The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters

by Jeffrey Zaslow

  By the 1990s, though, things had changed. Brides had it in their heads that they needed to hit several stores. Long shopping excursions became a bridal tradition. A bride might try on dresses for several hours, then leave the store, never to be seen again.

  “Can you write down everything about that dress for me?” they’d ask Shelley, and what could she do? She obediently wrote down the price, style, whatever they wanted.

  These days, the search for a gown has become a weeks-long quest. “It’s the great, fun, happy circus,” says Shelley. And it’s a lot more man-hours for her saleswomen.

  Shelley hears brides on their cell phones, sitting in the fitting rooms. “I’m here at Becker’s today with my mom, but I’m free Wednesday to hit the other stores with you,” one says, not even in a whisper.

  At Becker’s, the first visit is usually one in which the brides bring their mothers, and these days, that can stretch to four hours without a sale. A few days later, they’ll come back with girlfriends or sisters. Then maybe their mothers-in-law or aunts. Eventually, they’ll show up with their mothers again, and maybe their fathers, but even then, with dads eager to pay and be on their way, a decision might be put off.

  “They just don’t want the fun to be over,” says Shelley. “The shopping is the experience.” She has had to hire more workers just to hold brides’ hands and reassure them, dress after dress, that they look terrific. “Bridal has become such a time-intensive purchase,” Shelley says. “It takes so much longer to close a sale.” It can be frustrating for her salespeople, who sometimes resent all the work they put in without making a sale. But Shelley understands that brides don’t want to feel bullied into buying a dress too quickly. And so she needs to orchestrate a delicate dance between brides and her salespeople to find the appropriate mix of anticipation, emotion, and commerce.

  At bridal-industry trade gatherings, Shelley has heard all the alleged tricks of the trade: Don’t start by showing a less-expensive dress; if a bride falls in love with it, she’ll be less interested in buying a pricier dress. If a bride seems hesitant about getting married, her salesperson has to be reassuring about the institution of marriage and upbeat about wedding planning. “My wedding was the happiest day of my life,” a saleswoman is supposed to say.

  Shelley with her trusty measuring tape on a stack of outdated gowns

  “I never felt more beautiful.” A divorced saleswoman might seize on the happiest wedding story in her family. In attitude and conversation, bridal shop employees are told, they should give brides the message that the day they buy a gown is one of the most important days of their lives. (Indeed, Kleinfeld, the famous New York bridal store, sends letters to brides who make an appointment: “We believe the day you choose your wedding gown should be as joyful and memorable as the day you wear it.”)

  Consultants in the bridal industry also tell salespeople to watch the body language of a bride’s entourage. Is there tension or affection between everyone? Is a bride dependent on friends’ and relatives’ approval or is she sorry she brought them? Can the entourage be deputized into advocating for a particular dress, so a sale can be closed? If so, engage them as allies.

  Salespeople are encouraged to be on the lookout for the “‘Oh, Mommy’ moment.” If a bride looks in a mirror and says, “Oh, Mommy!” that’s when a salesperson should say, “Why don’t we go downstairs to the counter and put a hold on the dress?”

  Shelley isn’t comfortable with such hard-sell efforts masked in nurturing empathy. She wants her saleswomen to be personable and helpful, but pushing customers into purchases can backfire. The “Oh, Mommy” moment can become “Oh, Mommy, don’t make me wear this horrible dress they sold me!” And so she encourages her saleswomen to be positive and engaging, but to sell with subtlety rather than high-pressure tricks.

  The jewelry industry has advertised that as a rule of thumb, a groom should spend two months’ salary on an engagement ring. Shelley knows that this is no less self-serving than if the pickle industry announced that the rule of thumb is to spend two months’ salary on pickles. Each Becker’s customer has her own needs and price points, and Shelley has learned that it’s counterproductive to not respect that.

