Why Is An Attractive Older Mum Even A Thing?
We all remember the infamous movie scene in American Pie.
Party at Stiffler’s house – portrait of Stiffler’s mum – a group of teenage boys, beers in hand, drooling at the picture and chanting ‘MILF, MILF, MILF’. Yes it was funny. Yes it’s kinda cute when your teenage son’s mates fancy you. No, it is NOT okay for a fully grown man to describe you as a MILF. Why? Because there’s a big difference.
MILF is the term, popularised (but not created) by American Pie, to describe an attractive mother. Or otherwise known as a ‘Mom/Mum/Mammy I’d Like (to) Fuck.’ You are probably thinking I’m opposed to this term based solely on my feminist thinking and my views on the degradation and sexual objectification of women.
I am not.
I don’t actually think there is anything wrong with a man finding a woman attractive, or even telling her so. I simply hate the term MILF because it is a description created solely for women of a certain age, who happen to have kids, and still have the ability to be attractive. As if that is a feat in itself. Because here is the funny thing – apparently if you are a young mother in your teens or twenties you don’t count as a MILF. No. You have to be ‘old’ and a mother to be classified as that rare and beautiful creation, the (gasp) combination of a mature woman and mother that is still shaggable.
Wow, aren’t we lucky that you men have even noticed us, when by all rights we should be wrinkled, unkempt and stumbling about behind our buggies covered in baby sick and apple puree stains.
I have been described as a MILF and I didn’t take it as a compliment. Why? Because he wasn’t saying that I am an attractive woman, he was saying that I am an attractive woman DESPITE being a mother and over a certain age. And I don’t like being defined by my age or whether or not I have a child, because that is beside the point.
By having a child I am no better or worse than others my age that don’t have kids, and I don’t expect for my beauty to be scored against the ‘hot + kid = MILF’ scale. I’m hot for a mum? I’m hot for a 37 year old woman? Fuck off! How about I’m just hot? Full stop!
First identified by Sigmund Freud, under the rubric of psychic impotence, the psychological and Oedipal ‘Madonna-Whore complex’ is said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitutes. Naomi Wolf considered that the sexual revolution had paradoxically intensified the importance of the virgin-whore split, leaving women to fend with the worst aspects of both images.
I say men have never really got over their first loves – their own mothers. So a sexy one at that is clearly just too much to bear. Many a scholar has claimed that the term MILF derives from this Freudian complex and the struggles of certain men to departmentalise the Archetypes of the female ‘Mother’ and ‘Prostitute’, therefore finding it such a rare and wondrous thing to come across the combination of both in one woman that they make it a ‘thing’.
I can only imagine that, through the eyes of a MILF loving man, a mother is an authority figure that should be revered and respected and an attractive woman is… errr… not? Really? Therefore through their eyes the rare combination of the two is unique enough to get its own MILF tag.
And it doesn’t just stop there, because we also have the Yummy Mummy. Like what the fuck is that meant to mean?
‘Oh look at Ruth, not only has she expelled another human being from her body and sustained its life through the magical power of her bodily fluids but she can also bake shortbread, fit into her size eight active wear AND give great head to her husband at night. What a Yummy Mummy.’ No, Ruth is just a woman who is doing what she’s always done but happens to also have a child.
Men will revere Ruth and her unattainable standards, fellow mothers will struggle to compete and hate her (and non mothers won’t even realise what the big deal is). She isn’t Yummy, she is hard working and over achieving. So what? So are many other non-mothers.
Men – if you are above the age of 19, get a grip and stop pitting mothers off against each other like some beauty pageant for the lactating sleep deprived. If you see an attractive woman that happens to be a mother… then great. The fact that she looks after herself and happens to have had a child is not a unique thing worth outlining, she was probably hot before becoming a mum and now she’s still hot. So what?
Men – as a fully grown adult man, you calling a woman a MILF is an insult. You are basically implying that most women over thirty with kids are not attractive – therefore this rare and beautiful creature is worthy of your segregation and drooling. Fuck. Right. Off. You aren’t making us feel any better.
In a time of MILF and men, there is no need to point out the Yummy Mummies from the Slummy Mummies. Or the Hot Moms from the Not Moms. Shall we women go out on a DILF hunt and point out the sexy ‘Dads with Pushchairs’ that we’d like to fuck? Would you like us to judge you on your ability to look good now you are old and a father? Of course not.
That would be ridiculous, right? Right.
