Why I’m not threatened by my fit childminders, or at least, I wasn’t until this happened…

“How do you cope with having such attractive childminders?” a friend of mine, weighed down by an newborn, asked me recently.

But in all truth I haven’t much thought about it. I’ve mentioned before how gorgeous they are: Helorgie, the collective interchangeable twosome I pay through the nose to manage my children in the holidays and after school: just turned 20, all stick limbs and boobicles, bambi eyes fringed by thick dark hair, perhaps I should be more threatened by them. But love them though I do, I’ve never felt in the least bit backfooted by their beauty. So it caught me short when my friend, whose newly-wed husband had grown harmlessly goggle- eyed at the taller one in the playground after school suggested I ought.

Looking good has nothing to do with age but everything to do with confidence (and being successful won’t hurt)

I nearly got myself in hot water on Twitter a couple of days ago by commenting on this XO Jane post on by @Erinmallorylong,  which took issue with people telling the author she “looked good for her age”. Piqued by the title, I followed through with a click on the link. But when, in the first sentence she revealed her age to be not yet 30, I bah humbugged to myself and sent her a snarky tweet about being part of the problem. She fired back with a justifiable “maybe you should read it before judging,” to which, admiring her chagrin, I did. The article itself was actually fine: a mild diatribe about  youth and ageing, detailing her own obsession with selfies and the tendency for other women, particularly on social media, to judging others by their age. Its general thrust I couldn’t fault, except for the idea that at nearly 30, she felt the need to slap down the young perpetrators of such back handed compliments.

Personally I’m not big into selfies. I rarely post photos of myself. I’m not that photogenic – particularly when I catch an awkward angle holding my own phone. I have dubious skin, and I have learned to swallow my youthful vanity through two pregnancies and multiple visits to unhelpful dermatologists.  (I’m AM a terrible one for posting pictures of my kids though, but  the way I see it, they’re an online photo album for me and my family, as well as probably a touch of living vicariously through my unblemished, effortlessly skinny offspring). So from that perspective, I don’t have much sympathy for those who don’t get the response they are seeking when they parade their pics for general consumption on social media. But, for someone who spends an inordinate amount of time writing about myself, I can’t help feeling the selfie movement, when not done with obvious irony, is squeamishly shallow and self-involved, a particularly inane kind of attention seeking, especially the pouting, tits to chin, “look at me, I’m on holiday” kind.

But I know intrinsically that I too look “good for my age” whatever that means, without having to tweet it out for the market consensus. Perhaps if I were a couple of years younger, I might seek that kind of validation, if I had grown up in a more social world. God knows I was seeking something when became a (lap) dancer in my late teens.

The joy of getting older – and something that anyone young enough to seek validation from the very fact of their youth simply won’t yet know –  is that, sooner of later you get old enough not to care how you are judged by the world, particularly about the way you look. And when you get there, it’s a much more pleasant place to be than the firm-thighed insecurity of simply being young. 

At 33, I am no longer *that* young but I’m also nowhere near old, although old enough to be irked by twenty-somethings bemoaning their latest birthday on Facebook. But then, I am in a much, much happier place than I was in my twenties, so perhaps that’s why I feel better about the way I look now.

I know my first flush is over; that men who previously may have goggled now merely pass by, perhaps, dare I say, with a modicum of respect? I am normally accompanied by the shrapnel of motherhood one way or another, be it with a physical child or something that alerts the casual stranger to their existence, and I know from my days of carting a buggy about they usually quell the most heated wolf whistle. If I court the attention of strangers with the way I dress, it is an attempt to look successful rather than sexy. And aside from the obvious trappings of wealth or London tribalism – designer sunnies, nice shoes, jewellery I didn’t buy from Monsoon, this is more about confidence than anything else.

