“Lucy came downstairs one night to ask if her ‘nipples should be sore.’ I instantly realized puberty was around the corner. She told her dad, who was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME, that she needed bras. I, the one with breasts, was right there! Fast forward to Target. I explained to my boys Lucy needed some plain bras. They were shocked. ‘What are bras for? She doesn’t look different. Why does she need them? Is she starting puberty?’ By taking them, the stigma was already GONE.”
‘My teenage boys helped me shop for their little sister’s first bras today…because breasts happen, y’all.’: Mom challenges ‘stigma’ of female puberty, ‘my boys know picking out a bra is no big deal’
‘Do you know what sex is?’ I pointed to the diagram. ‘I’m SIX, mom!’ He squirmed and furrowed his brows.’: Mom says we shouldn’t ‘have the sex talk,’ ‘we should have many’
“So, the ‘big talk’ was finished, right? Not even close. A year later, my son asked, ‘Mom, what is sex?’ after he heard a kid at school mention the word. I’d been patting myself on the back thinking my son was well-informed up to this point. I remember thinking, ‘Dear god, what if I’m too late?’ My instinct was to stall for time.”
‘If not your breasts, they’ll attempt to convince you your worth depends upon your thigh gap, complexion, weight.’ Mom shuts down 8-year-old daughter thinking her body is ‘flawed’
“My darling girl, there is something I must get off my chest before you grow into yours. As you get older, society, men, even some women, will try to convince you that your breasts — their size, shape, level of ‘perky’ — are what define you as a woman. Hear me clearly when I firmly inform you, they are wrong.”
‘I couldn’t hide the huge bumps on my face. I felt hideous. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I genuinely HATED what I saw.’
“A friend told me, ‘You must not be trying hard enough. Do you wash your face at all?’ For years, I didn’t leave the house. He would offer to take me on dates. My answer was always the same. ‘No.’ I became obsessed.”
‘Something strange happened. I began to cramp severely. I passed an object – I had no idea what was. I was a virgin, but it was like I had miscarried. The object was clear and full of veins.’
“This is very uncommon for your age. We normally don’t see anything like this in people under the age of 50. You need to have all the kids you want before we remove it. We will leave it in until you can’t handle the pain from it anymore.”
‘Tell me, CAN YOU EXPLAIN ALL THIS WEIGHT YOU’VE GAINED?,’ the Nurse says to my 13-year-old daughter’: Mom says young women need to be ‘empowered’ over normal childhood growth
“My daughter is speechless, and her eyes begin to glass over. I am speechless. LOST MY MIND. I had a literal, physical reaction. I put my hand up and said ‘STOP! You need to stop talking to my daughter about her weight.”
‘How can you treat me so well, after all I did to you?’ Daughter forgives dying, abusive mom to ‘show her what unconditional love really was’
“I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to cry myself to sleep every night. I didn’t ask to be verbally abused, nor did I ask for a mother that had not one nurturing bone in her body.”
