When you sail into your 30s, 40s and beyond, few feelings are better than someone mistaking you for a “young” person. But a recent trip to Target led to an unexpected encounter with some teens that reminded one woman that age really is just a number.
Desi (@desi_seabird) shared the story. Though she doesn’t say her age, she describes herself as a mom who’s been in a fashion rut for a while.
It wasn’t until she stopped at Target and found herself drawn to some olive green flared leggings that she wondered if she should treat herself to a new pair — especially now that the flare leg look is returning.
“They reminded me of ones I picked up in high school and, you know, still have to this day,” she explains in the video. But as she was looking at them, a group of girls “just popped out of nowhere” and started thumbing through the same rack.
Desi was going to put the olive leggings back when one of the teens noticed them and told her how cute they were.
“Yeah, I should probably get them for my daughter,” Desi mumbled back.
“Or get them for you!” one of the girls told her.
“I don’t know if it was the direct tone, but I kind of panicked and said, ‘I think I’m too old to wear these,'” Desi recalled.
But the confusion on the girls’ faces made her question herself.
“I was kind of caught off guard for conversation, so I started mumbling how this section’s kind of like the juniors younger people section,'” Desi went on.
“‘I don’t know, would I look funny wearing these?'” she asked the girls.
Two of the teens started to tell her no when the third jumped in with a question she wasn’t expecting:
“Wait,” the teen said, “it doesn’t matter what we think — what do you think?”
That one simple question gave Desi pause, but what followed next might just be one of the best hype talks/girl chats we’ve heard in a while.
At first, the mom said that while she liked the leggings, she wasn’t sure if she would actually wear them. And when the girls pressed her more on why, she admitted that she feared they wouldn’t go high enough to hide her midsection, which is one of her insecurities.
But instead of letting it go, one of the girls said, “Mmm, I used to feel that way too and it’s really hard now that everything’s crop topped.”
“Yeah, I used to only wear hoodies, even in the summer, because I didn’t want people commenting on my body,” one of the other girls chimed in. “But then I stopped giving a f*** and started wearing what I like. And sometimes people at school do comment on what I wear, but what I think about how I look lasts longer than what they think.”
That’s when the third piped up.
“Besides, unless someone tells you, you don’t know what other people think. They might not even be thinking about you,” she said wisely.
In the end, Desi decided to go for the pants and walked away with newfound body confidence — thanks to three teenage girls she had never met before.
The TikTok has since gone viral, receiving more than 1.1 million views and thousands of comments from people who loved the wholesomeness of this story.
“dude, did you get free therapy in target?” one person jokingly asked.
“All 4 of you just made MY day,” added someone else.
While all the comments were positive, most kept returning to one central theme: This next generation of kids seems to be getting it right.
“Wow, these kids are amazing,” one person wrote. “I didn’t reach that level of confidence/DAF until I was in my 40’s!”
“This has real drunk-girls-in-the-bathroom energy,” said another. “Except Gen Z is just like this all the time!”
In fact, the praise for Gen Z just kept on coming.
One person noted that “Gen Z are just built different,” while another said they were “optimistic about how my generation will change the world.”
“My daughter is 20 & she drops stuff like this on me all the time,” one mom shared. “I’m SO PROUD of her generation.”
“THESE YOUNGER GENERATIONS GIVE THE WORLD SO MUCH HOPE,” said someone else.
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