Step up the decorum, ladies

How the world has changed. And it used to be so simple.

I’m watching a woman tucking fold upon fold upon fold into what I know my mom called a “step-in”.

Hers didn’t have six zips, 20 hooks and pliable elastic sides, front and back, like I saw last night.

I watched her many mornings squeezing from the bottom up into a – whalebone, I’m sure – contraption with many sighs and oomphs just to hide her slightly sagging tummy after three kids.

She didn’t have a Wonderbra with built-in cushions or even a wire to support a sagging breast after feeding many a mouth.

Or even sexy bras. They were all big with full unfilled cups, eight hooks at the back and little support.

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But she learnt about sewing: long darts from the skirt up to the nipple point lifts the breasts to The Eye who eyes her; flat pleats on the bottom part hides the tummy she doesn’t want that eye to see.

How shocked she’d be to see what I saw last night: A woman she would unashamedly call obese – I apologise, she was never woke – stripping for the world to see in her bedroom down to her bra trying on the infamous “step-in” and then loving her half-naked body.

My mom would’ve (I want to write present tense “will” because she is, even in death, a lady) never judged.

Not in her vocabulary: like “woke”; “body shaming” and “gender issues”.

But she would’ve told that lady to “sweep it under the carpet”. Hide your imperfections – but not when the light is on in your bedroom: your intimate space.

That’s when it counts. That’s when your man sees you as you are, stretch marks, sagging breasts and all.

She’d tell all these exhibitionists: “You don’t have to be a Stepford Wife with full makeup when your man wakes up to a boere breakfast.

You can have curlers in your hair; no mascara. “He knows you. So step into your ‘step-in’, wear your flat darts and clip on your false, teased ‘beehive’ hair piece. He’s the one that sees you; the real you.”

And he’ll still love you without the world even knowing.

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So that’s why I’ll never be a trending media influencer. My mom taught me tricks, but they’re our tricks.

Private and the world never needs to know about it.

So Ms Step-in, know your mom was right: decorum, girl.

Always.