The Mom-kini :: Buying a Swimsuit Shouldn’t Be This Hard

It was time for baby’s first swim-lessons. My sister warned me, If you wear your bikinis, the other moms will give you judgy eyes.

She was right.

I didn’t want her to be right, but she was right.

 The world seems to have embraced the pregnant bikini body, but what about once the baby is born?

What DOES today’s mom choose for swim wear?

The Tasteful One Piece:

one piece

This is the mini-van of swimwear. You always said you’d never wear it, but that was before you realized how amazingly practical they really are. They cover stretchmarks and camouflage that little extra pooch pregnancy may have left you with. The best feature though, hands down, is that it hides the rolls.

What about the ladies who don’t have rolls?

Everyone. Has. Rolls.

Especially moms.

No, NOT because we housed a human, but because moms are rarely lounging leisurely poolside. Gone are the days of laying peacefully in a chaise, eyes closed, one leg attractively propped up.

pool before baby

A day at the pool for any mommy with littles involves wrangling, slathering, monitoring, and BENDING.

 

I don’t care who you are, when you bend, you get rolls. So, yes 13-year-old self, I am wearing a one-piece swimsuit. And you know what? I don’t even care.

The Mono-kini:

I don’t even need to write anything here. Who were these designed for? These swimsuits combine all the worst features of a bikini with the added bonus of some super weird tan lines. They basically scream “Look directly at my tummy and these stretch marks on my hips!”

The Tank-ini:

tankini

If the one-piece was the mini-van of swimsuits, the tank-ini is the SUV. This isn’t a “mom suit”, noooo, certainly not. Maybe you even catch yourself trying to convince yourself that “I totally would have worn this even before I had kids” That is, until you go shopping for the tank-ini and realize just how many awful choices there are. I mean, there are some really, really horrible prints out there. I’ve even considered buying the ugliest print in the store and trying to pull it off ironically.

The Bikini:

bikini

Get it girl. Maybe you’ve worked hard and have a killer body. Good for you. No, really.

But, maybe you are the other category of bikini wearing mama. My kind. Before kids, I used to think that I would be really self-conscious of my new mommy body. I thought that I would be consumed by other people’s judgments of my “stretches”, curves, lumps and bumps. As it turns out, I seem to have taken a much more “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit” attitude about where my body is. I just don’t have extra energy to use worrying about what everyone else might or might not be thinking about it. And, you know what, I don’t have the motivation, money, or time to devote to trying to hunt down that perfect new swimsuit.

Even if it is more forgiving.

And appropriate.

And…oh, look, that one’s not so bad.

And it’s on clearance.

Fine. Fine! You caught me. I’m all talk. I just bought my first one-piece since middle school church camp…and I like it.

Next up, the mini-van.

Allison Brown
Allison grew up in the Wichita area with her husband. After graduating from K-State, they moved to Kansas City for five years. She left her job as a child development and parenting teacher to stay at home with their son, Eli. Their family moved back home to Derby where Eli is growing up close to family. As an added bonus, they also bask in the freedom that is the deepest bench of free babysitters imaginable. Attempting to find their "new normal" in an old and familiar hometown keeps them busy. She loves bargain hunting, making everything into an event (preferably with a theme), taking "an obscene amount" of photos of her son, and sugar.

1 COMMENT

  1. Oh my gosh. The monokini. I’ve looked at those before and now I would die trying to wear one. I would not only be showing off my killer stretch marks but it would be paired with a lovely helping of side roll that I swear is not normally there when I wear real clothes! Great post!

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