Following on from "embarrassing things your parents did"..... did anyone find bra-shopping with their mum to be a lovely, enjoyable, bonding experience? Cos I am still sweating decades later...

[welliemum]

There seemed to be a "bra-shopping" theme developing on the other thread but I didn't want to derail that.

My memories of bra-shopping aged 13:
We didn't go until everyone else in the class had a bra. And I was quite big of nork. "Oh, you don't need a bra yet". Er, yes, I did.

I was excruciatingly self-conscious which my Mum thought was silly. So she used to whip aside the curtains in the changing room, exposing me to the whole shop. On purpose

This was in mediaeval times before the invention of Bravissimo et al, so the only bras in my size were horrendous old-lady heavily engineered things. Cue Mum encouraging me to wear tiny vest tops when what I really wanted to wear was a spacesuit.

My Mum was - and is - completely lovely. How could she have got this so horrendously wrong that I'm still getting sweaty palms thinking about it now?

My classmates seemed to be so cool about it all and I just wanted the earth to swallow me up.

Please tell me you weren't cool about bras at that age and make me feel better

My mum seemed to find the whole topic taboo - and I was the third girl in the family, so it's not like she hasn't been through it before! After trying to offload jumble sale bras on me she finally bought me a 2 pack of M+S 32A bras, handed them to me without a word and that was the end of that - from then on I bought my own and the topic was never again!

She never told me about periods, thank the Lord for "Just 17" magazine which taught me everything I know . When my 1st period started I went and told her, she gave me a pack of 10 towels. Two days later I had run out and went to ask her for more - v emnbarassed - said I needed more towels. She looked at me completely blankly and kept saying "Towels?Towels? What do you mean?" She had completely forgotton! Eventually she twigged. Anyway she got me some more but once again, that was the end of that, every month after that I was buying my own.

GroinAvengerCusack ??? [boggles]

ah welliemum it was from the thread where we stuck our RL names in an anagram website
I have only adopted half of the anagram of my ridiculously long name

Ah... the period talk, I knew babies grew inside women's tummies but I had not a clue about men having something to do with it, actually one of the things that puzzled me until I was about 14 years old was how on Earth a blind woman can have a baby that looks like the father!)

Obviously, my mother wouldn't encourage disscussion of the topic and all the period talk wa dealt as a taboo too. Then, my older sister had the misfortune of having her first period on a day we had an extended family party. My mother was so proud that she told anyone in the place that my sister was now a woman. Sooo embarrasing for my sister...

When I had my first one, we had visitors at home so I just went and got one of the towels and didn't tell my mother about it until every one was gone.

Oh, finally I understand, MrsJC! anagrams never work for me, my surname is too vowel-deficient.

Am LOL at these stories but cringeing too, especially at MrsJC's tampon anguish, because it's so funny now but must have been horrible at the time.

I'm making notes.... back later with a What Not To Do List for when dds get there...