my big pants

The time arrived when I needed to admit that the shreds of denim I called jeans were no longer functioning as clothing. I have always dreaded shopping for pants and had the crazy idea to just order something on-line. I noticed that the Gap had “tall” sizes, so I figured that might be where to go (I am nearly 6 feet). I didn’t know they now sold only their own brand, the last time I shopped at The Gap I squeezed myself into a tiny pair of Jordashes in 6th grade. Their site said that the “tall” pants had a lower knee (jeans have knees?) and a longer rise (in their low-rises?). Most pants I try on that fit me end about two inches above the ankle, and my “rise”  (crotch to belly button) is often the problem because the hips in most pants land about an inch or two lower than they should around the waist. In other words, I have been wearing low-rise jeans before they were the rage. So I thought: Yes. THATS what I need! Long low rises and lower knees! So I thought I would order my size and be done with it.

But I had to go to the mall anyway with my older daughter and remembered there was a Gap there and thought I would pop in and try them on just to be sure. I went to the rack and grabbed an 8 and a 10 just in case they ran small. In the dressing room I pulled on the eights and was swimming in them. Swimming. Like I could fit another body in there swimming. I know that I have lost some weight, but I am not THAT thin really. So I tried the 6s’ and then the 4s’. I am not a four! What was going on? Did the Gap just dumb down the sizes so that we think we were smaller than we are? What is wrong with accepting that the average weight of a woman (in the US) is a 14 and just be honest about it and make THAT the size that the tag says. Not make a 14 an 8! Does The Gap think that we are all so disconnected from our bodies or have such distortions about our appearance that we might fall for that? Try on some pants and say “Look at that! I must have lost weight, I went down four sizes!” Maybe so. As I stood and looked at myself in the orange glow of the backlit mirror (and man my skin looked really good in that light) I began hearing the Indigo Girls singing Lie to Me in my head. Yes, lie to me. For a few minutes I can try on clothes I can’t afford and feel like someone who has beautiful skin and am really, really thin (cuz thats what we all want to be right?). Cu’mon baby, liiiieee to meeee! So I took my four’s happily to the counter and paid for them.

But, and there is a but. I should not have purchased said jeans. I realised that when I got home that they didn’t fit me as well as I thought they did. Should I have gotten the 2’s? thats crazy. But the ass sagged. Although they fit everywhere else, I didn’t have the rear end to fill out the ass part. I could have fit a couple more of my own asses in there. OK, so I can admit that I am challenged in that department. Not to be racial here, but I am what some circles of women might call a “skinny white bitch”. But I am shopping at The Gap here! It’s not like I am shopping for a pair of Apple Bottoms or something. The asses in my lineage fell off somewhere back when we all lived on Pangaea. As they moved north and the continents drifted, my skirt wearing, stone throwing, grog drinking ancestors had no need for this thing called “ass” and it just evolved out all together. As Tom says, he is now just a back with legs. Along with “waist” and “inseam” there should also be a “but size” like a bra cup. AA, A, B, C, D, DD, etc. I was pretty sure I would be able to find assless pants at The Gap. I don’t mean without fabric in the ass region, that would be a different kind of store all together, not likely found at the mall. Do I have to shop for white girl pants at Lands End? I can get myself a pair of “mom jeans”. The ones that button above the belly-button, they start an inch below the bra. Jeans where the pockets are so far up they are practically on your back accentuating the space left open below. The hips will balloon out unnaturally and get tight around the ankle. No, not me. I can’t do it. The most favorite pants I ever owned were a pair of perma-press chino style pants in navy. I bought them out of a box on the floor of a small Mobile station on a back road in Georgia on a tour. My curves filled out my janitor/gas station attendant pants, I did not have to fill out pre-made curves. Maybe I just need to go back to spandex, something we will fondly remember from the eighties.

