Baby Booties… and Spare Me the Cracks!

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so they don't sue me and stuff.

It wasn’t too terribly long ago – in fact, it wasn’t nearly long enough ago – that I finally broke down, stopped shopping in the Juniors’ section, and asked for directions to the Misses’ section. The impetus, besides my hatefully widening hips, was the rising popularity of plummeting waistbands.

A whale tail! (Photo source)

Suddenly, pants for every female under the age of 50 were cut down to the pubic bone, thong chonies became mandatory, and the world became a sea of “whale tails.” In a country where the average female’s dress size is a ten or larger, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Women stocked their lingerie drawers with strips of fabric to wedge between their butt cheeks. As if a pair of underwear that could double as an eye patch wasn't ridiculous enough, these were embellished with rhinestones, cut-outs, metal charms and beads dangling down the tiny back triangles.

Yup. You can get your own here.

If there’d been enough fabric, I’m sure every single pair of those chonies would have sported the slogan “GOT CRACK?”

I was desperate to avoid the entire fashion fiasco. There, in the middle of the Misses’ section at a “discount name-brand” store, I found a line of denim that promised to preserve my dignity. I’m not going to name names, but it rhymes with Dee Kay En Why. The perfect pair of jeans waited for me, over in the grown-up clothing section. They fit like a dream, covered all the junk in my trunk, and sported a discreetly beautiful “4” on the tag.

I’m not stupid. I know when someone is stretching the truth – and the denim. Still, if my husband or a designer tells me my butt is a size four, I’m going to hold on to that dream, and rip to shreds anyone who might suggest I’m closer to an eight. Dee Kay En Why, indeed. I’ll tell you why… I love her because she has the decency to lie to me. Calvin who?

When Cosmopolitan trumpeted the death of the thong and celebrated the birth of boy shorts, I rejoiced. No more perma-wedgie! No more whale tails! No more butt cleavage!

Now, the problem is my kids.

It’s not my two teen sons with the slouchy pants. They have the good sense to wear boxer shorts and, as unappealing as that is, it saves the world from witnessing their still-developing can crevices. Let’s face it – there’ll be plenty of time for exposure during middle age.

Doesn't this sight make you wanna shoot someone in the butt?
Seriously... read this story at the photo source.

It’s not my teen girls who, thankfully, had the modesty to cover their posterior décolleté fashion mishaps with extra-long layered tees.

Order this one here and cover that tush!

No… it’s my four- and five-year old daughters who are rockin’ the booty cleavage these days. Their birth mother is a tiny twig of a thing, and my poor girls were born without the benefit of hips, a “bottom shelf,” or any other physical attribute that would hold up a pair of pants. Kids’ pants are often made with adjustable elastic fittings inside the waistband these days, and even those don’t help. It’s like trying to get a Cheerio to stay up around the middle of a dry spaghetti noodle.

Summers are easy enough. The girls live in sun dresses for the season, effectively covering their peek-a-booties, but when colder weather sets in, it becomes more difficult. We’ve tried overalls and found them not only ridiculously complicated during potty time, but also ill-designed for my long-bodied babies. To get the tops of the one-piece monstrosities to fit, the legs have to be about four inches too long.

Perhaps there’s still a market for tiny, bejeweled panties. They’ll just have to be much, much smaller...