Clothes call: Designing mom fashions a plan

Teen and I have finally found a common thread that binds us together, but the fabric of our relationship is stretching thin.

There’s no skirting around this issue anymore. Now that teen is almost as tall as I am, she has taken to raiding my closet as she sees fit, and, frankly, this trend doesn’t suit me well.  I am thrilled that my children are growing taller but I don’t want them to do it at my expense. Every week, they engage in a pattern that makes me lose my stature before my own kids when all I want to do is stand tall and exercise my maternal authority. Our kitchen wallpaper bears the markings of my weekly humiliation. Teen, almost 15, is an inch or so shy of my 5-foot-1 frame. Middle child and son, still a few years from teenhood, are in a constant race with each other and with me to see who can one-up another. When I feel desperately hemmed in by the three kids I resort to offering motherly advice such as:  Drink your milk everyday so your growth is not stunted like mine to borrowing a line from Seinfeld: “I’m watching my height. My doctor doesn't want me to get any taller.”

But it is my teen’s latest fashion trend – borrowing my clothes whether or not the garments are a sure fit, lose fit or tight fit – that has me all ruffled up and rolling up my sleeves for a fight. Borrowing a T-shirt here or a sweat shirt there has me in knots. But borrowing a pink silk blouse on which I had spent a fortune is out of line. The other day, noticing that a sweater I wanted to wear to work was missing from my closet,  I rushed downstairs, my passions flaring, to give her the boot but I realized the teen also wore my lace-up waterproof footwear to school.

Now that my teen is literally walking in my shoes, I am raring for a catwalk fight. But I tell myself that I should take things in stride. Afterall, I’ve raided my mother’s closet in my younger days. Those Princess Diana-looking blouses and skirts that looked fine and dandy on my mom did not always look chic on me but I was more a fashion-wreck rather than fashion-forward back then.  Indian kids growing up in the eighties were not given an allowance to buy their own clothes and the chic-look was forbidden, lest a boy cast his lustful glance and snares the girl away from the clutches of her parents. Thus, for the earlier part of my teen years, I was doomed to commit major fashion faux pas.

My teen has better fashion sense at her age than I did but I don’t want any boy to have designs on her either (a subtle note of warning to all the boys out there). But I’m tickled pink to learn that teen thinks my clothes are haute couture and that she cares to parade them on her high school runway. She tells me that since she wore my lace-up boots to school, her own fashion stature has been upgraded. And did I say that her friends think I’m cool, too. To think that my teen looks up to me for style points and that I could drive fashion trends among teenagers makes me feel quite hip.

It’s very unlikely I will gain any actual inches to my stature since I am adamant about sticking with the aforementioned Seinfeld diet. But I can still reach the height of fashion, thanks to my teen, and accentuate the positive. Spring is here and I could use a new wardrobe. After all, I have an added parental responsibility now to keep my teen in style. My wallet will bleed but there is a lesson here in maximizing my opportunity. Teen will soon grow out of the skinny jeans and stylish tops that I buy for her, but I am bound to stay in vogue for the rest of my life.