my mama’s muumuu

by MEGAN SHEN

layout MICHELLE COLLINS photographer SHREEJWAL DHAKAL stylist MADDIE SIEDELL hmua JESSI DELFINO models CHLOE BOGEN & CLARA ELENES You don’t have to worry about placing names or anything for now since this is just practice! Just make sure to incorporate it in your title spread! You’re free to change the color but you cant mess with font size or the order.

Everyone has insecurities. Mine manifested in a muumuu.

This will be the ‘blurb’ / headline you will be using! Make sure this is also included in the title spread. You’re free to mess around with font choice, size and placement!

It’s 2006. You’re in kindergarten. Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and we need a messilydone, but well-meaning arts & crafts gift, stat. The mission: color this paper doll cutout in the likeness of your mom or die trying. You have access to the four Crayola markers in front of you, but if absolutely necessary, you may bargain with Phoebe for a fifth one.

You’ve decided to don your paper cutout mother in your real mother’s signature look — her rainbow muumuu. The real muumuu has dull colors that look like the knockoff version of Roy G. Biv; there’s no yellow, no violet, but for some reason, there’s pink.

No matter. With only four colors, we’re going to have to take some artistic liberties. A streak of Cerulean creates a stubborn dress-shaped border. Clammy kindergarten fingers stain the paper with stripes of Mango Tango and Brick Red. A few lines of Pink Flamingo (you begged Phoebe for it) have been added for historical accuracy. Finally, Green Yellow will be used to fill in the blanks.

Step back, admire your work. It’s hard being a genius.

But not everyone has your artistic vision. The teacher circles the tables, surveying each student’s progress. She stops at your desk and picks up your masterpiece with an amused smile. “Look here, class,” she says. “Look at how colorful her drawing is!” The class giggles in a giddy, knowing way. Then, addressing you, she asks, “Your mom wears dresses like this?”

Your mom wears dresses like this? Your mom wears dresses like this?

Yes, she does.

That’s what you want to say. Well, that’s what I wanted to say. But I was six years old, and at first, I was confused. Then embarrassed. Then ashamed. I felt like I just revealed a dirty secret. Hey guys, my mom wears this big, ugly muumuu to sleep! Every single night! It’s funny how easily pride can turn into humiliation.

I don’t really remember how I responded. Maybe with a quiet “yes,” or maybe with nothing at all. I assume everyone just went back to coloring their paper moms. But my own paper doll, once a source of pride, now stared back at me, mockingly. Now I was stuck with this loud, boisterous, ugly dress. What started as a simple attempt at recreation had morphed into an exposing reveal of my, apparently embarrassing, home life.

"But the warmth of my mother’s love wouldn’t do well against the chill of the outside world. And in my juvenile attempt at likeness, I had left her in the cold."

Amidst my peers’ stifled laughs, I was immediately overcome with humiliation, and I latched onto the closest source of comfort. The dress. Suddenly, this wasn’t just some muumuu. It was my mama’s muumuu. It was safety, it was reassurance, it was unconditional love. But the warmth of my mother’s love wouldn’t do well against the chill of the outside world. And in my juvenile attempt at likeness, I had left her in the cold.

Sorry, Mama.

Now, at 21, I find that I’m much more indignant about the situation. At the time, the whole ordeal proceeded in a much quieter, shamefaced sort of way. I didn’t cry on the way home or yell at my mom for wearing ugly clothes. I just went about my regular, six-year-old life. And yet, it’s been almost 15 years now, and I still can’t shake the memory of that day — of the slow realization that this was something I should’ve kept private.

When the source of your embarrassment is also a source of comfort, there’s a strange tension that forms. For me, the muumuu represented warmth, tenderness, home. But it was also a symbol of ridicule, a constant reminder that society was not as forgiving as my loved ones.

From then on, fashion became an intensely personal matter. The muumuu incident had espoused in me a deep fear of how others perceived not just me, but my family. There was a definitive line between “home” and “outside,” and my appearance was a crucial element in creating that line. This shirt is for lounging at home, only. These pants should only be worn around immediate family. Don’t wear that pair of glasses in public. Comfort and beauty were mutually exclusive, and if there was an article of clothing that I genuinely cherished, I deemed it unsuitable for the outside world.

It isn't uncommon to have that dorky pair of pajamas that you only wear at home or a stain-ridden sweat

"The gnawing burden of the muumuu was one harbored only by me, and although I have known that all my life, realizing it at that moment set me free."

shirt reserved specifically for rainy days. Objectively, I knew that it was completely normal to have a different set of clothes for “outside” and for home. But I still couldn't shake the anxiety and shame centered around the internalized line I had created. Again, I thought of the muumuu.

I decided to confront the matron herself. Over FaceTime and dinner, I asked my mother if she remembered the muumuu from my childhood.

“Huh?” She said between bites. “Oh yeah, that dress. Very big. Pink stripes.”

And that was it. The dress that has plagued my mind since kindergarten was barely worth two sentences in my mother’s memory. In a way, it was enlightening. For me, the muumuu had become an ever-present reminder of my foolishness, an unwavering incarnation of my insecurities. For my mother, it would take much more to elicit that kind of reaction. For her, even the repeated coaxing of Don’t you remember wearing this every day? would only induce a sympathetic, “Oh ... I did, didn’t I?”

My mother’s response was an unexpected antidote. Her indifference washed over me, and I was finally able to see the incident in a new light. There was no need for guilt, no need for shame — not when the person, so inextricably linked to the dress, barely remembered it. The gnawing burden of the muumuu was one harbored only by me, and although I have known that all my life, realizing it at that moment set me free. A few days later, my mother sent me a picture of the muumuu. Like The Ghost of Christmas Past, the photo immediately immersed me in that alltoo-familiar preadolescent shame. But at twentyone, I see it with fresh eyes. The muumuu was paler than I remember. Quieter. It wasn’t the scandalous family secret that my younger self had made it out to be. It was just a muumuu.

I think back to that Mother’s Day, to the moment before my teacher held up my drawing. To my previous self, the muumuu was simply an object that I associated with my mother. Nothing more, nothing less. In my resentful hindsight, it was me who created unnecessary baggage, me who clung to a glorified narrative of a sentimental keepsake. But seeing that photo, I was reminded of how I was before. There was a childhood innocence, an obliviousness that exempted me from the shackles of self-doubt and insecurity. I miss that.

In my humiliation, I felt ostracized and alone. I wanted nothing more than to blend back into the crowd. But the reality is that there will inevitably be moments where someone judges something you treasure. I don’t want to fear those moments anymore. At least not over a piece of clothing.

I’ve always been an overthinker. I brood over the slightest interactions, and I stay up at night thinking about things I could’ve done differently. But I’m alright with letting this one go. Letting go of the baggage, of the embarrassment, of the fear. Letting go of my mama’s muumuu. ■