Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume

by Jennifer OConnell

  mother was my most traumatic “breast” incident before I became a teenager. Like every girl comes to realize, you’ll grow breasts sooner or later, and I grew respectable B’s.

  B’s were fine through high school and even into college, but then I started to notice something. The girls who’d felt awkward because they were too big in grade school and high school were loving their larger breasts now.

  And so were the guys.

  And not in that immature grade school way but in a way that a woman could now appreciate.

  Personally, I was involved with my childhood sweetheart, so it’s not like I needed bigger breasts to get me a guy. But still, whenever I went to a bar or a club, I saw how guys checked out the women with C and D cups.

  They say blondes have more fun? Well, girls with big breasts have the most fun.

  Suddenly, I wanted a larger cup size. I had no clue I was about to go through Breast Drama Round Two, which would last a lot longer than Round One had.

  So what’s a girl in her twenties to do when she wants to be a C but she’s only a B?

  She invests in a push-up bra.

  Because in your twenties, it’s all about cleavage. The more cleavage you have, the more of a woman you are. And practically everything a girl in her twenties wants to wear is form-fitting with a plunging neckline.

  So there I was in my early twenties, once again looking in the mirror, staring at my breasts that wouldn’t grow.

  B’s were fine through school, but now I was a woman. I needed C’s.

  I discovered Victoria’s Secret and a whole host of other lingerie shops. I figured out how to master the push-up bra so that I’d looked like I’d been naturally blessed with an enticing C cup.

  But it still wasn’t quite the same as having the real thing. Not that I could do anything about it. And if God wasn’t going to give them to me naturally, I’d have to do without because I certainly wasn’t buying any.

  Then I got married to my childhood sweetheart, and a miraculous thing started to happen.

  I started to grow bigger breasts.

  Right along with bigger hips.

  I was cooking regular meals, even making dessert. The pounds started to come on, and suddenly I had to graduate to a bigger bra.

  Now this is how you know that breast size is of vital importance to women (well, admittedly, at least to me). Because even though I wanted to lose weight off my hips, I didn’t want to work out too much—because I didn’t want to go back down to a B.

  My C breasts looked magnificent. Put them in a push-up bra and it was Kaboom, baby! Guys noticed me more. Yes, I was married, but I still felt sexy. Who cared if I had some love handles? I had great breasts!

  Maybe my husband cared. He never said that the extra pounds were too much, but alas our marriage fell apart.

  But I still had great breasts, thank you very much.

  Which looked fabulous in a bikini on South Beach, where I went to drown my sorrows after that unexpected trip to Splitsville. In fact, an older woman stopped me one day when I was wearing this stunning silver bikini and told me I should be on the cover of Ocean Drive magazine.

  I got lots of attention from guys, and one even asked if my breasts were real. For a now thirty-year-old going through a divorce, this was the ultimate compliment.

  Finally, I’d arrived. I had great breasts, and certainly I’d never have to worry about them again.

  Wrong!

  Enter Breast Drama Round Three.

  While in Miami, I met someone else, fell in love, and had a baby a couple of years later. Throughout the pregnancy, my breasts looked magnificent. And when I gave birth, I actually dropped fifteen pounds but still had the breasts. This was the Holy Grail of body image—slim hips and big boobs.

  And then I started to nurse. And nurse.

  So here I am, yet again staring in the mirror, looking at my naked breasts.

  I’m not so happy now.

  When I’d gained some weight and a cup size, my mother accurately said, “I bet you don’t want to lose the weight because you finally have bigger breasts.” Wow, I’m not sure I’d even admitted that to myself when my mother said that to me, and I could only give her a sheepish smile. I didn’t even know she realized that I wanted bigger breasts (but she obviously saw me wearing all those push-up bras and put two and two together). Now, nursing and in full-on “mother mode” in baggy sweats and a T-shirt without a bra, my mother said, “Your nipples used to be so much higher.”

  And just like that, I realized that I had boob drama again.

  How had this happened? Don’t we go through enough distress over our breasts as adolescents, then as teens, and as women in our twenties? Do we really have to go through it again?

  I had attained perfection, only to lose it. Sure, my breasts were still large and looked great in a bra. In fact, now they were closer to D’s than C’s.

  And yet I was miserable.

  I couldn’t stop looking in the mirror, lifting my breasts to see where the nipples should be.

  I wasn’t prepared for this—the reality that my breasts would start to sag.

  Now, I love my little girl to death and wouldn’t trade her for anything, but I can’t help thinking about the injustice of having to lose perfect breasts because you didn’t opt to bottle-feed.

