Trophy Wives

With Father's Day a blink away, I somehow ended up on a blog with Mother's Day gift suggestions. What should my slightly bored, wandering eye spy? Amongst the suggestions was a brief rave about Victoria Beckham's lingerie ads and the acknowledgment that "most moms don't look like her," along with the statement that, "Dad can still let her know she's sexy with the gift of lingerie!" Really?
While, entirely a fan of supportive undergarments, and certainly cognizant of the transforming power of a good bra, my undergarments are just not the way to express appreciation for my parenting. The three people who qualified me to receive the annual greeting card and floral industry bounty for Moms in May every year, did not leave me in any shape to be exploring daring undergarments.
The mental image that forms is one of the ill-fated initial attempt to put on my old blue jeans after our first child reached the ripe old age of one month. In my mind's eye, the vision of a struggling mommy trying to wriggle into a pair of many-sizes-too-small jeans is replaced with the even more horrifying possibility suggested by the Mom's Day tipster. (Neither lotion nor cooking oil was particularly helpful in that ill-fated endeavor...) The denim held up fairly well despite the abuse, but one cannot really expect the sort of flimsy bits o' nothing that pass for lingerie to do so under such circumstances.
Another issue with the gifting of garments, I successfully worked to prevent the mister from knowing my "real" clothing size throughout the children's pre-k days. Years ago, my sweet spouse gave me a thick, soft bathrobe that was a size large, and which "looked about right" to him. I loved him for both the statement and his blindness because that was the year I entered the plus-size category. The robe was a tear-jerker because it was short a good six plus inches from meeting in the front, but it was also a trophy representing what my mister saw when he looked at me.
In addition to the sometime lack of cooperation by a post-baby body (or even post post-baby), there is another issue with the idea of my spouse gifting me with lingerie. In the days when our children were small, the last thing on earth that classified as a gift would be something that was going to result in someone else touching me. Seriously. After a full day's cuddling, pawing, grabbing, tugging, hugging, etc. by assorted small children, an item that might lead to more touchy-feely was hardly a gift for me. My mister likely knew this instinctively, but I also told him just to be sure.