I don’t own a set of scales. I have a rough idea of what I weigh, but I don’t feel the need to constantly monitor it, Bridget Jones-style. Occasionally if I’m staying in a hotel that has a set, I’ll clamber on, just to double-check that nothing has gone seriously awry.

"I’m not even a mom. I just love the roomy elasticated mom denim."

Besides, if I ever veer above my healthy weight, my skinny jeans quickly let me know; the digging of a button and the intensity of the ridges left on my skin negates the need for scales. Scales seem neurotic, they suggest obsession; the skinny jeans test feels much more sensible. The only problem is that I have in the past year or so stopped wearing skinny jeans, swapping them for the more comfortable – and arguably more on-trend mom jeans – and now… well now I’ve put on weight. My mom jeans have resulted in me becoming a bit mom jeans-ish round the middle.  

The mom jeans I wear aren’t mom jeans like the ones that Thelma and Louise wear; everyone knows that those non-stretch high-waisted Levi’s mom jeans are actually even more weight-gain-awareness-raising than a pair of skinny jeans. You can barely eat carbs in those, or they'll cut you in half. I’m talking about mom jeans with stretch, mom jeans that seem to have evolved from boyfriend jeans, mom jeans that are almost identical to the mom jeans Tina Fey pilloried in her 2003 Saturday Night Live sketch 'Mom Jeans'.

'Cut generously to fit a mom’s body,' the voiceover to the skit intones as an actress bends over a flower bed in mom jeans. 

'She’ll want to wear them to everything, from a soccer game to a night on the town,' it continues. 

The skit was written in 2003, around the time skinny jeans and low-rise jeans were gaining prominence: mom jeans were just for actual moms back then. Non-moms, a demographic which of course includes lots of real-life mothers (being a mom jeans-wearer has nothing do to with actual motherhood), would not have been seen dead in mom jeans. But ten years later, mom jeans have been embraced by the fashion-conscious: click through street-style galleries and you’ll see plenty of mom jeans; log onto the jeans section of the Topshop site and you’ll be offered the chance to buy mom jeans. 

"I became hooked on the comfort of mom jeans, the high rise that allows you to package up extra bulk rather than letting it spill over a tight waistline."

As a 2014 mom jeans wearer, I find myself identifying with the moms portrayed in the 2003 SNL sketch. I just love the roomy elasticated mom denim. And yes I do want to wear my generously cut mom jeans to everything, from a soccer game to a night on the town. Why would I ever choose to pour myself into tight uncomfortable skinnies when I can be embraced by mom jeans? 

I chose to buy and wear mom jeans based on the fact that they were fashionable but in wearing mom jeans, it’s like I became less fashionable. While I didn’t become an actual mom – denim can’t get you pregnant; the really crotchy stuff actually acts like a temporary hysterectomy – I became hooked on the comfort of mom jeans, the high rise that allows you to package up extra bulk rather than letting it spill over a tight waistline.

I became addicted to the ease, caught up in the comfort. It’s become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: by wearing mom jeans, I became a mom jeans-wearer. 

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