The Incredible Invisible Mom
Not a MILF as much as a MILLA- Mom I'd Like to Leave Alone
I used to get catcalled. I don’t anymore, for several small reasons and one big reason.
First, people horny enough to yell about it at a woman they don’t know tend to be attracted to very young women and girls (because those men are gross). Meanwhile, I’m older than I’ve ever been and am getting even older by the day, cruising at the speed of time toward the age where men leave me alone forever.
The general lack of street harassment I deal with on an ongoing basis can also be attributed to the fact that I don’t walk around alone as much as I used to; Los Angeles isn’t a walking town. I’m on the street much less; ergo, less street harassment.
Third, since I’ve had a kid, I usually look like poached ass when I go out in public. Rarely do I look pleasant or like I even tried. I’m currently wearing a pair of jean shorts that I’ve worn three other days this week and a tee shirt I bought in 2014. I didn’t brush my hair today because I can’t find the brush because I gave it to the baby to play with and I forgot where that interaction occurred. The living room, maybe? The front porch? Guess I didn’t need to brush my hair anyway.
Fourth-- and probably the biggest factor-- is that when I am out and about on foot, I often have a baby, dog, or both. These two elements have proven to be male attention repellents. A man walking alone with a baby and a dog is a female attention magnet, the world’s greatest guy; a woman walking with a baby and a dog is simply doing her job, which is to care for others at all times and disappear into the background. When I don't have a baby or a dog in tow, I am often replenishing with some "me time," which nowadays means wandering glassy-eyed through the aisles of Target or Lowe's like a ghost.
When I was in my twenties (and into my thirties), male attention was cheap, plentiful, and almost always annoying, like bees at a picnic. I and almost every woman I know developed a Fuck Off Face to discourage men from approaching them when they didn’t want to be approached; sometimes men did anyway. Sometimes they did it even when said woman was sending every possible signal that she did not want to engage in conversation– headphones in, sunglasses on, reading a book, wearing a vest that said Do Not Pet Me, I Bite, etc. Despite a woman's best attempts at deflection, some guys would shoot their shot anyway.
But it’s been more than a year since a strange man who is not insane or asking for money has tried to get my attention in public. I move through the world wrapped in what feels like an invisibility cloak. I could probably run naked through a construction site and as long as I was pushing a stroller, none of the construction workers would notice.
I don’t miss unwanted male attention, but I do notice its absence. I never thought I’d be a MILF, but I also didn’t expect to be viewed like a sexual nonentity after becoming a mother. I am a Mom I’d Like to Leave Alone– a MILLA, if you will.
If somebody were to catcall me now, rather than avert my eyes and pick up the pace, I might actually pay attention. I’d assume that if a man was yelling at me in public, it must be an emergency. Perhaps I am on fire, or about to get hit by a bus.
A year into this trip into maternity, being hit on by strangers feels almost like a relic from another time. Maybe if I brushed my hair sometimes, it would return. I don’t have the energy to be hot anymore. For mothers who manage it, I salute you. I simply cannot.
Image via Shutterstock