In a previous blog, Getting Over Not Being The Fit Girl At School, I pondered the vague truism that the girls at school who were noted mainly for their looks appear to have lapsed into an early middle age – their childbearing years already mainly over, their looks apparently on the turn, if photos on Facebook are anything to go by. This may be controversial, (and far be it from me to ever put my foot in my mouth, something I’m proud to say I can still do with ease, thanks to regularish yoga). It seems to be the late bloomers, the ones who took solace in exam results while the in-group were comparing foundation shades, don’t need to worry as much about their advancing years. Many of them are hitting their life milestones: travel, a house, a career, maybe thinking about kids. Most of my high flying friends look better, thinner, more polished, than they did at uni, although, thr ones who really look like a glossier, souped-up version of their 20 year old selves happen also not to have kids.

There’s an argument that, at a certain salary bracket, you can afford to look good regardless of age. Even just being happy with what you’ve achieved  in your life means worrying about the way you look, or what people think of you recedes into the background along with your claim to peachy, fuzz-free skin and an effortlessly homogeneous hair. This, thankfully, where I suddenly find myself aged 33.

Having struggled with slightly premature parenthood and getting my foot back on the career ladder, I suppose the temporary wreckage of motherhood may have preoccupied me slightly more when all I had up my sleeve was a nice pair of tits, straightish teeth and a husband who, let’s face it, didn’t ask for my phone number in the club where I worked because I had a masters degree.

Five years on from my last child’s birth, all is back where it should be, thank you, and it irritates me that young women fear the collateral damage of being a mother. I can assure you, time is a great healer.

Even your career eventually heads north again. Although I’ve not quite caught up with some of my childless uni peers, I know that I’ll leapfrog them once they start sprogging, unless I decide to re-spawn.

In any case, knowing I’m heading in the right direction makes me feel better about myself regardless of my age. And no longer being covered in baby sick and breast milk – at least for the time being – helps a lot too.

These days, with half a head of highlights, the odd trip to the dentist, a good bra and maybe a little something from Reiss – even if most of my wardrobe comes from H & M or (eek) George at Asda – I can still pull off looking as good, or, dare I say, better than I did at 19.

At 33, I’ve worked out that too many carbs and white wine spritzers leave me pouchy round my middle, a fact that caught up with me while I was at uni; that, though I still get spots, Quinoderm usually does the job and Cien foundation (£1.50 from Lidl) will do the rest.

I no longer fear the sun, in fact I lay out in it sunblockless to stave off brittle bones and to save on the fake stuff and to hell with encroaching lines around my eyes. An aspirin taken the night before will clear the puffiness from one too many – a much less frequent occurrence these days. Besides which, I’m not resilient enough to cope with more than one late night on the trot. And if a sleepless night brings out my eye bags, I really do have more to worry about than the way I look. And that’s the best way to be.

The thing about the young, particularly those gifted with conventional beauty, is that looks are sometimes all they’ve got – in a world where the hoops needed to become a conventionally successful adult are only becoming more complicated.

If they do choose to use their age as a stick to wield over all of us more established ladies, it’s only a defence tactic from those who may have little else to wield. So there’s no point feeling threatened by youth. After all, they have to learn about ageing the hard way, the same way we all do, and when they get here, it’s only by putting only by in the groundwork with other aspects of life that your looks weather the worst of it, or even just to learn to rise above it when inevitably it all starts to go a bit south.

So, when the shorter half of Helorgi turned up this morning an hour late to my London home, makeup-less and rather blotchy, having missed her alarm, I felt no sense of victory that I, fully made up, blown dry and dressed for the office, was definitely looking better than her “for my age”. I only felt a sort of only maternal concern that she seemed a bit stressed, had a day of childcare to put up with, probably with an almighty hangover, with no full time job as a get out clause and an arts degree to boot. I think being young is pretty scary these days. Even in the noughties, I spent much of my twenties being terrified.

***

Later, after bad news, I really don’t feel quite so smug anymore, or look all that shit hot when I was sobbing on the table having a panic attack, or storming up the road with a fag after five stiff G and Ts. At least at 20, it’s easier to pick yourself up and dust yourself down when the shit hits the fan, as it did yesterday afternoon, just after I finished writing this.

Perhaps, I do have something to feel jealous about, by not being quite so young. This morning, I look more like the elephant man than anything approaching “good for my age.”

There’s nothing more unattractive than a terrified woman in her mid thirties, it seems.