Shopping Moms

There’s a common ritual that takes place in department stores and shopping malls across America. It involves millions of women and girls and (collectively) millions of dollars. It is the practice of mother-daughter shopping expeditions. For years, I was part of this tradition, dutifully accompanying my mother to stores as a child because I had no other option, and then, in my teenage years, begging my mother to take me to stores, convinced that they held the key to my being prettier or more popular at school. And my mother was always there to shop with me, to hang discarded clothes back on the hanger, to go back out to the floor to get me a different size, to be honest about how the color looked on me, and to notice the outfit that suited me but that I never would have noticed myself. Her services were just a given to me growing up, and as I got older, I began to reciprocate, giving her my input and trying, here and there, to update her just a little on the current trends.

In college and after, when I was no longer as dependent on my mother for transportation and funding, our shopping expeditions together lessened. We both had busy schedules, and the newly adult me flaunted my independence like a shiny new badge. But the reality is that whenever there was a special occasion I was shopping for, I still took my mother along, and even all those other times that I didn’t, I often found myself waiting to show her certain items before snipping off any tags or throwing away any receipts. We didn’t always agree, but she provided a point of reference for me, a solid opinion in which I could find assurance or from which I could depart.

When my mother died of cancer, it was several months before I could even set foot in a department store, and I only did so because I desperately needed some new clothes for work. Mothers shopping with their daughters seemed to be everywhere, all coupled up and of all different ages. I could see a version of myself shopping with my mother as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. I drifted from rack to rack, dazed by what seemed to me to be an assault of mother and daughter pairs until I finally ran into a dressing room to take refuge and cry. Mothers and daughters together had never bothered me before when I was shopping by myself, but that was because my own mother had always been just a phone call away. Shopping alone had been a choice on my part, and I imagine in those days that there had probably been some daughters with critical mothers who envied my solo state. But now I had no choice, and without my mother, I felt like I had been kicked out of a club. I no longer had membership in the universal sisterhood of shopping mothers and daughters.

As the years have passed, it’s gotten easier to shop on my own. I no longer cry in dressing rooms or surreptitiously watch mothers and daughters shopping together with all the longing of a child pressing her face against the window of a candy store. The anguish has quieted down and the pain has mellowed. But I still find myself wanting my mother there to tell me whether a skirt looks as good from the back as it does from the front or if I should think twice about the turquoise blouse. I miss someone really looking closely at me and caring as much as I do whether or not I’m buying the right dress.

Which is why I’ve begun resorting to soliciting stand-in mothers while in stores. The first time it happened was in a GAP store. There were two pairs of black pants I was trying to decide between. One pair was on clearance and was significantly cheaper than the other full-price pair. But of course the cheaper pair did not seem to fit as nicely, creasing in an unflattering manner across my hips. Still, I reasoned to myself, the pants were black, so maybe it wasn’t that noticeable and was worth overlooking given the price difference. I twisted and turned in the dressing room, craning my head to look over my shoulder at the back view in the mirror. Meanwhile, I heard a mother standing out in the hall giving her daughter feedback on the various sundresses her daughter was trying on. She sounded very decisive and had very specific reasons for why she liked or disliked what her daughter came out with each time. Sucking in a breath, I flung open my own dressing room door.
“Excuse me,” I said to her. “Do you mind giving me your opinion on these pants? I’m trying to make up my mind between these and another pair that’s more expensive.” The mother immediately rose to the challenge and took charge.
“Sure! Why don’t you come out here so I can see you walk in them,” she instructed. I dutifully sashayed down the hallway, and when I turned around to walk back towards her, she had a slight frown on her face. “I don’t know,” she said in a tone that said she did know and was about to tell me. “Those don’t seem to fit you very well around the hips.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, relieved at this confirmation. “I think I’ll go ahead and get the other ones. It’s probably worth the extra money.”
“Well, why don’t you try those on for me too?” Her daughter had emerged from her dressing room, and the mother focused on her again. I changed pants and came back out. Now both mother and daughter watched me while I walked down the hallway.
“Oh those are much better,” the mother said with approval. “They might cost more, but I think it’s always better to buy the clothes that fit the best. Otherwise you end up not wearing them very much and it’s a waste of money.” This utterly practical and motherly piece of advice washed away any doubt and anxiety I had about the pants, and I felt a rush of gratitude well up in me.
“Thank you,” I said, and I went back into the dressing room wishing I could say more. Wishing I could tell her how long it had been since an older woman, a mother, had guided and directed me. Wishing I could tell her how even though I was a fully capable and independent adult, I still longed for that motherly reference point, that sure voice that stilled my own doubts and anxieties. But I just nodded and smiled at her and her daughter on my way out to the cashier, where I bought the more expensive but better fitting pants.
Nothing and no one can ever take the place of having my own mother, but I’ve come to realize that my situation is not quite as forlorn as I had thought it to be. I am still a part of the sisterhood. I still can and regularly do get feedback from older women about which sandals they think would be better for trekking across Europe or which sweater is a more flattering color for me. There are always women around who are willing to be a mother for a few minutes. One just has to look around and ask.