May I Advance an Unsolicited Opinion?

I took Ava and Nate up to our local indoor pool for their swimming lessons today. Normally, I am chasing Grace around while Ava and Nate swim, trying to keep her from walking into the pool or from eating things out of the garbage can. Last week, I became that mother with the screeching, writhing baby as I wrestled her into her stroller so I could get Nate dressed. But today, she stayed home with Jason. It says something about the season of life that I'm in-- that I was excited to take them to swimming--it meant that I could sit on the bleachers for half an hour and just read. Gotta take your thrills where you can get 'em, you know.

Today though, I was at my leisure. Looking around the pool, I noticed another mom there watching her kids swim. She was about my age. She was standing with her back to me, and I couldn't help but notice that she had a pair of sweatpants with the word "PINK" emblazoned across her bottom.

I know that "PINK" is a Victoria's Secret brand. But this got me thinking. This phenomenon of girls and women wearing shorts and pants with words on their rear ends...I just don't know.

I get that it's supposed to be cute. And somewhat flippant. And probably alluring. But here is my theory. There are just a couple of brief windows of time in a woman's life when butt-words are okay. (For lack of a better term. I thought of "butt-prints" but that could be confusing.) The first window is between 1 month and 2 years of age. You know, when babies are crawling and toddlers are toddling, it's kind of cute when there's an embroidered teddy bear on their little diapered bums. This isn't strictly a butt-word, but the same principle applies. Grace has a pair of red pants with a strawberry on the back, and it is downright adorable.

But I think once a little girl is out of that baby stage, that kind of clothing would be a little weird. Lots of times, I've seen girls or young teenagers with butt-words written across their short shorts or sweatpants, and it bugs me. This probably has something to do with me being the mother of daughters. I was looking at google images just now, and there is a mainstream catalog photo of a girl about 10 years old, wearing pants that say "juicy" across the rear. Um, no. So I think once a little girl moves into preschooler age, butt-words are out.

The second window of time where maybe you could get away with it are the older teen years (17 and up) to your early 20s. (Although again, as a mom of girls, I really wanna say 18.) I'm saying that because a girl is old enough (mostly) at that point, to own her own decisions, right? And if she wants to wear the word "sassy" across her rear, well, who am I to stop her?

But at some point, we must put away childish things. When the Apostle Paul wrote that he probably wasn't thinking of butt-words, but I bet he'd back me on this one. (Ha! I made a pun. Awesome!) So, once a woman is not in her early 20s, it's time to donate the short shorts with "Cheer Camp '07" on the back to Goodwill.

Let's be frank. Can we? There are windows for butt-words. Those windows are brief. And if you missed it, my friend, you missed it. And that's okay. I have a personal policy of not calling any attention to my bottom if I can help it, but beyond that, some things are not meant for women above 25. Take heart! There are other frivolous trends we can adopt. Ankle boots! Under-eye serum! Mobile phone charms!

Again, just my opinion. Last year, when I posted about guys in skinny jeans, I got some very passionate, vocabulary-challenged comments that I had to delete. (Family blog, folks!) So, if this post brings some butt-word wearing gals my way...girls, I support your right to do that. Just remember...windows, okay? Windows!

(And this is meant to be tongue-in-cheek anyway.)

Ha! Another pun. Awesome to the second power!