The Mum Jean

It’s Saturday, which is my favourite day of the week.  That honour used to fall to Mondays, with the kids back at school after two days of me Surviving Parenthood, but in the past few months Mondays have become a never-ending stream of racing-around horror, ferrying kids to and from school and to appointments and classes, ferrying myself to the supermarket, and all the teeth-grinding hell which goes with all of the above.  Anyway, now I have a new Saturday morning routine spurred by the Boy’s obsession with rugby (how delighted is he to hold an Irish passport?), which manifested itself in him DEMANDING to join a rugby club.  I ignored him, as I usually do my children when they demand things which involve down-payments and invoices and more ferrying around and the purchase of gear (especially when that gear includes kids’ rugby boots, of which approximately two pairs a year are available to buy in Singapore), but then the Man mentioned that he’d like to bring him to a class, and I found out that a team quite far away has 2-hr classes at 9am on Saturday mornings, which would necessitate all the males in the house being out from 830am until 1130am... Sold! to the middle-aged woman weeping with joy at the prospect of some TIME ALONE. 

So this is what we now do on Saturday mornings.  On Friday nights I set the kids’ Gro Clock to 8am, and give them strict instructions NOT TO COME NEAR ME UNTIL THE (digital) SUN IS UP.  At 8.30am, having made snacks and filled water bottles and packed kit into bags, I wave the Boy and Man off, and once I’m sure they’ve properly gone, I run out – to the extent that anyone can run in this humidity - and buy the weekend Financial Times – the only non-Singaporean weekend paper* available in our local shop.  Then I come home and make myself a pot of proper tea, with proper tea-leaves and $500/litre milk,  and lock myself, my tea and my paper on my balcony for an hour. Every so often one of the girls escapes the clutches of both the tv and the maid and manages to prise the lock open, but a quick shriek is usually enough to send them back inside.   And there I sit, content despite my light sheen of sweat, reading about handmade winter coats, quantitative easing, and what various CEOs like to eat for lunch.  It’s wonderful – as close to perfection as you can get when you’re sweating involuntarily.

Which brings me – lengthily, and circuitously – to today’s topic:  “Mom” jeans.   Oh yes.  Mentioned in today’s FT, so it must be true.  According to my favourite pink paper, a “mom jean” is:  “a classic high-rise tapered cut”. 

I'm confused.  Is the idea that you’re wearing your own mother’s jeans - akin to the Boyfriend jeans? Which – with all due respect to my mother (and mothers everywhere) – is most unlikely to ever happen.  Or is it a “jean” made specifically for us mammies, practical and useful, designed to minimise the daily minor embarrassments and mortifications which comprise motherhood?  In which case quite honestly, a high-rise tapered cut just isn’t – excuse the pun – going to cut it.   

And so, dear Reader, – I give you:

The Mum Jean:

Made from sturdy denim which has been treated to be wipe-clean and splatter resistant, the Mum is the first jean incorporating shock-absorbing pads in the ever-vulnerable groin area – so now your toddler can head-butt you to his heart’s content! 

Other features include:

• An elasticated waist– because who has time to do up zips and buttons when your children are in the next room tearing chunks out of each other, or when you've gone for a pee for the first time in 11 hours and your offspring have climbed into the bath and are spraying water all over the bathroom?
• Built in, removable knickers – never again will you have to hold a screaming infant in a public toilet while trying to pull down, inch by torturous inch,  your jeans and then your knickers;  our built-in “knicker” works in conjunction with our elasticated waist to facilitate all situations when the speedy pulling-down of pants with one hand is required. (Each jean comes with 3 replaceable pairs of greying granny pants.)
• Side pleats at hip / thigh level, to accommodate the vagrancies of the condition known as Expanding Mother’s Arse
• Removable muslin cloth – handy for emergencies involving body fluids, but can also be used to drape over your head during bouts of particularly mortifying kiddie behaviour
• Discreet wipe-dispensing pouch
• Refrigerated snack pocket – with child-friendly access
• Water-proof, leak-proof, smell-proof, extra-volume, sick pocket – available in a range of leg locations, depending on height of off-spring
• USB port – never be caught in a public place with an uncharged tablet again
• Water-proof turn-ups – perfect for the constant stream of used shit your children hand you to dispose of.  Now simply train them to place it in your turn-ups instead!

Available in a variety of colours, including vomit, snot, spit, grime, and camouflage, the Mum jean can be worn for months on end without ever needing the washing machine.   

We think you’ll agree that it kicks a classic high-rise tapered cut to the curb somewhat.

*Surely you should integrate yourself properly in your new country and read a local paper?  I hear you all cry;  ah yes.  But unfortunately all the local papers are a heap of badly-written, poorly edited, highly-censored shit, and so for a decent morning’s read, I must look further afield.