Today is my mom’s 70th birthday and I posted a picture of her, and I can’t get over how good she looks for 70. But I’ve always thought she has looked good. She has fantastic, freckled olive skin, thick silky hair and hardly any wrinkles. I don’t think she wears makeup, other than mascara.
Thing is, she’s short and squat. Thanks to having two 10lb babies, I’ve never known her to have any shape other than “apple”. So people would not think of my mom as traditionally good looking or sexy. She’s just mom-shaped and dresses kind of frumpy since she retired.
My dad is “traditionally handsome” I’d say. Tall and thin with blue eyes, nice hair, and a square jaw.
I find them both to be good looking, and when I see them in photos, especially when dressed up and smiling, they are just stunning.
It got me to thinking…does everyone find their parents to be good looking people due to conditioning? I mean they’re the first people we love. We love looking at them when we’re babies. We see ourselves in them.
I have a good relationship with my parents (some days are more rocky than others, especially with dad) so knowing them so intimately might make me see them better than someone who doesn’t know them. It could be that people with bad relationships with their parents see them as ugly old hags.
Being that I only have one set of parents, I just have no frame of reference outside my own experience.
So what do you guys think? Do you find your parents to be good looking because of science, or am I just a one-off?
I didn’t have a particularly good relationship with my mother, but I’d say she was considered above-average in looks by most conventional beauty standards. She suffered from excessive vanity throughout her life which no doubt caused her much anxiety but because she was so concerned about her dress and appearances she almost always looked the part.
I had a somewhat better relationship with my father but would describe him as being decidedly average in appearances. That he was fit and was 6’ tall, was counteracted by the fact that he was balding and had glasses.
My dad has always, even now when he’s north of 70, looked like a young Jimmy Buffett. He’s always been tall and skinny with a walrus 'stache and favors Hawaiian shirts. I look nothing like him. I’m tall but fat and my hair is thinning and I can’t grow a thick mustache.
My mom is… hell if I know. She’s had mobility issues for 20 years so on a really, really good day walks stooped over with a cane. Usually she walks with a walker. I’ve never really thought about whether or not she’s good looking, although I suppose she was when she was younger. Now she’s a crippled old alcoholic with dementia who can barely do her own ADL’s despite only being 66.
I see a picture of my dad when he was young and he looks basically the same – today maybe a few more wrinkles and grey hair instead of blond hair. I see a picture of my mom from even 20 years ago and I barely recognize her.
I don’t see them as ugly or good looking, I guess. I see my mom as someone who is slowly destroying her life due to years of poor health decisions and addiction and my dad as just a normal aging guy.
I’ve seen old photos of my parents. My dad looked very dorky/nerd-ish around high school and college age but now he has aged into a good dignified older look; its kind of like the saying about how some people age like wine; getting better.
My mom on the other hand was very pretty around that same college age (when she married my dad) but now looks like…an average typical 64-year old.
In my mom’s high school picture, she’s so beautiful it knocks you back two steps.
For most of her life, she was above average…nice shape, pretty hair, dimples, and a vivacious personality.
She is in her seventies now, the effects of smoking and sunbathing have shown up.
I don’t clearly know what my dad looked like, but from seeing old pictures, I might say he was a cross between John Denver and Daniel Radcliffe. A cute guy with glasses.
My mom, I’m sorry to say, was not good looking at any age(though she had a very nice figure as a young woman). She was very aware of this and I felt bad for her all my life. My dad wasn’t “ruggedly handsome” but but had really appealing quality. Tall and thinnish, he was always tan and he got a kick out of the fact that his nickname around the neighborhood was “Legs”. These are my adopted parents (though to me they’re simply my parents).
As for my bio parents, who I wondered about my whole life if for no other reason than to understand where I get my looks, mother was never what I would call pretty from early pictures I’ve seen. She is now ravaged by lifelong smoking and sun and looks about 90 years old (she’s 74). Bio father was good looking (and was apparently quite a player). He’s 80 and could pass for late 50s.
When I saw pictures of my mom in her 20s, I immediately thought she could have been a model. She was tall for her generation, thin (she thought she was too skinny), and very photogenic. There’s one picture I have a copy of that was taken by a street photographer when she was about 19 or 20. It could have been from a magazine photoshoot…except for her bratty younger sister (my much beloved Aunt Marg) hanging on her hand.
I think my dad was above average, had rather a large nose, though, and wore glasses. We’re first cousins (in his case, twice removed; in my case, thrice-removed) of the poet Robinson Jeffers. If you look up pictures of him and imagine him with glasses, that’s very close to my dad.
I’ve never even considered this about my mom until recently (I’m in my 40s, she’s mid-60s). I think maybe it occurred to me while I was pondering how some people seem to enter romantic relationships so effortlessly, and she is one of them. I think she and her siblings and most of my family are good looking. She’s thin (never been overweight), average height, nice long hair, probably classically good looking symmetrical facial features and so on.
Never really knew my biological father, but he’s tall with I would say a well above-average build. Always been lean but muscular looking. Even in his late '60s. Didn’t have to commit to spread his genes and have relationships. Always managed to get by fairly well without a lot of the typical career choices. Signs point to good-looking.
Same. Since I look like my dad, my mother and sister (who looks just like her) treat me like some exotic bird crossed with a movie star. Very annoying, and has resulted in a distinct lack of closeness, because they have no idea who I am; they just have some fantasy version they’ve built up in their minds.
My dad was very good looking, tall and thin (until the old man beer belly caught up with him). His Air Force photo would cause almost anyone to swoon.
I realize this post sounds like a not-so-subtle brag, but I’ve reached the middle-aged woman invisible years, so trust me, I’ve been put in my place.
Oh no, I get it. I’m no supermodel, but I’m the “good looking one” in the family (none of which comes from “my family” if that makes sense). It’s hard to grow up not resembling anyone in your family but if I’m being honest, I feel a bit fortunate that I have another set of genes that allowed me to have a different appearance,
I was recently watching some old home videos with my cousins, and one was of a wedding of an older aunt. At one point my mother appeared, in her 20s, and one cousin commented that she looked like a movie star. This would be back in the '30s, and indeed she looked like a movie star of that era. But that video didn’t show her legs. She had BEAUTIFUL legs, even when she was elderly.
I suppose I always thought of my father as, at best, average. In fact, his entire side of the family had less than average looks. The real lookers were in my mother’s family.
It wasn’t until my parents were both gone that I bothered to look up pictures of them as newlyweds. They were a beautiful couple. I’ve since showed their pictures to friends who agree.
When I was young, my family was used as photo subjects to illustrate “Summertime” in the newspaper. My parents were both good looking, and the opposite of rich.
My mom was a very good looking person when young, and later in life I learned that she saw herself as a beauty, but not in a showy vain way. She became a major Avon Lady in the area, and I think that was “on brand” for her, as it were. However, being very slender and smoking and sun and small town life aged her out of good looks.
Dad? Nah, very average blue collar guy. He was also “husky” when young, and became very obese later in life. I inherited his looks facially, and my mothers build.
My father was a handsome man, my mother plain at best and then only on a good day. This only bolsters a bunch of circumstantial evidence I have that they “had” to get married.
My parents (now deceased) were very good looking people. In fact they were periodically complimented on it but neither let the compliments affect them. Neither were at all narcissistic.
