If you answered mostly D ’s, you’re a SUPER MILF. Forget about the bacon: You bring home a side of beef and fry it up on a six-burner Viking range. You’re outsized in everything you do, juggling a big career with a demanding home life.
My friend Sarah was dozing on a Saturday morning, her three-year-old son playing contentedly on the floor of her bedroom, when the child lost one of his toy cars underneath the bed. Darting under the dust ruffle to retrieve it, he emerged instead holding one of mommy’s “very special” toys, the one daddy bought her for Valentine’s Day: bright purple plastic, twirling and buzzing, the shape and size of a healthy cucumber.
“What’s this?” the child asked, goggle-eyed.
Sarah, trying to think fast, blurted, “I don’t know.”
“I’ll go ask Rebecca,” her son said, starting to make a beeline for the TV room, where his big sister was watching Dora the Explorer.
“No!” Sarah shrieked, grabbing the gadget from her child’s hands, frantically trying to think of what she was going to say next.
It seems like just yesterday that I was skulking around another New Jersey town as a teenager, trying to keep my parents from finding an illicit bottle of Mateus rosé and the tube top I’d been forbidden to leave the house in. And now here I am, trying to hide things from my kids.
Like what, you may ask. Well, if I get too explicit here, my kids will find out and I’ll be busted.
So I’ll just bust my friends instead. Take Jane, for instance. Jane doesn’t drink—too many calories—but once in a while, on a Saturday night, when friends are over having a good time, she likes to smoke a joint. One rainy night, she was standing on her back porch partaking with a few of her dinner-party guests when her teenage son suddenly appeared in the driveway with his friends. Jane yelped, tossed the burning joint onto the sodden lawn and sprinted around the house in the other direction, away from her son.
Another friend details the perils of hiding pot from a teenager: “You have to keep moving it because if they find it, they’ll just smoke it,” she says. “But then we forget where we hide it.” This is your brain on drugs, indeed.
Other parents try to hide not just what they’re doing now, but what they did in their younger days. Hitchhiking jaunts across the Rockies, magic mushroom trips on the coast of Mexico, failing grades in chemistry—even starter marriages have been deep-sixed from the kids.
Weren’t we going to be more open and honest with our children than our parents were with us? Didn’t we swear we wouldn’t lie to our kids, that we’d always be real in front of them?
My friend Lisa justifies her behavior by saying she isn’t lying, exactly: “It’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of thing.”
And what about when they do ask? With a teenager, you’re then forced to make a judgment call and either come clean or tell them it’s none of their business.
Distracting a three-year-old is easier.
“Let’s go get some ice cream,” said Sarah, slipping her purple toy under her pillow.
“For breakfast?” her son asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said firmly. “And then, I’ll buy you a pony.”
Pamela Redmond Satran is the author of two books published this year, a novel called The Home for Wayward Supermodels (Downtown Press, July 2007) and The Baby Name Bible (St. Martin’s Press, March 2007). |
