Macy's Pulls 'Mom Jeans' Plates After Internet Outrage
You may have seen a controversial plate making the internet rounds this week: a recent tweet from comedian Alie Ward spotlighted a dish with a design that features three concentric circles: the smallest is labeled “skinny jeans;” the middle, “favorite jeans;” and the largest, “mom jeans.” Macy’s is hardly the first retailer to sell something as clueless as portion control plates—Google the phrase and you’ll get about 125,000,000 results—but this version is very, very stupid. Especially for a mom jeans-loving mom.
The implication of the design appears to be “lol, moms all let themselves go and eat way too much! Disgusting! Don’t be like them! Keep your food fitting inside the very tiny circle in the center of the plate and you’ll never have to wear mom jeans!” Aside from the frankly concerning disordered-eating messaging that these plates encourage with their attempt at portion control, these plates also don’t make any real health sense. The amount of space a food takes up on your plate means, absolutely nothing. Having a cauliflower steak for dinner? According to this plate, you’re doomed! Stacked your tiny cheese cubes into a Jenga tower? Congrats on your well-balanced meal.
But the most offensive thing about this plate is the implication that being the owner of “mom jeans” is something shameful. Or that all “mom jeans” are being worn by people—presumably moms—who are not, I guess, taking care of themselves? Who are daring to stuff their mom bodies into jeans? As a mom myself, it’s offensive and also almost laughable.
Honestly, these plates are so bafflingly off-base that I don’t really know what the designer thought mom jeans even were. My favorite “mom jeans” are high-waisted and difficult to sit for long periods in. I would definitely take them off if I was going to eat a big dinner, not put them on—which I would do whenever I wanted to, because a plate is not telling me what to do!