I am fascinated by mothers. As a seasoned observer, I do much of my field work in the wilds of the urban rubber-tiled jungle gyms. My safaris allow me to watch undetected the many species of moms brought together by the climbing structures, slides, and rows of black bucket swings. I record their movements in my I-phone and my pith helmet is a Brooklyn Royal Giants baseball hat.
If you live in New York City, you know that a playground is a microcosm of its neighborhood. And in NYC, your neighborhood is likely made up of an array of clichés and notable exceptions. Living in Park Slope, you see moms with sleeve tattoos, moms in silver Birkenstock Gizehs, moms in perfectly fitting silk rompers, moms in mom jeans, moms whose Saturday morning attire makes them faintly resemble Gandalf the Gray, moms who who have probably wrestled for many years with an eating disorder, helicopter moms. But there is a singular creature among them—the MILF.
The origin of the acronym MILF is hazy. I’m sorry to disappoint those of you, who like me, had half expected that Lord Byron had scribbled it with a fountain pen in the margin of a book. Instead claims of use go back to the 1950s by members of the US Airforce, which, considering the plethora of other acronyms still in use (SOS, FUGAZI, SNAFU, FUBAR, YOLO, ok that one was a joke, just trying to pad my number of examples), it might actually be true. Not to take anything away from whomever made the term’s first utterance, the movie “American Pie” gave it a new pair of legs and bestowed it upon a new generation—Stifler’s Mom became the new cultural icon of the sexually desirable mother (after Anne Bancroft, of course).
A good acronym is greater than the sum of its parts. It has the power to transcend some of its less elegant components. In the case of the MILF and for the sake of this column, let’s focus a bit more on the M than the F. What makes someone MILF-y? I would argue that it is preservation. Not necessarily preservation in the strictly physical sense, though some might. Lord knows that plenty of Fs have not been predicated on attractiveness. The phrase a “10 at 2 and a 2 at 10” comes to mind.
Instead, I think of preservation as something that radiates from the inside out. And no, that is not my subtle way of letting you know I’m starting a Kickstarter fund for vaginal rejuvenation. Rather, it’s a sense of self that is retained even though one has gestated and given birth to another, that one has dependents and still manages to stay an independent entity. Perhaps it is the juxtaposition between the two roles, and the woman who seamlessly moves between them, that is the alluring part. Preservation and versatility. Instead of representing one part of the virgin-mother-crone archetype, she just smooshes them all together. She is bigger than a single label, yet a single label shimmers around her like an aura.
On the playground, what could possibly be less sexually attractive than a mother? She is resigned to let a crazed toddler in Crocs run through the water feature. She is trying to read The New York Times or at least an entire article if you wouldn’t keep interrupting her. She is thinking about a bagel even though she was trying to think about Benghazi. She is being herself for a moment. And that’s when her MILFitude is most likely to poke through. So maybe it is really the opposite. What could possibly be more sexually attractive than a mother? It occurs to me that this is an entire dissertation and instead of trying to find answers on UrbanDictionary.com, I should be looking at gender theory papers. Moreover, when I googled “why are milfs attractive?”, I mis-typed it and ended up with results for “why ar emilfs attractive?” Which apparently stands for MANY other things that I won’t mention here. Except for Elf MILF. And it is definitely not Tolkien. Trust me.
So where does that leave us? Have we even begun to unpack what makes a MILF? Should we? After all, might this just be one more way to objectify women? That even after the sanctity of creating life, it’s all about the box? I haven’t quite made up my mind. We use MILF negatively and positively with a casual irreverence, but can it be reclaimed? I’ll take it. Cause, you know, YOLO.
Rebecca Cooney is a mom to a 4-year-old man baby and, in her spare time, the North American editor of The Lancet. You can follow her on Twitter: @BekRx.