Kris Jenner was recently spotted wearing a black, bondage-inspired Givenchy bodysuit paired with peep-toe, thigh-high boots—a combination that might have been considered standard style for the sultry “momager”—except that the same outfit was worn by daughter, Kim Kardashian West, several months earlier. Jenner added a black blazer to tone it down slightly, but she was surely pleased with the fact that her recycled outfit prompted dozens of “Who Wore It Better?” quizzes across the Internet.
Jenner might be on the extreme end of the scale of exhibitionist mothers, but she’s not alone in co-opting her daughter’s style. In recent weeks, Demi Moore caused a media frenzy by “twinning” with her 26-year-old daughter, Rumer, and later earned heaps of praise for effectively outshining her other daughters, Scout and Tallulah, while posing poolside with them wearing a bikini.
Meanwhile, Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Zolciak is notorious for publishing look-alike photos to her Instagram account alongside her 18-year-old daughter, Brielle. And last year, another Housewives star, the perennially skinny Bethenny Frankel, slipped into her 4-year-old daughter’s Hello Kitty pajamas to pose for a picture that immediately went viral. During Frankel’s divorce proceedings, the pajama incident became a point of contention for one Manhattan Supreme Court Justice who chastised the 43-year-old for her ill-conceived “joke.”
Mothers who mimic their daughter’s youthful fashion sense is now a trend, as the Daily Mail reported in 2011. One study called the behavior “reverse socialization” and noted, “Many middle-aged women are becoming ‘consumer dopplegangers’ striving to regain their youthful appearance as they buy into the same products as their offspring.”
Social media hasn’t helped matters. Peruse Facebook and you’ll find mothers posting pictures of themselves dressed in matching ensembles, even with their infant daughters. Retailers like Hanna Andersson capitalize on this trend by selling adult and child-size versions of the same pajamas.
Some of this is harmless, cute fun. But some of it is also potentially damaging. At some point before a girl becomes a woman, it’s appropriate for a mother to cede the spotlight. It’s not that a mother doesn’t have a right to be admired; but mothers who attempt to compete with their daughters by imitating their style are severely misguided. Dressing alike for a special occasion for the fun of it is one thing; co-opting a wardrobe that blurs the lines of decency and maturity is another.
Young women today have enough pressure from their friends and the culture at large to need even more comparison and critique at home. Kim Kardashian West may not feel intimidated by her mother’s antics, but for many young women in the age of Facebook and Instagram, “keeping up” has never been as challenging as it is now. How would a teenage girl ever benefit from reading that thousands of strangers on the Internet think she’s hotter, skinnier, or more stylish than her own mother? Or less so?
As for the mothers eagerly donning their daughter’s midriff-baring T shirts, we have a helpful term for this impulse when it emerges in men: puer aeternus, the Latin phrase for eternal boy, or Peter Pan syndrome—the boy who won’t grow up. For women, puella aeterna-like behavior such as comparing bikini bodies with your daughters suggests the same thing it does in men: These women are emotionally immature and fearful of growing up.
Mothers don’t have to relinquish the power of their own beauty or their love of elegant clothing when their daughters reach puberty. But if they want those daughters to mature into thoughtful, confident women not ruled by vanity, then they should start exercising a little more sartorial maturity themselves.
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