I came of age in an era of high-waisted pants–“mom jeans” for everyone. It was a tragic look even for the lissome, but especially so for those of us with thick waists, who found our pouches all too accentuated by encasement in yards of denim. I happen to have a waist that’s several sizes larger than my hips, but vanity forbade me from buying pants that fit around the waist, because then they were too big in the hips and thighs. Consequently, for years I thought that ache in my back was a pulled muscle. It wasn’t until the advent of low-rise that I realized it was just the tight waistband exerting constant pressure on my spinal column.

Low-rise jeans were a revelation. But soon after they arrived, Aitch arrived, and I quickly found out why all the moms were sticking with mom jeans: to avoid showing their mom asses. All the kneeling and bending you do with a baby makes those low-rise jeans shimmy right into plumber’s butt territory.

I went shopping for new jeans. “You’ve been wearing the wrong size,” the saleslady told me. Even though I haven’t lost a pound, since my waist is so much bigger than the rest of me I was in the habit of buying everything to fit it. With low-rise pants, you don’t have to dress your muffin top, so it was an instant size reduction. But now I just had tighter jeans that were threatening to drop trou spontaneously with every deep knee bend.

What to do? Revert to mom jeans and suffer a vise-like grip around my waist, or stick with the low-rise and risk the indignity of my pants falling down?

I complained to Husband. “Don’t you have a belt?” he asked.

A belt!

I did not own a belt, because keeping my pants up had never been a worry with the high-waisted style. Putting them on, yes; keeping them on, no.

He gave me a belt for Christmas. It works like a charm. All my new low-rise pants stick right at my hips, like they’re supposed to. No more mom jean or plumber’s butt.

I love a low-tech solution.