My daughter told me the other day she doesn’t want wrinkles. My first instinct was to say neither do I! My kid isn’t even 12. How is she already thinking about wrinkles and ageing? At her age I was more concerned about pimples and my period, I think.

It’s easy to blame Youtube, TikTok and even the Kardashians. Actually, any celebrity really who has frozen themselves in time. For instance, I often find myself going back to the Super Bowl in 2020 when everyone was praising J. Lo on how amazing she looked at 50 dancing around on stage.

Sure for those 10 minutes she danced her ass off with a body that didn’t seem possible for me even at 20, but where were the cameras after the Super Bowl when I am guessing she got into an ice bath for four hours to soothe her aching lower back and bunions?
Where were the photos when she removed all the body and face makeup and spandex? Where are the receipts from all the plastic surgery, liposuction and sculpting that she underwent to prepare for those 10 minutes?

I’m not trying to throw shade at J. Lo as I’m a big believer in freedom of choice and to live your life the way you want, especially if you can afford it. But it takes work (and money) when you’re over 40 to look like you still give a damn let alone youthful and vivacious. My point is we should be talking about it in a way that is more realistic so that it doesn’t seem like the norm when in fact, it’s the anomaly.

Women have so much pressure on them to stay pretty, which usually means youthful looking and thin. I mean, how many times have your heard “you look so good” when you’ve lost weight or gotten botox? You never hear it when you go up a dress size or haven’t slept well in a week.

In the 90’s all we worried about was Photoshop and airbrushing in magazines and now we airbrush IRL (in real life for those of you who don’t have tweens). A whole movement was started to celebrate body positivity. Women and girls were told to come as you are. Being thin was no longer the standard and fat shaming was frowned upon. Plus size models were the rage and self love was shouted from the rooftops.

But it was short lived.

Now, we have replaced all that with “come as you are” as long as you are wrinkle free, have contour makeup, a tiny nose, fake boobs, hair extensions, plump lips and an unreasonable waist size for anyone who eats more than coffee for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Basically, come as you are as long as it’s augmented.

I complain but I’m also complicit. About seven years ago I gave myself a post divorce glow up and got Botox for the the first time. However, I hear I was about 15 years too late as young women in college are using Botox today as a preventive measure.

First of all, how is getting wrinkles suddenly a disease we need to invest in to prevent like cancer and second, where are these young women getting the money to keep up these unreasonable beauty standards?

When I was in college I lived off tips and got my haircut at Supercuts. The first time I got my nails done was for my wedding and I was 30.

Yes, I know that for most women I am a late bloomer when it comes to beauty and self care. For a good portion of my adolescence I wanted to be a boy. In fact, my skin care routine consisted of Dove soap and some Clearasil spot treatment until I was 24.

I popped my zits with my fingers (not tools), which usually resulted in bigger craters on my face and I didn’t wear sunscreen regularly because I wanted to be tan, even though I am of French and German descent. This changed at 29 when I started to get brown spots on my face and realized I should finally give a shit. (I’m sure there is a political metaphor in here somewhere, but I am too tired to search for it.)

I plucked my eyebrows (and still do), but with no real input or direction and I never thought of waxing or tanning or highlights until I was 35 and I definitely didn’t have a six bottle skin care routine (see the photo below) that would have cost between $50 and $100 a month.

My mom would have thought I was bonkers if I’d asked for that kind of money as she barely let me buy new jeans even when I had a hole in the crotch, which I’d usually sew up at least twice before begging for a new pair.
Okay. Maybe I’m overreacting. I mean, recently I took my daughter to Sephora and realized this was her Bath and Body Works. Perhaps I should be glad that she’s not buying vanilla body lotion, strawberry body spray and citrus shampoo and using them all at once. In middle school I must have smelled like a bad fruit salad.

Perhaps young girls today are just more sophisticated? Perhaps it’s just a different decade but with the same obsessions?

But then I watch movies like The Substance with Demi Moore (amazing job by her and the director btw, super weird in all the right ways) and think no, it’s real. We are obsessing about not letting our faces age even though our interiors are and it’s starting very young.

Thirty years ago it was not this way. I look at the Golden Girls (who I love) and guffaw at the fact that Blanche was 53 when filming the show, so basically J. Lo but so obviously not .

I realize technology has improved so I understand why women (and some men) are taking advantage of it. Plastic surgery is less expensive and everywhere, all over TV and the internet, we are being sold a more youthful glow.

Women and moms are trying to trick themselves into thinking looking old is something they can avoid. We crave compliments and smile coyly when they’re given, knowing full well that there is nothing natural about the face and body we are working our asses off to keep up inbetween drop off, the 9-5, and soccer practice.

Meanwhile, men and dads over 40 are cruising, aging carefree and it’s considered sexy.

Now, some may care about aging, but not enough to get rid of that paunchy belly that’s hanging over their khakis (Leonardo I’m looking at you). In fact, society has glorified “the dad bod’” creating hashtags and ad campaigns celebrating male unkemptness and extra fat around the middle, and unlike the 90s and early 2000s ad campaigns for women, it stuck.

In fact, some moms even tried to make ‘the mom bod’ a thing, but it never took off. Even though a “mom bod” is usually achieved from giving birth to advance the human race, for some reason that’s not enough to think women are beautiful and vibrant at any age and size based on what they contribute to the world. (sad face emoji)

While writing this essay I started to wonder what would happen if commercials started to sell us on aging? What if they told society to embrace the skin we are in and that wrinkles were a sign of prestige and honor and that we’ve earned those few extra pounds because being a mom is tough and going to the gym means spending less time with family and friends—the things that we love the most. What would that look like and how would we feel about ourselves and each other?

I understand it’s a struggle. It’s not like I’m over here not caring about what I look like, wearing sweatpants and eating french fries everyday, using my t-shirt as a napkin.

I mean, I have to go out in public and it’s important that I take pride in my appearance. I think more people should honesty, but that’s another story and has nothing to do with wrinkles.

What I guess I’m trying to say is that I know it’s tough, but it’s worth a conversation that goes beyond our families because obsessing about appearance has never served anyone well as it just leads to anxiety or in the case of Demi Moore in The Substance, turning into (spoiler alert) a double headed glob of a monster.

I’m sure you are like me where you feel kids today have enough to worry about, and aging shouldn’t one of them. It’s because it’s something we can’t control (although we try) and in fact, if we embraced aging a little more then perhaps instead of fearing turning 40 we can start to get excited about the fact that many people don’t make it this far and thus, now you have a second chance to make the next 40 years what we want of them with a lot more life experience behind you.

— TTM

Fearing wrinkles and other thoughts on aging

I surprised my daughter with a trip to Paris for Christmas and here’s how it went