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.)