Finding The Joys Of Skating In Her Late 40s

Hey Lindsey, thanks for being here. Can you start with where you're from?

I guess I say I'm from Texas, but I've been out east now for almost as long as I lived in Texas. I grew up in West Texas, went to Texas A&M, and then moved out here to this part of the country with my husband, then boyfriend, who was working for a government contractor in DC. Leaving Austin was the most painful thing of my life. I loved Austin. We moved out this way with the goal of us getting back to Austin. But here we still are.

And y’all are now based in Charlottesville?

Yep. We moved here in 2017 from the DC area, and honestly, I love it so much. I'm really glad that the Universe kind of set us on this path and that we did not end up back in Texas. I just think it's such a great place to raise kids and I'm so in love with this area and this part of the country. I’ll still be driving around and see the Blue Ridge in the background and I'm like, damn, I can't believe we live here.

Do you and your family lean into the outdoor community?

Yeah, yeah, we're campers, and my husband's very big into bike riding. But as a family we all kind of bike ride together and stuff.

So tell me about skating, and your journey getting into it.

I'm a kid of the 80s. So of course I skateboarded as a kid, but there I was out in flat West Texas. I didn't know any other skateboarders (or any other girl skateboarders, that's for sure). And so it didn't last that long. And then fast forward to when we lived in DC, my husband and I both bought longboards because we thought that would be a great plan to cruise around the city to go to bars and restaurants. I mean, it wasn’t the safest, but it was fun. Then we moved over onto the Maryland side and had our kids there, and that was kind of the end of the longboards for us. 

Then fast forward to my now nine year old - when she was seven, she decided she wanted to start skateboarding. So we just took her over to Cinema and got her a complete and got her into the summer skate camp and eventually into classes during the school year. So I just was at the park a lot with her.

Who were the camps and classes through that she attended?

The Parks and Rec Department here in town, which is amazing. I love it so much, It's so accessible to much of the population here in town. I love all the guys that run that camp.

But yea, I was just out there watching and noticed there were no grown women skating.

Every once in a while I would see roller skater women, but no women skateboarding. I remember just wishing I had done this when I was younger. I didn't have access to a park or anybody, and I thought to myself ‘this looks so fun’. And so finally I kind of started just bringing my longboard out while she was in class and just kind of playing around just kind of in the flat areas on my longboard. And I was like, ‘this is fun, but I really would love to do all the other cool shit I see everybody else doing around the park.’ But I also just had this feeling like, God, I'm like in my mid 40s. I can't do this. I can't. I'm gonna get hurt. 

Then the social media algorithm introduced me to Aunty skates, and her whole message was like ‘it's not too late’. I mean, she had never been on a skateboard until she was 43 years old. Her husband was a really great skater, and her kids started skateboarding, and she was like, ‘I'm just sick of sitting on the sidelines watching my family skateboarding’. She was like, I don't care. I'm just doing this. 

And so I just sort of followed her on Instagram and then I went and I bought a board from Cinema for myself and went in and got a board that was NOT a longboard. And then I see Auntie’s holding a skate retreat in Costa Rica, but all I knew how to do is just push around. But I just started emailing her and next thing I knew I'm signed up for the retreat and I'm going!

It was really amazing. I had never been on anything like that, but I had never had so much fun. It felt like being a teenager again. I was with all these women who I didn't know, and we all became instant besties. We skateboarded every morning, and then there were all kinds of other things in the retreat. We had a couple of surfing lessons, we had yoga classes, we did breath work, we did ice plunges; so much. 

And the skate scene was really awesome. I mean, the amount of women that were out there; I was just blown away.

Like, there was a mother out there who had a brand new baby and she would bring him in his carrier. She would feed him, put him in his carrier, and other women would sit there and talk to him and make sure he was okay while she would go get a few runs in the bowl. 

It was just such a welcoming environment for all of us women, because there we were this group of 12 women that were not very good skateboarders that we're just taking up a lot of space in the park. And the locals all just thought it was awesome. They were cheering for us and helping us and it was just a great scene. And the skate shop opened while we were there. They didn't have a skate shop before, and it was a woman-owned shop.

On that trip. I got addicted to the idea of needing to find other women to skate with. I knew I couldn't recreate this magical amazing trip in Charlottesville, but I was determined to just find some women to skate with in Charlottesville.

Yeah, how has that been trying to find other women skaters in Charlottesville?

I mean, it's happening. I created my Instagram account for the sole purpose of meeting women in the area and it is just slowly starting to work. I've had two women so far that I've skated with that found me just on their ‘For You’ page. I'm just happy to find other women that are wanting to skate.

There's also this group of men that are 50+ that are out there skating, and they're all really good, but it just feels like a really safe and welcoming environment for me - now in my late 40s. That’s important to me.

Tell me more about your social account. How did you decide on your handle name?

So ‘Hot Moms’ has kind of just been my brand for years. It started during the pandemic. I had created ‘Hot Moms of Charlottesville’ during COVID lockdown to do fundraising for local charitable foundations that really needed help; to serve the underserved in our community families that were really struggling during the pandemic. 

And that name has made me so much more confident in myself.

