A pregnant me - in a "tentish" top. 1970
My mom with her first four kids - maybe this is late 1947 or early 1948.
I was shopping for Mother's Day gifts tonight. I saw a pregnant girl - I swear she was 15 if she was a day. And she was running around the store with her girlfriends - but she was holding her back like it hurt. She was wearing a very fitted tank top.
Then I saw a cute top on the sale rack. Almost bought it. Then I noticed the tag - it was a maternity top! I'm pretty sure no one would have come up to me and said, "Why are you wearing a maternity top?" But if they'd seen it as a maternity top in a store or on some pregnant lady, they would have known it was a maternity top.
Driving home, I thought about my mom. I remember her standing in her slip and ironing her one of two maternity outfits. She usually had two - a really nice one and a pretty nice one. And they were two-piece. And the skirts had a cut out for your expanding belly and loops and laces to tie it up so it stayed up. And the top was a very tentish kind of top. And she was usually getting ready to go to her doctor appointment - in Glendale! And the outfit I most remember was a lovely salmon shade. And I'm also sure she made them herself.
During my first pregnancy, I had a couple of dresses and tops that were tentish too. After that, the fabrics weren't clingy, but they did drape rather than stand out like a tent. I do recall with Noah that I had a stretchy skirt and a stretchy top - so I've pretty much spanned the gamut of maternity fashions. For what that's worth.
I mostly thought about how I, and most of the women I know, have lots of clothes. Way more than we need. And 40 years ago, I recall having one dress - well, it was one dress that fit - until I lost the baby weight - when I could wear the other few dresses I had. But mostly we didn't have the volume of clothing that most of us have now.
I keep trying to pare things down. I have a rule that if I buy something new, I get rid of two things. But that just sort of seems to keep things steady, not smaller. I've never gotten rid of something and then regretted it. Maybe down the road I remember it and think maybe it would happen to come in handy that day, but I don't feel very bad about it. Still, it seems hard to get rid of the excess - and it truly is excess - I acknowledge that!
I'm not sure what all this means. Maybe you are trying to pare down too. Maybe you can share your secrets with me. I mostly thinks it's a paradigm shift - one that I haven't really made yet.
But I'm trying.
And I was thinking that my mom has 12 children - and we don't have a single photograph of her pregnant!
Then I saw a cute top on the sale rack. Almost bought it. Then I noticed the tag - it was a maternity top! I'm pretty sure no one would have come up to me and said, "Why are you wearing a maternity top?" But if they'd seen it as a maternity top in a store or on some pregnant lady, they would have known it was a maternity top.
Driving home, I thought about my mom. I remember her standing in her slip and ironing her one of two maternity outfits. She usually had two - a really nice one and a pretty nice one. And they were two-piece. And the skirts had a cut out for your expanding belly and loops and laces to tie it up so it stayed up. And the top was a very tentish kind of top. And she was usually getting ready to go to her doctor appointment - in Glendale! And the outfit I most remember was a lovely salmon shade. And I'm also sure she made them herself.
During my first pregnancy, I had a couple of dresses and tops that were tentish too. After that, the fabrics weren't clingy, but they did drape rather than stand out like a tent. I do recall with Noah that I had a stretchy skirt and a stretchy top - so I've pretty much spanned the gamut of maternity fashions. For what that's worth.
I mostly thought about how I, and most of the women I know, have lots of clothes. Way more than we need. And 40 years ago, I recall having one dress - well, it was one dress that fit - until I lost the baby weight - when I could wear the other few dresses I had. But mostly we didn't have the volume of clothing that most of us have now.
I keep trying to pare things down. I have a rule that if I buy something new, I get rid of two things. But that just sort of seems to keep things steady, not smaller. I've never gotten rid of something and then regretted it. Maybe down the road I remember it and think maybe it would happen to come in handy that day, but I don't feel very bad about it. Still, it seems hard to get rid of the excess - and it truly is excess - I acknowledge that!
I'm not sure what all this means. Maybe you are trying to pare down too. Maybe you can share your secrets with me. I mostly thinks it's a paradigm shift - one that I haven't really made yet.
But I'm trying.
And I was thinking that my mom has 12 children - and we don't have a single photograph of her pregnant!
8 comments:
Wow amazing that you don't have any photos of your Mom pregnant. Do you think that was because of the time period, or that she didn't want pictures taken of her at that time, or something else? Just curious.
I had a couple of tents.
I think that since there are not lots of photographs of any of us in that time period, it has more to do with the time period. Although my mom doesn't like to have her picture taken in most cases - maybe she has always been like that.
But we don't have many Christmas shots, Easter shots, first day of school shots, Halloween shots - I think we were all busy with life - and taking photos was not a priority.
Certainly does make the existing photos all the more precious!
I think that I have seen at least one photo of Mom being pregnant. I am not sure when I saw it but I do remember seeing it. I wish that the photos of me pregnant were not so numerous. As to the paring down of our excess, I do that routinely every time I move. As we are just now finishing up with a move, I gave away a ton of things but I still have too much. I will go through them again on the other end and try to pare down. I agree that we have much too much but it is so hard to downsize. I think that we always think that we will need something one day. I am definitely not a pack rat since we can only carry around 7,200 lbs with us. That sounds like a lot but with all the photo albums, dishes and such, 7200lbs is not very much. We sent a lot to Utah this time around (for our new house) and only have less than 2000 lbs going to Yemen. Hopefully, we will not acquire a lot in Yemen. I remember that all of my belongings (as a child) fit in one drawer and 1/3 of a closet. That was my clothes. I only owned one or two things that were clothes. Now, when my children leave home, they have upwards of 12 boxes of personal items that we need to store for them. They also take to college several boxes. Axel is the exception. He had only 125 lbs of items to ship and one suitcase to take. We put all of our CDs on my ipod and got rid of all of them. NOw to just put the all of DVDs on some kind of electronically system so that we don't have to carry them all around.
correction: that were not clothes
i have a maternity shirt. haha. it looks like a regular shirt except for being long in the front! so i just wear it tucked into skirts. super cute, i think.
There are lots of fun maternity options these days. Whenever I stroll by the Liz Lange section of Target I think, "hey that's really cute! Oh, it's a maternity dress. oh well."
BTW I don't have very many pictures of pregnant me. Maybe next time around I will think to take some.
Well, we will have to hunt down the pregnant photo of Mom!!
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