  Dear God, when will all this breast drama end?

  Or will it?

  It seems the whole world is obsessed with breast size. Women on Dr. Phil complaining that they have sagging skin instead of breasts after losing weight or that their babies sucked them right back down to prepubescent boobs. You only have to watch one episode of your favorite TV show to see that breasts are so important to women. Many have opted for faking it. And not just with push-up bras but with permanent synthetic materials. Alas, it seems that breasts are now more important than they ever were.

  And mine—well, it seems my glory days are behind me.

  Okay, so they’re not the worst ones out there. They’re still full. They still look great in a bra. But thanks to my mother, I’m aware that they don’t look as hot naked as they used to.

  Now in my mid-thirties, it’s clear to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. No matter how old we get, how accomplished, women will always have issues with their breasts.

  I can imagine Margaret now, in her mid-thirties, still talking to God.

  Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret.

  Please tell me this breast thing is a joke. A cruel prank, God. Tell me I’m going to wake up and see that this is all a nightmare.

  I mean really, God. I finally got great breasts at fourteen, and I looked fabulous in college. My breasts got me lots of boyfriends—well, at least lots of offers. I was hot. And I felt great. I snagged the man of my dreams, got married, and then settled down to have a family.

  I give of myself every day, God. I try to be the best mother I can be. I cook and clean and take care of my husband. I even have a fabulous career. I can’t deny I’m living the American Dream.

  So why is it that now, when everything is right in my world, I have another body image crisis to deal with at the age of thirty-four?

  I nursed two babies back-to-back, and I’ve learned what nursing does to a woman’s breasts. I did what was best for my babies—I didn’t want to deprive them of the benefit of mother’s milk. But now I no longer have the beautiful C-cup breasts I used to have. My breasts, God, are sagging.

  Dear God, I have droopy breasts.

  My parents still don’t know I talk to you, and neither does my husband. But God, I’m wondering if you could please restore my breasts for me. They don’t have to be C’s again. I’d be happy with a B cup. I just don’t want them to sag.

  And while I’m on a roll here, God—what about this pouch around my belly? Is it possible to lose that pregnancy pouch with excessive working out? I don’t think so, because I’ve been trying. You know how hard.

  I’ve been good, God. And I swear I’ll stop eating
chocolate. Maybe I’ll even enroll my kids in Sunday school. Whatever it takes, God. I’m only thirty-four. If my breasts are sagging now, I don’t want to imagine what they’ll be like when I’m fifty-four.

  Or seventy-four.

  And when Margaret ends her prayer, she is haunted by the vision of what her breasts could look like when she’s seventy-four.

  Sagging so far south, her nipples can touch her knees.

  Her husband will be dating a thirty-year-old with implants.

  Margaret is horrified by the thought.

  So she heads downstairs to the kitchen and grabs the yellow pages. She looks up cosmetic surgeons. Maybe it’s time to consider a tummy tuck and a breast lift.

  Because Margaret knows that God helps those who help themselves.

  Or maybe Margaret ultimately decides against cosmetic surgery. She tells herself, Screw it. She’s going to love herself for who she is, not what she looks like naked in the mirror.

  She’s going to embrace all that it means to be a woman.

  Even the sagging breasts.

  Kayla has always been creative and can’t remember a time when she wasn’t scribbling a story somewhere or sketching a picture. After discovering that people actually earned money writing stories, at the proud bra-wearing age of thirteen she submitted her first fully illustrated children’s book to Scholastic Publications and received a letter sayingthat they were “seriously considering” publishing her story. While she has worked at various jobs, Kayla is most happy when writing, which is why in four short years she has had thirteen original releases hit the shelves. Visit Kayla at www.kaylaperrin.com.

  Superfudged

  Cara Lockwood

  My brother Matt (seven years younger in actual years, light-years younger in emotional years) was like most baby brothers: he spent his entire childhood trying to get me in trouble. I was his only sibling, and as he calls me now, “more infallible than the pope,” when it came to my parents. I could do no wrong, and worse, didn’t even try to do wrong and get away with it.

  My brother, in fact, holds a grudge against me to do this day for not properly breaking in my parents with rebellion, sneaking out late, and, as my brother was prone to do, having parties where (drunk) high school varsity football players knocked down my dad’s front door.

  In fact, to this date, my very worst rebellion occurred at age ten when I “ran away.” Technically, I wasn’t the one doing the running. My bad-influence friend, Christi, had decided she was fed up with her parents and wanted to run away. I was only tagging along to convince her to go back home.

