“But am I too old for it?” It’s a question I never thought I’d ask, yet here I am contemplating my life choices.
Well, my wardrobe choices, anyway, as I browse the shops in search of new and trendy clothing. Worse than that, I’ve voiced it out loud, not to mention put it in The Irish Times.
So, now it’s out there, in the hands of the universe and all its cosmic judgmental ways.
It doesn’t help that 1990s fashion is back. If you were there first time around, then you’re too old to wear it second time around, allegedly. I have no idea who came up with this rule. I ignored it when the 1980s made a comeback because I was a child then, dressed by my mother in luminous pink and orange. I ended that decade with a perm.
‘Am I too old to wear this?’: It’s a question I never thought I’d ask but here I am
My daughter drags us on to rollercoasters but is wary of the monkey bars. People are a mystery
Better mental health support needed for women after giving birth says midwifery professor
Why most families can’t afford to take paternity leave
So clearly I needed another go at it.
I desperately wanted an Italia ’90 shell suit, like those worn by the Ireland soccer team. My mother was having none of it. On reflection, that’s probably not a bad thing, because at least there can be no photographic evidence. Unlike the perm.
To be honest, a shell suit doesn’t go with my complexion anyway.
The messages about what we should and shouldn’t wear start when we’re young. Not just the cutesy baby clothes in their predictable gendered pink and blue, but the subtle and less subtle indicators of what’s appropriate as we get older.
[ Five new make-up buys for spring: From skin tints to refillable mascaraOpens in new window ]
From the vast array of colour choices that exist for little girls to the comparatively drab options for boys. Until, all of a sudden, you hit the pre-teen years and a whole different challenge awaits.
Let she among us who hasn’t taken a sharp intake of breath, and repeated a “pick your battles” mantra at the sight of a teenage daughter ready for a disco, cast the first crop top. Meanwhile, the lads look like they’ve just come off a football pitch and there’s an excellent chance that they have. Thanks to the forward thinking of the Camogie Association, skorts may make this a possibility for our girls too.
It’s funny the things that influence us and the choices we make about what’s acceptable when it comes to the clothes we wear.
Today’s teenagers and young adults have the internet and social media to keep them in check. We had glossy magazines that told us what was in and what definitely wasn’t in. We were exposed to troubling fashion trends that glamourised heroin chic and girl bands that unashamedly promoted double denim. As we embraced womanhood, Sex and the City made its mark.
I can’t help but wonder, as I sit here writing my column and fiddling with the “Jen” name chain hanging from my neck... could Carrie Bradshaw have been the one to influence not only my accessories, but my hem length?
Could I have paid more heed than I meant to when, during one episode of Sex and the City, Carrie told Samantha it was time for women Carrie’s age (the grand old age of 36, roughly) to cover up? Yeah, no, that wasn’t it.
There were also repeated regrets from women in their 30s, 40s and 50s
Perhaps the murmurings of real-life friends and peers doubting themselves as they browsed clothes rails in shops, questioning if they’d left it too late to wear clothes they liked, had finally caught up with me. Maybe it was throwaway commentary about the sort of things I couldn’t wear now that I was somebody’s mum.
So I asked others if they ever have creeping doubts or find themselves thinking they might be too old for things. The collective answer was a resounding “yes”.
“Too old for bulls∗∗t” was one of the more emphatic responses. In fairness, getting older never sounded so good.
Some things seemed further out of reach, or just no-go areas, as people got older. The replies included “work nights out”, “pigtails”, “holding hands [with a partner] in public”, “tattoos”, “nose piercing”, “another baby” and “fake tan”.
Some believed their days of “short skirts and knee-high boots” were behind them, while others felt their age now dictated that it was time for their long hair “to get the chop”.
Among the perceived fashion limitations and thoughts on public displays of affection, there were also repeated regrets from women in their 30s, 40s and 50s. For some, their careers had taken a back seat to parenthood and they now had a desire to take a different direction in life. However, they felt they were too old to study, return to the workforce or change career.
I couldn’t help but wonder, as I considered if boot cut jeans and block heeled loafers were best left resigned to the last century, if it’s not just getting older, but motherhood also, that alters our beliefs about what we can and can’t do.