I hate it when I hear women talking bad about themselves. They hate their appearance, they're not confident in their work, their skill. I mean, it’s just like this big societal problem that we have as females existing in the world.

So I used that ‘Hot Moms’ branding across several different Instagram accounts, and created ‘Hot Moms of Skateboarding’. 

And it's not about being a ‘hot mom’. I mean, I’m fully aware of my age and those ‘hot’ days are well behind me. But I feel more confident in my skin than I've ever felt before, even more than when I worked in the fitness industry for 20 years. When you're 47 years old, you got your shit together, and know the world now. We know how things work, we know who we are, and it's just really about putting that as the first thing forward and kind of claiming our space as women and not letting other people tell us how to view ourselves.

How would you say that's been received either in the community or online?

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely some pros and cons. A lot of people are really receptive to it, even men. And not in a creepy way. But for the most part it is a very positive response.

The cons I would say are from angry men that just do not like women. I get comments like, “where are the hot moms?” Or you’ll see I make posts about these creepy dudes sending me DMs. I had a guy respond and say “well what kind of comments do you expect to get with a name like ‘hot moms?’” 

I am allowed to exist. I'm allowed to identify however I want, and that is as a hot mom, and I know arguing with people on the internet is not a good idea. And I do ignore most of the negative comments, but I also do feel a responsibility to call out the misogyny when I see it.

I know I have a very specific personality that is not the case for most women, and so I do feel a responsibility to clap back at that kind of shit because not every woman has the sharp tongue that I have. There's literally nothing anyone can say that hurt my feelings. I'm just a person alive on the planet, and your opinion or what you say has nothing to do with me.

What would you say to the women out there, even the beginners, that are kind of going through that early phase of struggling with self-confidence or even showing up at the park as a beginner?

Yeah, that's a big thing I hear from women in my DMs - that they’re just nervous to show up at the park. But I would say that 99% of the people at the park are actually real cool and very welcoming. When I was learning to drop in over on the street side of our park, there were these dudes with face tattoos banging their boards for me and fist bumping me like they are stoked to see that there is this old lady up there in the park learning to drop in. They thought it was badass.

And yes, people are people, and there's gonna be shit people at the park. That's just anywhere you go in life. But the majority of the skaters are just really stoked to see people learning to skate there, as long as you're respectful of their space and make sure you learn the flow of the park. 

That's really important to make sure you understand you just can't cut across the center of the park, and that you have to learn skate park etiquette. As long as you're respecting that, you have a right to be there. It's a space built for skating and if you're out there skating - take up your space. I think that's such an important part of building confidence in yourself is knowing that you have a right to be here skating. 

I work really hard to make sure my kids are doing things that make them happy and bring them joy. But other than going to dinner with my girlfriends, I was like, what was I doing for myself? It gives me a sense of freedom and joy that I haven't experienced since I was a single woman living on my own doing whatever the fuck I wanted whenever the fuck I wanted.

Obviously, I can't go skate whenever I want because my kid’s schedules do come first. I have to make sure they are where they're supposed to be and they’re not like getting sucked into their iPads.

But skating has taught me that finding joy and creating joy for myself isn’t just important for me, but for the happiness of my family. 

We had a bunch of really hard personal things happen in the years leading up to the pandemic and then post pandemic. Just things that happen to people over the course of their lifetime all kind of happened to us, boom, right on top of each other. And I just was living a very dark existence for years for years and years.

But now I just feel joy on a daily basis, and I'm like, this is so new. Of course I still get joy of watching my children experience life. But this is joy that I've created by myself. It's this whole other life that I've created for myself since January and it is so fulfilling and it scares me to think that I didn't have that before, or what if it went away.

I mean, it really has been life-altering. It really has. I mean, I feel like I had done a lot of work on myself to get to where I was before skating. And adding that too; that’s just made me feel like anything's possible.

And when bad things do pop up, I'm like “this is a data point. This isn't a trend. I get to go skate tomorrow.” And that's another thing that happens every time I leave the park. Every single time. I think to myself, “I am so lucky I get to learn new things and get to meet new people.” I get to just experience this whole different side of my life. I get to do that, and I feel so grateful every single time.

Any specific shoutouts?

I love the Parks and Rec Department. I love all the guys working in that program. I'm not gonna name them all. There's a ton of them. All the women that I've become friends with through that Retreat. Like we all keep in touch with each other daily. We're all actually gonna go on a trip together again in the fall that's not a retreat; just all of us are bringing our boards and hitting a bunch of parks in Toronto. We're all excited for that. And every single one of us signed back up to go to the retreat in January. And of course a big shoutout to Aunty Skates. I know I wouldn't be where I am with skating without her. She really showed me that anything is possible, and to not let your age get in the way. I know she gets a lot of joy out of knowing what we've all gained from it, but I just don't know that she really understands how deeply she has changed all of our lives. And I'm just so grateful to have crossed her path. I mean look how emotional I'm getting just talking about her. I just love her so much. 

You're doing incredible things with your platform and are so inspiring, and appreciate your time coming on here to share the story.

It's so funny because I'm like, yes, my less-than-mediocre skating is somehow inspiring. And it's not about what your skill level is out there. It's just experiencing that feeling of flying and freedom.

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Lindsey | @hotmomsofskateboarding