I Am a Yoga-Pants-Wearing-Mom

In the past few months, I’ve seen several things online dissing yoga pants. Sometimes indirectly, sometimes not.

I’ve read articles in which moms are chastised for wearing yoga pants to the grocery store or playground. “Yoga pants are for wearing to yoga!,” they say. These tend to be written with a pretty transparent suggestion that the author is trying to “help” the poor, misled mothers who dare to go out of their homes in yoga pants and *gasp!* no makeup. As in, “Moms! Wake up! You are ruining yourself and your children! You would feel so much better if you put on some high heels and mascara! And by the way, you are a sloth! Love, Your online BFF who hates you.”

I’m here to stick up for the yoga pant.

And for the moms who wear them.

Hello. My name is Amy, and I’m  Yoga-Pants-Wearing-Mom.

There, I said it. Is that so wrong?

No it’s not. Here’s why:

First of all, yoga pants are comfy! Duh. With three kids under five I spend lots of time squatting, kneeling, bending, sitting on the floor, and otherwise contorting myself to get on my kids’ level. When I am at home, I wear yoga pants 99.9% of the time. Jeans are not my friend.

Lots of people might say, “Sure, you wear yoga pants at home, but there’s no need to wear them out of the house!”

Well. I disagree. When it comes time to go to, say, the grocery store, and I’m corralling three kids to go to the bathroom, get dressed, brush their teeth, do their hair, get their shoes on, and so forth, the last thing I’m thinking of is, “Gosh, I’m wearing yoga pants and about to put on flip flops! That’s not acceptable. I better go change into some jeans and a cute pair of shoes!” Nope. I don’t do that. I usually do manage to brush my teeth, put on deodorant, brush my hair, and put on a little bit of makeup. But beyond that? Forget it. The yoga pants stay on.

Plus, I just can’t justify the extra laundry that would result from my wearing two different outfits every day. I wear clean (okay, mostly clean, sometimes I don’t notice the peanut butter smear/toothpaste drip/other unknown stain until I get home) yoga pants and a tee shirt, and have no interest in changing into a different outfit for an outing, which I would just end up changing back out of upon arriving home again. Double the laundry, and why bother? No need, I say.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, I don’t wear yoga pants because I don’t care about my appearance. I don’t wear them because I’m depressed and can’t manage to dress myself. I don’t feel unattractive because I’m wearing them. It doesn’t make me feel better to get dressed up when I go the the grocery store. It makes me feel uncomfortable. And clumsy.

I wear them because they’re comfy, and I’m lazy about changing into different pants and doing extra laundry. And that’s it.

Yes, of course I do wear jeans or other nicer pants sometimes, but with each child this effort seems to have gotten less frequent.

I wear yoga pants to the grocery store. To the library. To the park. To Target. To play dates.

To be clear, I do have a few rules about my yoga pants.

I don’t wear them if they have stripes down the side. That just seems to scream “I’m exercising!” in my opinion, and I don’t feel the need to make that statement. “I’m comfy” is fine with me.

I don’t wear yoga pants to restaurants. Except occasionally when we take the kids to a super casual place for a family date night and I forget to change before we leave. Okay, I confess, that’s what usually happens for family date night. So, let me rephrase that to say that I don’t wear yoga pants for evenings out with adults. I actually love to get dressed up for date night with my hubby.

I don’t wear them to organized outings. For example, I wear them to the library, but probably not to story time. I wear them to a play date at Super Friend’s house, but not to a play group outing to the nature center. Well, most likely not.

And I don’t wear yoga pants (or jeans) to church.

Aside from those few things, I’m all about my yoga pants.

I’m in a coffee shop typing this and wearing them now. Comfy.

What are you wearing?