Jenice Armstrong: MILF tag: An ideal or an insult?

"Stacy's mom has got it goin' on

She's all I want and I've waited for so long

Stacy, can't you see

You're just not the girl for me

I know I might be wrong but I'm in love with Stacy's mom . . . "

- Fountains of Wayne

 SARAH MAIZES was a forty-something mother the first time a man referred to her as a MILF.

It's too crass to spell out, but you probably already know what it means. (Just in case, it's "Mom I'd Like to . . ." )

Most of us were introduced to this crude, backhanded compliment in the 1999 film "American Pie," about teenage boys trying to lose their virginity by prom night. In recent years, though, the term has gone mainstream, popping up on popular TV shows such as "30 Rock," "The Office" and Showtime's "Weeds."

After Maizes was called a MILF, she did what any other enterprising freelance writer would do. She put together a book proposal, found a publisher and now has a tongue-in-cheek guide to what she refers to as MILFdom. It's called "Got MILF? The Modern Mom's Guide to Feeling Fabulous, Looking Great and Rocking a Minivan" (The Berkley Publishing Group, $14).

"It's meant to be funny. [But] at the heart of it, it's meant to be inspirational," said Maizes, who will be signing the book tomorrow at the Rittenhouse Women's Wellness Center.

"I think every woman has the potential to be a MILF. A MILF is hot. It's not about your hair color. It's not about your weight. It's about your attitude."

"I've got to tell you, if there were no MILFs, we'd all be only children," joked Maizes, 45, who's also a stand-up comedian.

I'm a sucker for self-help books and anything that helps women feel better about themselves.

But c'mon. MILFs?

It sounds so high-school locker room. Why can't a young admirer just tell a woman, "You're beautiful," instead of having to bring in the motherhood element and adding sex to it? Calling a woman a MILF slams motherhood in general.

"A few years ago I went on a date, and the next day the guy text[ed] me and told me that his friends asked him how the date went, to which he replied that I was a MILF. You can bet that he never went on a second date with me," said Shannon Nelson, a Poconos-based beauty blogger and social-media consultant, in an email. "But if a woman says it, then it is taken with more humor than anything else - as if it is our own way to laugh at ourselves."

She's right about that.

In the right circles, MILF can be a fun, catchy concept right up there with cougar, which references older women who like younger men. It conjures up the notion of women staying on their game.

Though former supermodel Cindy Crawford has said, "I don't want to be a cougar; I want to be a MILF. I hate that word cougar and what it represents. MILF is a word I absolutely love."

Why? "I like that tag because I think there is a worry for all models that the moment you have kids the perception of you is going to change," she added.

Earlier this month, the Journal of Mental Health Counseling published a report that touched on the prevalence of the term, noting: "A quick Google of 'MILF' reveals over 59 million websites that use the term. Most carry pornographic pictures of middle-aged women. . . . Even though the term is blatantly sexist and objectifying, mothers who fear that they may no longer be considered sexually desirable may find themselves reassured by it if there are no other reassurances in their relationships and in their self-image."

There you have it.

I'm all for people feeling good about themselves. Maybe I should lighten up. As columnist Bonnie Fuller pointed out once in a Huffington Post piece about the proliferation of Hollywood stars older than age 40, "Call them cougars or call them MILFS; just don't call them over."

Send email to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: www.philly.com/HeyJen.

Rittenhouse Women's Wellness Center, 1632 Pine St., 5:30 tonight, $20, $10 members Center City Proprietors Association. Information, www.centercityproprietors.org.