What are Mom Jeans? Oprah, SNL and Jessica Simpson show you the high-waisted answer.

Get here by Googling "what are mom jeans"? Then it's highly likely you're wearing them as you read this. Take a look down. Do your jeans taper toward the ankle? Does the zipper come up to your belly button? Are you nodding?

I'm guessing that you, probable Mom Jean-wearer, are a fan of Oprah; so let me quote the website of the Queen of Momlandia, www.oprah.com, which offers its own Mom Jeans self-assessment: If the waistband of your jeans could double as a push-up bra or your backside looks flatter than a flapjack, you're guilty of wearing "mom jeans." Stacy thinks these high-waisted horrors are cardinal sins of fashion. Urbandictionary.com—a website offering definitions of words you won't find in Webster's—includes a listing for Mom Jeans, along with it an editorial opinion. Mom Jeans: High waisted and tapered. Nobody looks good in these type of jeans. Angelina Jolie would look like a pile of crap in Mom Jeans. A high-profile celebrity has been caught in the "high-waisted horrors," but it wasn't Angelina Jolie. It was Jessica Simpson. And the celebrity press piled on the criticism, saying she looked like a pile of you-know-what.

Quit when I was pregnant. Toughest four months of my life.

Personally, I think she looks prepared. Put the keys to a Honda Odyssey in her hand and some cleat-wearing kids in the back, and she's ready to go to the Saturday morning soccer game—with a zipper only a bend-down away from meeting her well-stuffed Mom Pillows.

Just like hamburger patties, leopard-printed belts are better when served in twos, stacked on top of buns.

But where did the phrase originate? Who knows if they made it up, but the phrase's rise in popularity, and resulting inclusion into pop culture vernacular, can be traced to the cast of SNL, who made a commercial parody of the pants "cut generously to fit a Mom's body" in 2003. Which Mom's body? Tina Fey, long before the Palin impression and long before her slim-down, back when she had a J-Lo-esque backside.



One commenter on the video wrote: LOL, as long as guys look at my backside (happened today) I’ll keep wearing them at 60.

You go, Mom! Wait. 60? You go, Grandma! You go to the bingo hall on Wednesday nights, rockin' your Mom Jeans, makin' all the Grandpas do a double take. Did somebody say "bring his cane to attention"? No?

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