“Kathy….it’s time…”
She waved the training bra in the air and I felt my face turn 50 shades of red. I mean, she was right…it WAS time. I had been stealing my sister’s bras for months and I definitely needed my own. I just didn’t think it would happen like that. My mother waving my first bra back and forth at me in the intimate apparel section of a department store. I guess I was just hoping to open my dresser drawer one day to find she had quietly slipped my first bra in there, but that wasn’t the case. Of course not. That would have been too easy.
And of course she bought only one…with no real instructions on how exactly to care for it. How often are you supposed wash one of these things? Shouldn’t I have at least two? Quite frankly I couldn’t afford to wash it because I needed to wear it everyday. When you go to a Catholic school in seventh grade and your daily uniform consists of a plaid skirt and a thin white turtleneck, it becomes very clear which girls definitely need to be wearing bras and which girls don’t. Or was I the only pervert who noticed those things?
The tag said to wash it by hand. I suppose I could have locked myself into the bathroom to scrub my bra by myself like all of the other 13 year olds were surely doing, but wouldn’t it be wet the next day? Could I throw it in the wash? Do I wash my one bra every single day? What was the protocol here!?!
Apparently my mother thought that pretty little training bra she waved at me was going to last me FOREVER, because nothing ever followed. I had no choice but to continue stealing my older sisters bras.
It wasn’t until my junior year in high school that one of my best friends slept over and when it was time to get ready for bed I left my bra on. She was all, “do you SLEEP in that?” and I was all, “well DUH…of course I do!” and she was all, “like every night or just because I’m here?” and I was all, “we’re not supposed to sleep in them every night???”
I had been wearing it to bed for YEARS.
My brain missed that chip where it just tells you how to take care of yourself properly. When I confronted my Mom with news of my “monthly cycle” one of her replies was, “Well Kathy, you might find you’re yourself wanting to take showers more often and maybe everyday instead of quarterly…” and I was all, “Showers?? No. Not really feeling like that at all.”
Out of the four of us girls, I was the only one to confront Mom with news of my monthly cycle. “You TOLD her??” My sisters were all quite amused with the fact that I actually instigated that conversation with our modest mother. We were ALL modest. No one wanted to be talking about things like bras and p-e-r-i-o-d-s.
I defended myself, “I thought I was SUPPOSED to tell her, what with all the bra waving she did, I thought she wanted to know!” And my sisters were all, “What bra waving!?! Mom didn’t wave bras at us!”
So I’m the only one who gets to live with that lovely memory.
Thanks Mom.
Andrea says
I feel you. I lived a looooong time with So Many Questions unanswered. How I wished we had Google back then. Moms always assumed we knew better.
We did not.
Mama Kat says
I know, and now I try to tell my daughter and she looks at me like “Duh…I already know everything.” That doesn’t stop me though. I’m not taking any risks!…Can’t have her writing a future blog post about me now can we? ;)
Jamie says
Love it. I had a friend who was do scared to ask her mom about her periods and she thought something is terribly wrong with me. I’m dying. It’s hard to believe she hadn’t heard anything from friends but this was the conservative (translate very modest) South — so maybe she hadn’t ever heard of such a thing by the time she started “the curse.” I remember wearing my bra the first day of school and “my friends” all talking about me behind my back. One was telling everyone I stuffed it with TP. Not because I was curvy but because it had lace on it and it looked bumpy. Nice.
Mama Kat says
“The Curse”…I am cracking up. What an accurate name for it!
Natalie says
Man, Google would’ve made life so much easier back in the day!
Mama Kat says
Right? Although Lord knows the stupid stuff I would have posted. Perhaps it was a fine trade to not have the internet in order to salvage any sort of dignity.
John Holton says
I can assure youi, having been a seventh grade boy in a Catholic school (almost 50 years ago), the boys knew which girls did and didn’t need a bra… Our girls’ uniforms included a tight-fitting vest that kept (or tried to keep) the boys’ minds on learning, and now that I see this, I guess, tried to keep the girls’ minds off of who was bigger and smaller than they were.
In other news, cute picture! Were you the taller or the shorter of the girls?
Mama Kat says
So funny, yes I’m sure the boys DID notice now that you mention it! I am the taller girl in the picture standing with my little brother (who is 6’9 now) and my little sister (also 6 feet tall)…we grew up!
Abby says
This was funny. For you too, right??
I have no memory of my mom waving training bras at me in a department store, thank God. I’ve probably just repressed it. I did somehow know to take it off at night. As the only daughter with two older brothers, I don’t know how I survived puberty without google.
Mama Kat says
It’s definitely funny to look back on. In the moment I was embarrassed, but also a little relieved to finally have my own bra. I managed! lol
Emily says
My mom was laid up in bed with a broken leg when I was eleven and my aunt declared, “You need a bra!” and took me bra shopping. I remember thinking “I do???” That was a little embarrassing.
Mama Kat says
I was pretty modest too. I just wanted to blend in…don’t notice my growing body please!
Gigi says
I don’t remember my first bra (probably a blocked memory from the shame). My mom did make a point of telling me about my impending period but neglected to teach me the finer points of being a girl – she didn’t do “girlie” things. I remember a few years a friend asked me to tie a a square (?) knot on the back of her dress and I was like “what??” Simple things like that have eluded me all my life – until the invention of Google – it must be a life saver to the young girls now.
Mama Kat says
If only we had Google!! It’s certainly a life saver as a parent!
Elaine Alguire says
My mom and I hit up J.C. Penney and I’m pretty sure I got at least 2 of them. She took care of washing them though… They were both beige. :)
Mama Kat says
It sounds like you were off to a good start with exception to the beige. Which is the color of the bra I’m wearing right now because old.
carol says
Funny! One of my daughter’s and I just had this conversation this morning.. Period’s and bra’s. Both are awkward and trigger a wide range of memories and emotions. Sometimes I rather not think about how awkward it was as a girl and even more awkward as a mother. Silly, isn’t it?