Bikinis should only be worn by skinny young women, right? Wrong! My own mother proved that you’re never too old to overcome your bikini-fear.

“Marlies, thank you so much for the package, but you accidentaly sent me a bikini!” my mom sounded slightly panicked on the phone. Every summer, I like to spoil my mother and send her a box with my latest swimwear. Usually a bathingsuit, with a matching pareo, hat and bag. She loves the head-to-toe beach look and always looks like such a lady! But this year, I had decided to try something new and had included a bikini. “Mom, I think it will look amazing on you. Please try it.” During the protests that followed, I decided my mother was going to wear that bikini, no matter what.

My mother was born to wear a bathingsuit. I have a gorgeous picture of her, taken on the French Riviera a few years before I was born. You can tell the bathingsuit she wears is rather stiff and uncomfortable –as they used to be- but she is completely in her element. My working class mama channeling her inner diva.

So why would I try to pull her out of her comfortzone at 80? Well, first of all, I think you’re never too old to try something new. Secondly, there is just something so freeing about wearing a bikini. “You’ve always been covered up, mom. Just imagine the sun warming your belly!” I pointed out that it was a very modest bikini that offered a lot of support. She would only be showing a few inches of skin more than usual. She would still look like a lady. And so, after much harrassing, she gave in. She promised to bring the bikini to their usual holiday spot, a camping in Spain, and try it out.

Funnily enough, the first person I heard from was my father, not my mother. He was jubilant. “I get stopped an average of ten times a day by people telling me how amazing your mother looks!” My parents had been going to the same camping for decades, but apparently, my mother wearing a bikini made everybody see her through completely different eyes. Even my father had rediscovered her beauty. “I knew she was beautiful, but wow!” My mother laughed it off, but admitted: “You were right. I look good. And it’s the first time in my life that I have a tanned belly!”

That was two years ago, and my mother still loves to wear bathingsuits. But every now and then, she’ll put on a bikini. Just because she can.