I wondered how this downsizing might be working for The Gap. Anyone that ordered their size on-line must have had to send back their purchase, maybe a few times. What a waste of packaging, energy and fuel. I know that there was a campaign for universal sizing in clothing but I don’t see anything more about it on the internet. Maybe as we got bigger, the market dictated the migration of what was the median. OK, but why re-label it all? Or maybe it depends on the brand and the income level of the purchaser. At Macy’s I am a medium in a shirt, at Target I am an extra small. A person buying a shirt at Target is likely to have a lower income, and more likely to eat a high fat diet and therefore be more likely to be overweight. But what is overweight at this point? Where can we accept the real and natural size of most women and then still recognise that there are overweight people in the world. There is a difference. The plus sized model who posed nude and un-airbrushed in Glamor Magazine this week got all kinds of supportive e-mails. She is the size of most women but still considered “plus size” in the modeling world. But a 12 – 14 is pretty much an average size (depending on the brand). And still the magazines show painted 14 year olds and their concave chests and jutting out shoulder blades as something to aspire to.

I am a tall and thin person. I am just built this way. When I am at the playground with my kids, I get so many comments from total strangers about my weight. How can I look so skinny and have four kids? I usually answer that I am thin naturally and breastfeeding and running after 3 little kids helps a lot too. But I always feel sad that this is a part of our conversation. One woman referred to my weight three times in our ten minute conversation, it made me a little uncomfortable. I know so many women struggle with their weight. And most people do not think a thin person struggles with their weight also but they often do. And I wish there was more support and more acceptance and even admiration of what a woman’s body looks like after childbirth. I try whenever I can to say positive things to women about what they look like after having a baby and make sure to not include weight as a part of it. A woman’s body is so amazing, to have given birth to another human being and have gone through an incredible transition physically, hormonally and emotionally and yet be dependant on the comments of strangers to help us feel good about ourselves is such a shame. I wish we all felt it in our bones, that we are beautiful and strong and not need to feel so inadequate (or too much) all the time.

Web sites (like smallstep.gov) and health programs for kids and adults that focus on obesity remind them that they should excercise and eat healthier food and watch portion control. Although well meaning, a part of it feels a little insulting to me. It seems assumptive that people became fat accidentally and had no idea how they arrived there and do not know what to do to become thin again. It would be nice to see a web-site that did not use dancing vegetables to encourage people to get up and move. But addressed the psychology of weight and the social mindset and cultural differences that affect ones weight. Also the problem of access to healthy food and affordability of healthy food needs to be brought into the discussion. For some people there is just not the ability to change their high fat and sugar diets as easily as is suggested. Kids will eat as their parents eat and if the parents are buying two for five dollar boxes of Entenmans and eating fast foods, the kids are not going to change. If kids open their lunch boxes at school and find Lunchables and cup-cakes, that is what they are going to eat. And if this is what is advertised and displayed as nutritious food in our stores (and its all that little Johnny will eat), it will be what parents buy. It’s a complex problem that doesn’t solely rest on the consumer however, marketing and accessibility play a big role. It is a national mentality shared by all economic and cultural backgrounds. Most of us reach for the processed food and get caught in the cycle of sugar and empty calories for energy. Yesterday I was so tired of food that I had to thaw first or something starchy made in five minutes that I insisted we skip the playground and make our dinner a priority. Tom and the kids went to the fish monger and got some tilapia and we had acorn squash and rice. We all sat together and the kids cleaned their plates. It made such a huge difference in our moods. We are fortunate to be able to get organic vegetables and be able to afford them, they are so expensive in the city. It is so worth the effort to make healthy food, now I just need to learn to cook.

Social commentary tangent aside… the Gap isn’t helping people feel better about their bodies by dumbing down their sizes. Granted, the Gap’s job is to sell jeans, and maybe this “downsizing” works for them for the impulse buyer, but I don’t see it working for them in the long run. I would like to see a company as big as The Gap (they also own Piper Lime, Banana Republic, Old Navy and now Athleta) be honest about the size of women and not skirt around that. It seems like a cheap trick for such a big public company. They should have higher standards, if not be the ones setting the standard. When I get home with my size fours and look in the mirror I say to myself “Why should the folks at The Gap want me to think I am thinner? Is being bigger bad? Do they think I am stupid?” I don’t think that is the idea they were going for. It’s too late to take them back. So now I am going to peruse the internet for some ass pads, and have a donut. I’ve got some big pants to fill.