  Routinely, Shelley’s saleswomen are called on to serve as referees between mothers and daughters. They partly blame TV reality shows; brides watch Bridezillas and assume that’s expected behavior. “They think it’s fair game to act that way,” Shelley says. “Some women throw fits for no reason.”

  Especially during alterations, brides get testy when the smallest stitch seems wrong. Many want the dress curved at the bustline. “Go tighter, tighter,” one says.

  “We can’t go any tighter,” Shelley responds. “It will stress the zipper.”

  “I don’t care about the zipper,” the bride says. “I need it tighter.”

  “I can’t do it,” Shelley says. “It won’t work. I’m sorry.”

  “Mom?!” the bride shouts to her mother across the room. “Can you come here and tell her I don’t care about the zipper?”

  Shelley smiles tightly and resists saying anything while the mother tells her, “She’s not really concerned about the zipper. She needs it tighter at the bust.”

  Though a lot of brides are lovely and respectful, the stereotype of the dictatorial bride exists because it’s often true. Part of it is the stress of all they need to accomplish before their wedding. But there’s also more of a cultural sense of entitlement that seems to increase every year. A wedding has become the moment in a woman’s life when she can vocally and endlessly obsess about herself, and no one calls her on it.

  Shelley’s mother, Sharon, says there was far less drama when she ran the place in the 1970s. Sales were sealed without much angst. “Mothers and daughters didn’t argue the way they do today,” she says. “There wasn’t the cursing and disrespect. Back then, a bride was just tickled to get a dress. If a girl talked to her mother the way I see some girls talking in the store today, she’d have been slapped in the face.”

  Sharon attributes the changes not just to a coarsening of the culture, but to how families are structured. “Families are smaller now. Years, ago, in large families, there were lots of hand-me-downs. Kids were happy to get anything. Some parents today, in these small families, give kids everything they want.” Mothers are more eager to please daughters nowadays, and less willing to cross them, Sharon says. “A mother might have two children, but only one is a daughter. And so she clings to her one daughter.”

  Watching mothers and daughters interact at Becker’s today, you can see how they reflect the changes in the wider culture. When Grandma Eva was born in 1900, parents resisted showing too much affection to their children. Experts warned them that hugging or kissing kids spoiled them and spread diseases. Plus, because so many children died in infancy, mothers feared bonding with a child they might lose. A mother’s primary responsibility was to keep her kids alive, not to nurture them.

  When Shelley’s mom Sharon was raising her in the 1960s, mothers were following Dr. Spock, who told them “you know more than you think you do. Trust your own common sense.” His books led mothers to become more indulgent and fathers to become more involved. (In the 1970s, feminists complained about Dr. Spock’s advice that fathers should compliment their daughters on their pretty dresses. He pulled the reference from his book, but fathers had already embraced the idea. It’s a rare dad who visits Becker’s and doesn’t compliment his daughter on her pretty dress.)

  In many ways, young women today are much closer to their parents than past generations were. Thanks to cell phones and texting, they’re in constant touch—by the hour, by the minute—especially with their mothers. And there are factors beyond technology, too. Echoing Shelley’s mom, researchers looking at this new “era of attachment” cite the influence of fewer daughters per mother. They also say that because young women are marrying later, there’s more time to stay connected to their parents.

  In past generations, women were usua
lly on their second or third child by their midtwenties. They were nursing babies, straightening playrooms; they didn’t have time to call their moms all day with incremental ruminations about their lives. In 1970, just 4 percent of women giving birth for the first time were over age twenty-nine. Today, almost a quarter of women are in their thirties when they have their first children, so they’ve often logged an extra decade bonding with their mothers—or arguing with them.

  A large swath of brides today grew up coddled, with hovering parents who put great emphasis on spending time with them and saying yes to them. In polls, almost three-quarters of today’s parents say they’re easier on their kids than their parents were on them. One byproduct of that: Giving kids the soft life makes parents more popular. Nine out of ten young women today say they have a good relationship with their parents—that’s up about 20 percent from the 1980s.

