Allison Pearson

Our Fabulous Columnist Hails The Rise Of The Midlife Woman

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My daughter just turned 23 and she’s beautiful. OK, I’m biased, obviously, but so much that we call beauty comes as a free gift with youth. When Evie complains that her bum is too low-slung to look right in jeans, I see an enviably pert backside that fills out denim a treat. When she laments the fact that she’s short (actually, she’s the national average height for women), I quote my own mother, “Good things come in small packages.” Can she not even take pleasure in her huge hazel eyes? Nope. Don’t be ridiculous, Mum! Her eyes are “hooded”, apparently, or so she informed me the other day.

It never stops, does it, this business of young women finding fault with their adorable selves? Matters are made even worse today with girls living 24/7 in that warped Hall of Mirrors they call social media. (If you ask me, Instagram was invented by some Dick Dastardly misogynist specifically to undermine female confidence.) I think back to being Evie’s age, when I had a 24-inch waist that I hid inside voluminous garments like a Laura Ashley floral pinafore dress, which would have looked a little roomy on someone in their third trimester with triplets. Seriously, what was I thinking?

Dressing like an Amish Sunday school teacher when I had a figure that could have posed on the bonnet of Starsky and Hutch’s red-with-a-white-stripe car?