WE'VE COME A LONG WAY

Notice:  If you are a guy and reading this blog, you may want to skip this post.  It's about female stuff.

Back in the olden days, there were certain things that weren't generally discussed.  The most prevalent "hush, hush" topic was anything to do with "the birds and the bees".  There were no Maturation classes in the fifth grade that students were required attend.  Kids were left to figure it out on their own if the information didn't come from home. I'm sure that some of my friends must have had that conversation with their parents, or at least, their mother.  But at our house, I never had "the talk".

I remember a day when I was a young teenager that my mother came home from grocery shopping and handed me a package of Kotex sanitary pads and a sanitary napkin belt.  All she said when she gave them to me was "You're going to need these some day soon.".  That was it. With that, she just left the room.
Thank goodness for older sisters and friends who had already reached this milestone in their lives or I probably wouldn't have had any idea what these items were for.  As it was, I really wasn't sure HOW they were supposed to be used.  I'm pretty sure that when the time happened, I asked my sister, Linda, for help.  I don't think I ever had a conversation with my mother about all this except to tell her when I needed more.  Linda probably got her information from our oldest sister.  Unless, Mother had "the talk" with Karen, Karen probably had to go some where else to figure it all out.  It's amazing.

As I became more aware of the need for sanitary napkins and, like most girls, really didn't like the time of the month when they had to be used.  I knew that my mother used tampons.  I asked her if I could use them.  I got a resounding "No" from her.  I think that her refusal to buy them for me had something to do with the notion that I would not be a virgin if I used tampons.  It was many years, probably when I was in college, before I made the switch.

When the time came that I finally needed a bra, my mother bought me what was called a training bra. (What I want to know is what were those training bras suppose to be training, anyway?) She never said much about that either.  She may have even just guessed what size I'd need, bought it and gave it to me.  As I needed more than the training bra, I had them.  But I don't remember going shopping with her for them.  Did she give the money to my older sisters and we went together?  I have no idea.

It was a different age back then.  You didn't see advertisements on television for bras or women's personal care items.  There were probably ads in print for these things, but they certainly weren't filling up the pages of women's magazines like they do today.   But advertising and the public had no problem with ads for cigarettes in print and on television.  It really made no sense.

We've come a long way, baby.