  Parental coddling has changed how Americans today view themselves and their adult children. Most don’t think adulthood begins until about age twenty-six, according to a National Opinion Research Center poll. This attitude is partially fueled by parents who don’t know when and how to disengage. Temple University developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg recently published a revised edition of his 1990 book, You and Your Adolescent: A Parent’s Guide for Ages 10–20. Only this version defines adolescents as “ages 10–25.”

  But here’s the odd thing: While young people are taking their time reaching adulthood, they’re simultaneously leaving childhood more quickly. Fifty-five percent of parents believe childhood is now over at about age eleven, according to another survey. The signs are certainly there: Parents see their preteen daughters dressing provocatively and moving on quickly from the Disney Channel to the rawest MTV shows. Facebook, once restricted to college students, is now the province of thirteen-year-olds.

  So if childhood ends at eleven and adulthood doesn’t kick in until age twenty-six, where does that leave young women in the limbo years in between?

  Well, a lot of them are at Becker’s.

  Every day, Shelley observes this changing dance between mothers and daughters. She sees moms who can’t let go of their daughters, or their own youth. Some mothers, their bra-straps exposed, their outfits way too Olsen-Twins-chic for their age, talk of being their daughters’ best friends. “People think we’re sisters,” a daughter will say, but Shelley can’t tell if the young bride is happy about it. It can feel creepy.

  Truth is, many daughters today want their mothers close and attentive, but they don’t necessarily value Mom’s opinions and input. Unlike previous generations of brides, young women today are more peer-focused. That’s why so many of them arrive at Becker’s with a flock of bridesmaids. Moms still weigh in, of course, and a lot of them take charge—or try to. But brides often assume their bridesmaids know best.

  Certainly, in every generation daughters have found theirs mothers’ advice outdated and ineffectual. These days, however, given how fast the world is changing, there’s been a clear widening of the advice gap.

  It’s rooted in a devaluation of accumulated wisdom, a leveling of the relationship between old and young. “Age is no longer the qualifier for being the go-to person for advice,” explains Jason Dorsey, a thirty-two-year-old cross-generational consultant who helps companies understand Generation Y, which he defines as people who are now ages sixteen to thirty-two.

  Young people once had to rely on older people for basic advice. But now, if the young want to learn how to tie a tie, mix a drink, or plan a wedding, “we can go on YouTube and find a video,” says Mr. Dorsey. “We don’t call Mom and Dad.” He warns that parental advice needs to be worthy, or young people tune out. “We have extraordinarily short attention spans and lots of distractions. If we don’t like what you’re saying, we can pull the world through our cell phones.” (Indeed, brides at Becker’s are routinely on their BlackBerrys and iPhones—cruising the Internet for shoes or texting friends with questions—while their mothers stand by, waiting to get their attention.)

  Eighty-two percent of those now ages eighteen to twenty-nine believe there’s “a generation gap” in America, according to a Pew Research Center poll. That’s up from 60 percent in a similar poll in 1979, and even higher than the 74 percent registered in a 1969 poll, at the height of the youth rebellion movement. Back then, political and social issues created the gap between baby boomers and their parents. Today’s youth cite generational differences in “perspective,” “work ethic,” and “technology”—which helps explain why they dismiss their elders’ input.

  At Becker’s, for instance, more mothers lately have been telling the saleswomen that they tried to talk their daughters out of planning destination weddings. The moms argue that these weddings are inconvenient and expensive for guests, and they make the bride and groom seem self-indulgent. But on this issue, like so many others, parental advice often goes unheeded; the number of couples in the United States choosing destination weddings has quadrupled in the past decade, and now accounts for 16 percent of all weddings.

  On the Becker’s sales floor, Shelley encourages staffers to get a sense of each mother-daughter relationship and to recalibrate how they interact based on their observations. In years past, it was important for saleswomen to maintain eye contact with the bride’s mother, and to be deferential to her suggestions. Nowadays, the bride is usually the boss.

