I am Known For My Shoes, but I Never Expected This

I guess it was bound to happen some day.  It kind of comes with the territory of being a parent to teenagers.  I should have expected it at some point, but I didn’t expect it to happen this way.

My daughter is embarrassed by me.

A few weeks ago, I wore my red stilettos to the Homecoming Basketball game.  I wore them with jeans and a turtleneck sweater.  Anyone who knows me here, or even in real life knows I am known for my shoes.  I looked presentable.

But they were stilettos.

And red.

And one of her friends made the comment “Your mom’s a MILF”.

She didn’t say anything to me at the time.  In fact, she waited until last night to say anything.  I was getting ready for yet another game, and she asked me to change my shirt. I didn’t understand why, because it’s a shirt I’ve worn many times before.

Apparently it was too low-cut.

And “People are calling you a MILF”

I stopped short.

I tried to explain that it had nothing to do with how I dressed.  I’m a single mom, I’m not altogether unfortunately looking, I’m blonde with blue eyes, and I’m tall and slim.. My jeans are not too tight, my shirts are never too revealing, and always reach well over the top of my jeans.

“No Mom, it was your red boots.”

Shit.

My passion had crossed a line.  Completely unintentional.  I love my boots.

But I love my daughter more.  Clearly.

I changed shirts.

Short of showing up in a baggy oversized sweatshirt and baggy jeans, dirty hair and no make-up, (which would embarrass my daughter for entirely different reasons) it’s hard for me ‘dress down’.  I look ‘put together’ when I go to any school function specifically so I don’t embarrass my daughters.

God this post sounds so shallow and conceited and full of myself….

On top of feeling like a lousy mom, I also felt violated.  As if, my red boots somehow signaled I was asking to be fucked.

And if there were any doubt about some of her friends calling me a MILF, one of them came up to me at the game (where I was wearing jeans, a shirt, a jacket and loafers), and said to me “Those red boots of yours? Awesome.  I told Meredith ‘Your mom looks hot!’”.

In the process of doing something fun for me, wearing my fun heels, dressing up so I felt pretty instead of just Mom-ish, I had embarrassed my daughter.

She said it wasn’t so much me, but what her friends were saying.

And here we are three weeks after Homecoming and I still have people students coming up to me talking about my boots.

The way I see it, I have one of two choices.  Either wear them every single day, every time I go to the store or the library or to do laundry so that everyone gets used to seeing me in my red boots. (Hey, I’m already known for them) Or put them away and save them for when I have a date, and that ain’t ever going to happen.