  So my parents are visiting and we’re all going to this super fancy wedding because my mom is officiating the ceremony. It’s at what is commonly considered the nicest hotel in Houston. My mom and I went shopping for dresses for the reception and we found the perfect one for my mom. She stood in the dressing room and we both agreed we loved it and her eye goes to the mess of shadows and panty lines and she said, “how do I make it smooth?” I got happy because I knew the answer and it became such a funny, tender thing for me to tell my mom. I’ve had two babies in three years and I say, with motherly experience, “you need a foundation garment.” I just saw the mom of Malcom in the Middle on Wayne Brady and she covered this subject with so much humor. She too just had a baby so she knows. Later, when pondering which size of foundation garments we should get ourselves, my mom asked how one puts it on—because there aren’t any zippers or buttons, just one big sleeve.
The Malcom in the Middle mom said her kids, four boys, all come sit on the bed when it’s time for her to put hers on because it’s so fun to watch. Even more later, when I put my foundation garment on, I was reminded of my mother’s ever-repeated advice, “don’t wrestle with the pigs because you both get dirty and the pigs like it” and I think if anything ever looked like wrestling with pigs, this is it.
There is so much shame in saying you bought—even worse, wear—a foundation garment. Hell, let’s just call a spade a spade: a girdle. Images of menopausal biddies with black hairs in their chins and overgrown dark moles come to mind. It’s the olden days equivalent of a tummy tuck though so I have to ask if this is the way we will come to think of tummy tucks? 
