SAHMs in sweats

Adrienne has noticed something about the SAHM she encounters during the day. She thinks we look like crap. She wonders: what it is about SAHMs that make us think we can let ourselves go? The ponytails and sweats, no make-up. Apparantly, there was something about this on Oprah, where lots of SAHMs said that they had let themselves go, and it has made them depressed and sad. Do we all have to shuffle around, looking so frumpy? Can't we make it a priority to make ourselves look nice? If we have time to blog, we have time to fix ourselves up a little bit. We would all feel better if we looked better. (Adrienne, I think this is the crux of the issue--looking better so we all feel better. Am I headed in the right direction here?) Ok. Let's talk about that. First, let's start with some basic issues that a non-mom doesn't get: 1) Sleep deprivation. It's constant. You can't possibly understand how tired one human being could possibly get and still be required to function unless you are a mother, or one of those soldiers in Vietnam tortured and brainwashed with no sleep. Getting up 45 minutes earlier to look good for people you don't care about (because the people you do care about, your children, could care less what you look like, and you've got at least 8 hours before your husband gets home!) is really not that appealing. Ever. 2) The messiness factor. My loving sister gave me a beautiful leather jacket for Christmas when I was pregnant, and it sat for 2 years in my closet before I wore it. Why? Because I didn't want to get baby body juice all over it. We wear sweats because kids are messy, and thus moms are always messy. We don't want to ruin nice clothes, so sweats it is for those oh so fancy trips to Target. 3) Ever tried putting on make-up with a little kid around? Jacob ruined 3 lipsticks, a blush, and an expensive eyeliner before I finally figured out I couldn't put make-up on anywhere except for in the car while I was driving when he was safely strapped in, far, far away from those magical and permanent staining items. Luckily, the day he ruined my lipstick, I was wearing sweats. 4) Showering with a small child around is not as easy as you might think. And leaving any child unattended for 45 minutes while you do anything with your hair is a recipe for disaster. You may ask, why not shower while your child naps and make yourself look all lovely when he's asleep? Well, that's a good point, unless you want to sleep when your child sleeps (see #1 above), or unless your child naps in the afternoon (which accounts for like, 99% of all toddlers), which leaves you the morning to go to Target stinky and ponytailed, providing more fuel for non-mothers to say, "Wow, she's really let herself go." I don't think that motherhood automatically gives us license to eat bon-bons, get fat and groty and never take care of ourselves. But I think it's hard to realize when you are not a mom how little time we have to do just that--take care of ourselves. So the next time you see a tired, bedraggled woman pushing a cart through the grocery store in a ponytail and sweats, please don't wonder why she doesn't have any make-up on. Just be proud that she's trying to actually buy real food and not ordering pizza all the time to feed her kids. And remember that the grocery store is not the Ritz Carlton. There are no dresscodes there, after all. At least not the last time I checked. This is, of course, just one woman's opinion. Adrienne feels strongly that this is an important issue, so please, ladies, I want everybody's 2 cents. You could even toss in a dime if you're feeling particularly perky. And FYI, I wrote this entire post while wearing sweats. Dirty ones.