Coming from Latin America, it was odd for me to see mom’s not dressed up when they are out and about shopping or even just grocery shopping. The show “Saturday Night Live” depicts American mom’s in a peculiar way. In the skit titled Mom Jeans, that aired in April of 2003, they explained these specific jeans that moms wear. I didn’t understand this until I became a mom in Florida. I don’t own any mom jeans, but I understand what that skit was trying to convey.

When we become a mom we don’t realize that we slowly start forgetting about taking care of ourselves because we become so absorbed with taking care of our child. Being a mom in America meant I had to learn to do everything for my child with little to no support and still take care of the household things. That left no time for taking care of myself. If we are a stay at home mom we have a higher tendency to wear the “mommy clothes” all day and dedicate our time to our children and the house, specially when you have small children. If you are a working mom, you have a better chance of not falling into this trap because you have to dress up for work and put on make up; but then when the weekend comes you might end up wearing the “mommy clothes”.

When I became a mom, I did get absorbed by the whole pressure of trying to be the perfect mother. I worked at the time, so my weekends were meant for me to spent 100% of my time getting to know my daughter and adopting this new role of motherhood. Without realizing it, I started to forget how to be a woman. I did try to dress up for work, but none of my regular clothes fit me because my body had changed too. I used to wear just dresses and some of my pregnancy clothes. I still took time to fix my hair and put on make up, but I rarely fixed my nails. What happens to us when we that baby crying for our attention that we are even willing to skip taking a shower? Would we have done this for anyone else? The stereotype in America is that mom does it all, mom has to give up everything to take care of that child and also maintain an organized household.

As I read more about mom’s in other cultures and saw how some mom’s maintained their sexy look even after having a new born, I got inspired and I have slowly taken control of my well being again. I have realized that it’s not selfish of me to take care of myself, it’s necessary so that my family life doesn’t fall apart. Now I make it a point to dress nice, put on make-up and do my hair even if I’m just spending a day doing laundry. And for those days were I have gone to the gym and I haven’t had a chance to shower by late afternoon, I still take time to dress nice after my shower late afternoon and put on make-up. The days that I don’t do that, and I have completely forgotten to take care of myself, I lose a part of me and I see that our family doesn’t function right. There is less patience, there is more tantrums and screaming and lots of resentment.

So mom’s, love yourself first so you can love your children and husband. You can’t give what you don’t have. A prettier you makes you feel better about yourself. Remember you are a woman first and then a mom.