My First Bra

[ailbhe]

I was out in town with my mother and my sister. I was about 13, ish - it's hard to know really. We were in a department store, but I don't know which one. In the underwear department.

Forgive me, this brings great hilarity and at the same time great "It's difficult to talk about this so. I'm going to do it in. Staccatto. OK? Ok. *deep breath*. OK," type feelings.

Anyway, I was trailing along, all four-foot-six of me, and looking longingly at the bra display. I was the only girl in the class who didn't have a bra. I had received a crop top for my thirteenth birthday, which I was very proud of until I got to PE class, where it was revealed to be not really a whole lot better than the woolly vest that preceded it. And as for the school trip where there were communal showers for after windsurfing - oh gods. I shudder even now.

Mum turned around and saw me, wistful and languishing, and said "You don't want a bra, do you?" very loudly. Or at least in normal, conversational tones, anyway, which is impossibly loud when you're discussing a first bra. I nodded as invisibly as I could. "But you don't need one," she bellowed, heartlessly. My eyes filled with tears. My feet dug little holes in the tatty carpet. I burrowed into the concrete floor.

I don't remember what happened next. The next thing I remember is standing in a changing cubicle with a horribly inadequate curtain, having worked out how to get the bra on, knowing the one I had was the smallest size in the shop. It was white cotton, 32AA, and the cups were empty. They flapped. Flap, flap, flap. It was awful.I think my little sister was there - if she was, she was sympathetic, because I don't remember any additional humiliation - just that I was the only girl in the school without a bra, and the smallest one available was miles too big. It burned. It flooded me with shame and self-loathing (I was a teenager, remember).

I don't think I told my mother it didn't fit, but she probably knew. She bought it anyway. She did know that there's more to a bra, when you're thirteen, than a support undergarment.

Ever since, I have worried about how I will deal with my own daughters' first bras.

(Comparatively recently, my mother was despatched to buy a 38DD or larger bra for me. I felt a little triumph.)

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I was definitely a weird teenager.

At thirteen, I looked like a nine-year-old. A brilliantly fit, streamlined, gazelle of a nine-year-old who could do sixteen consecutive feather-light back handsprings and come up barely out of breath. And I loved it. I was short, thin, curveless, flexible enough to frighten people because the positions I thought were fun ways to take a nap, they were sure must be painful, and my idea of feminine beauty was Nadia Comaneci in the 1976 films of her Olympic parallel bars routine.

I started to need a bra at fourteen and resisted kicking and screaming. I got too tall for gymnastics less than a year later. I took to wearing loose sweaters and crying when I saw dance movies. I wouldn't wear a bra regularly until I got to college, and I did so then only with enormous resentment. And then I started wearing minimizers.

It took having a baby and nursing her to make me feel at all happy about the fact that I own breasts, and I still think I could've done the same job with a lot less material in them. Someday, when I'm sure I've borne and fed all the children I am going to, I will get surgery to bring them down to a size I like. Meantime, I still wear minimizers, and button-down shirts that keep me from looking quite so big.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

I can beat that, in size if not in mother-based embarassment. Mine was a 30AA and still flappy. I can't recall whether I wanted it or not, but hated it once I'd got it and spent a lot of time in those grey crop top things that came with matching shorts style knickers. On the grounds they didn't have lace that brought me out in a rash.

[mrs-warwick.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't remember my first bra, but it was probably a hand-me-down. I was also at least 13, quite possibly older. My younger (step)sister was wearing bras long before me. It was difficult to find bras of the right size when I did start wearing them on a regular basis, not many shops stock 38A.

My nursing bras are 38E, but that was a little optimistic. Sometimes the 38D feels optimistic. Some of my female relatives have ended up smaller post breastfeeding than they were before pregnancy. I hope that doesn't happen to me.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

I was the same - my first bra was a handmedown and I campaigned for one because I was pretty much the only girl in the class not wearing one.

Weird, eh? Especially as I'm a G these days.

[artela.livejournal.com]

I had the opposite problem... try being the first girl in class who _has_ to have a bra... and your mother goes out and buys you a navy blue one with red trim - I spent the *whole* school year wearing a cardigan, no matter how warm it was, lest the deep blue and red show through the shirt!

[k425.livejournal.com]

I can't remember how old I was when I got my first bra, but it would be about the same as you. And, like you, it was a flat 30AA.

Very little has changed. I am now a 32A. When I was first breastfeeding I made it up to a 34D but now I'm back to a 32A.

There's a rant I need to write for my LJ, you know, or LadiesLoos - loads of women wear the wrong sized bra and I'm one of them. Because no-one makes a 32A nursing bra.

[ailbhe]

I'm a 36C (so what) C (so what - is that all that you've got?)buxom! and I feel so buxom!

[k425.livejournal.com]

Waaah!

I did enjoy being 34D - having a proper bust was quite a novelty.

And I quite like the fact that I don't need a bra now (except for the matter of nipples) but I do wish I could find a nursing bra to fit me...

[wenlock.livejournal.com]

My stepdad bought my first bra for me when I was 11, my Mom measured me, and sent him into town with the measurements. He also bought my first ST's,and he was the first person I told when I was asked out on a date. We have a great relationship.

I remember not wanting a bra, despite 'needing' one, I wasn't the daughter my mother thought she would have. I was into books and Radio4, not fashion and the charts.

My daughter is now 12, she doesn't want a bra, she wears croptops. I'll wait until she asks.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Ah, the memories of culture-clash. I was the only girl in seventh grade who wasn't wearing a bra, and I had more bust than the rest of the class. Mind you, nothing more happened after that. I get the impression that if one gets breasts early, they're more likely to be small.

Now, I don't exist. In your number scheme, I'd be something like a 40AA. (It's 16AA here. The closest size they actually sell is 14A, although most styles don't come in that size, and I've got to try all the ones that do, on to find the ones that stretch in the right ways and don't sag in the wrong ways.)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I had the opposite problem - breasts and periods in primary school :/ Meh.