A Lesson in Aging I Learned from My Mother

Flip through an average American fashion magazine and it will only take a few glossy pages to learn that beauty is for the young; the models don't look old enough to legally drink or rent a car, much less show their first sign of crow's feet. Beauty articles worship "anti-aging," and “How to Look Ten Years Younger” is splashed across the best-selling covers. Celebrities over the age of 40 are photoshopped until they look more like their teenage daughters than themselves. A reader quickly learns that unlike wine or cheese, beauty does not age well.

But I must defend the beloved magazine stack on my coffee table and say this is not the fault of the magazine industry. Magazines do more than sell expensive handbags and give healthy cocktail recipes. They reflect what our society is and wants; a glossy anthropology study, placed amongst Prada and perfumes.

And in our society, anti-aging is everywhere; on night cream jars, in spa treatments—even certain foods are now being pulled off shelves faster than they can be restocked because they are said to have anti-aging benefits.

The Lesson

The most beautiful woman in the world is my mother. Naturally, it’s unsurprising and unoriginal for me to say that (and if you don’t write that on your Instagram post for Mother’s Day, do you even love your Mom?), but everyone else seems to see it too. My mother has never fought age. No botox, no long blonde extensions, no trendy workout classes or weight-loss diets; she sees importance in age. She knows how lucky she is to be alive and she welcomes the aging that some of her loved ones never got.

And she is so beautiful.

Teachers and friends’ mothers have asked me since I was young what her secret is. What must she be doing in order to look so good? My answer was always the same; I honestly don’t know. She does yoga, but only once in a while on a video tape in her bedroom. She is dedicated to cooking healthy and unprocessed foods for our family, but she can devour more from an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet than anyone I’ve ever met.

When I was younger, I used to watch her get ready to go on dates with my father. She’d always walk out of her bathroom smelling like the same perfume and give me a kiss on the head before the babysitter arrived. No matter how tired I was that night, I’d fight to keep my eyes open until I heard the front door open and my mother’s heels click across the floor.

I couldn’t wait for the time when she’d finally come home and I could run downstairs and bury my head in her soft skin and blow-dried hair. That’s when she was always the most beautiful; taking off her heels in the kitchen with slightly smudged makeup. I had missed her so much.

In all of the years I’ve watched the effortless beauty that magically increases each year and each day I see her, I’ve started to pick up the pieces to “her secret.” She’s always been beautiful, but it’s changed over the years. Somehow, it’s become more powerful, more a part of who she is than how she looks. Age has only helped her.

She is strong in the way that she has carried babies and chased children for almost 30 years. She is beautiful in the way that she smiles every day and laughs no matter how bad our jokes are. Her laugh lines reflect her life of teasing her husband and making jokes to her children after school. I will never stop getting asked what my mom’s secret is, because her beauty does not have an expiration date.

People will chase beauty, all over the world.

They will search for years and never find it, or lose it as soon as they do. But my mother has the secret, and she doesn’t even know it. When I grow up, my experience and my change will be the visual story I tell. When I’m older, I hope my husband measures his success in the laugh lines on my face, like my dad measures his in my mom, and I hope my children will look at me and see the same children-holding arms that I see in my mother. And the best part is, you’d never find beauty like that in a magazine.

---

---

What to Read Next