The Cut - What My Mom Taught Me About Beauty

I was 16 and straddling my crush on the couch in my basement when he said the words I’d been waiting my whole life to hear: “You look so much like your mom right now,” he whispered before sliding his hand up my skirt. The timing couldn’t have been less opportune. I’d only gotten my wisdom teeth out three days prior, and each time his tongue darted in and out of my mouth, all I could think about was which stage of disintegration my dissolvable stitches were in. Did the stitches have, like, a taste? Could all this saliva give me dry sockets? Am I moving my jaw enough? But the high-school senior’s words obliterated any and all of my insecurities.

Having had the great misfortune of growing up at the same time Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom” landed on the Billboard “Hot 100” — my fourth-grade classmates would sing it as “Sami’s Mom” — I’d long known my mother had “got it going on.” My parents divorced when I was 8 and the attention my mother, Melissa, received from those around me in the years that followed was something I both resented and revered. Whether it was the freshman boys, who dedicated their rendition of the Allman Brothers’ “Sweet Melissa” at the talent show to her, or the cute English teacher who called me “hot-mom girl” behind my back.

Congrats to this cute trailblazer, the first of his kind to win Westminster. In another first, FDA advisers voted unanimously in favor of allowing a birth-control pill to be sold without a prescription today. New breast-cancer-screening guidelines move the starting age up from 50 to 40 years old. We’re ready to name Sir Karl Jenkins the breakout star of the coronation. Always keep wine and lollipops in your car in case you get stranded (and also, these things). How a viral TikTok recipe led to a black market for Fruit Roll-Ups in Israel. This show you’ve never seen but your parents love is a meme. And some people have all the luck!

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