  Bill, the only man on the sales floor, finds that empowering today’s brides is good for business. “I don’t care what your mom thinks,” he’ll say to a bride. “I don’t care what your mother-in-law thinks. I want to know what you think. Do you like this dress?”

  “I do,” a bride will answer.

  “Perfect,” he’ll say. “That’s all that matters.”

  And yet, despite such pronouncements, Bill also has a heart for the mothers, at least when they’re buying their own dresses for their daughters’ weddings.

  He spends a lot of each day across Main Street, working in the Becker’s storefront that caters to bridesmaids and mothers of brides. He finds that about 15 percent of mothers of brides are looking for dresses that are too revealing and sexy. He has to gently tell them that no bride wants her mother to look like an exhibitionist or a spotlight stealer. Some mothers get the message. Others don’t care. They’re the cleavage-spillers who think they look like their daughters’ sisters.

  But a bigger issue, Bill says, is that too many mothers in their late forties, fifties, and sixties—perhaps 35 percent of customers—“play themselves older than they really are. They’re so focused on pleasing their daughters, so worried that they will pick something too sexy, that they end up floating over toward our grandmothers section. I have to tell them, ‘I understand. You don’t want to outshine your daughter. But you still want to look great. Look at your curves! You’re beautiful! And my goal is to make you look even more beautiful, to accentuate those curves.’”

  A lot of women blush when he speaks to them like that. “They haven’t heard these kinds of compliments in a long time,” he says. And he thinks he’s on to something that can be beneficial not just to the older woman, but to their daughters as well.

  These mothers may be waning beauties, but in this moment they can be role models for their daughters, showing them that it’s possible to get older with confidence and a measure of grace. Many young women don’t do a lot of thinking about what life will be like for them when they’re older, but when they get there, they can’t help but reflect on how their mothers found their way. Did their mothers age with self-assurance and a sense of adventure, or with feelings of dread and an urge to retreat?

  Bill uses the term “conservative sex appeal” to describe what defines a perfect mother-of-the-bride dress in Middle America in the second decade of the twenty-first century. “There are certain shapes, styles, colors,” Bill says. “I try to help them see the possibilities in themselves.”

  Bill often hugs mothers after they find the right dress, while their daughters, the bride
s, look on curiously. Some brides are glad to see their mothers getting attention and feeling special. Others are impatient. They want to get back to their own wedding needs and to-do lists.

  For years, when Bill managed the pizza shop on Main Street, the only glimpse he had of mothers and daughters interacting was when they discussed what kind of toppings they wanted on their pizzas. Now that he’s in the bridal business, Bill sees the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship.

  He follows no formal playbook when he talks to older women as their daughters stand nearby, watching him. He just trusts his instincts. “We want everyone at the celebration to know where the bride came from,” he’ll say to a mother. “By showing off your own beauty, you’ll be showing off the beauty of your daughter.”

  Most mothers smile at him, almost relieved, as they step away from the grandmother gowns and reassess their visions of themselves.

  The Beckers are in the magic business, but they’re still in the retail business, with all the attendant risks—from both mothers and daughters. One busy day several years ago, the most expensive dress in the store went missing; it had obviously been shoplifted. At first, speculation centered on the possibility that a bride carried it out in a garment bag, pretending she had just bought it. All the saleswomen were too distracted with other brides to notice. But then they recalled a bride who tried on a bunch of dresses, then left the store wearing a bulky, floor-length winter coat. Come to think of it, she did look much puffier in that coat when she left than when she came in. That may have been her getaway wardrobe.

  What kind of woman would do such a thing? Did her mother help her plot her escape from the store? Shelley tried to picture a bride wearing a stolen dress down the aisle, smiling at all her loved ones (or her posse of accomplices). What sort of wife would she make? Would a marriage to such a woman last? Did her fiancé know what she had done? Had he lifted his tuxedo from a formal store?