  Christi got us both caught before I could convince her to go home, because she made the mistake of trying to lug an extra-large pink Samsonite suitcase out the front door of her parents’ house. She made it no farther than a block. Back then, suitcases didn’t have wheels. Her arms gave out along with her will to rebel.

  “You didn’t break in the parents for me, you know,” Matt tells me even now. “I mean, you didn’t do anything.”

  He says this as if not having a kegger party when I was a sophomore is a character failing.

  “You were b-o-r-i-n-g. Boring.” Matt likes to spell things out for effect and to prove he can.

  In my defense, being the “good kid” wasn’t entirely my fault. Not exactly.

  I had the typical Eldest Child Syndrome. The very first thing Mom told me when she let me hold my baby brother was “Remember, you’re the oldest now, and that means you’ve got a lot of new responsibilities.”

  At age seven, I didn’t know what this meant exactly. My only responsibilities up until that time had been making sure I kept my Barbies out of the path of my dad, who would curse if he stepped on one. I soon found out that being the oldest meant I had to do more work. Namely, keep my brother out of trouble. This was a full-time job.

  Matt, you see, had a nose for trouble. He, like Fudge—the infamous little brother of the Fudge books—was a trouble magnet. I like to imagine that if Peter Hatcher’s younger brother made it to his teen years, he’d be just like Matt (police visit at age thirteen for joyriding in a girl’s car, kegger party at age fifteen, brawl outside homecoming football game at age seventeen).

  It was my responsibility to keep him from eating the things he found on the floor. He had a taste for dead crickets. He also liked to play with electrical sockets, sharp edges, and glass. I’m sure if there were cyanide capsules in the house, he would crawl right to them.

  And then my brother started to walk, and my life was never the same again.

  Like Fudge, Matt was a whirling dervish of trouble. Did he get into my stuff and destroy my toys? Check. Did he fall down and hurt himself, and did I get in trouble for it? Check. Did he blame me for things he ate/broke/destroyed? Double check.

  And when I complained, what did my mother say? “Cara, you’ve got responsibilities now. You’re the oldest, and you’re supposed to look after your younger brother.”

  When pressed, Mom would gently remind me that I asked for a little brother.

  It’s true that I was one of those kids who bugged her parents all the time for a little brother or sister. That’s because I had no idea what Play Doh could do to my hair.

  I lived in a neighborhood of teenagers and retirees. I was lonely and wanted a playmate. You see, I had delusions of the ideal little sibling. He or she would naturally know that I knew best instinctively. He or she would always want to play the games I wanted to play, how I wanted to play them, because I’d be the wise, all-knowing older sister. In short, my younger brother or sister would be my indentured servant, waiting upon my every need, idolizing and worshipping me.

  I had a vision of a little brother like Tattoo on Fantasy Island. He would wear a white tuxedo and do my bidding, and the only words he’d be allowed to speak would be, “The plane, boss! The plane!”

  I asked for Tattoo. What I got was the Tasmanian Devil.

  Worse, I was no longer the best, cutest, or most loved child of my parents. This is something Peter knew all too well. In the Fudge books, Peter’s little brother is the “cute” one. Fudge is even picked to be in a television commercial.

  Like Peter, I couldn’t understand why everyone suddenly thought my little brother was so adorable and I wasn’t. I was seven, but I felt like I should be doing a scene in Sunset Boulevard. Overnight, I wasn’t cute anymore. Or adorable. I was over the hill.

  Dad bought a brand-new video camera (the first we’d ever had) and set it up on a tripod in front of Matt’s baby swing. I might as well have been Norma Desmond asking for her close-up, because Dad had no interest in filming me. All he wanted to do was focus the camera lens on Matt.

  This, I could not understand. From my perspective, Matt was a talentless hack. The only thing he could manage at age six months was drooling. And pooping. Neither of which, I thought, was very film-worthy.

  I, however, had talent. I could smile and pose for the camera. I could do cartwheels. I could sing and dance. I knew all the lyrics to “Rainbow Connection.” But was Dad interested? No.

  I was a washed-up studio actress. I was a has-been.

  I knew then that things had changed, and not for the better.

  And they would only get worse.

  From the time my brother could crawl, his mission in life was to get me in trouble. Like Peter, I got blamed for things my little brother did, or didn’t do. Mom had a soft spot for Matt, just like Peter’s mom did for Fudge, and I was now the “big sister with responsibilities” and was always supposed to keep an eye out for my brother.

  Unfortunately, Matt was more interested in keeping an eye on me than I was on him. Matt’s favorite game was called “Get Cara in Trouble.” He did this in a number of ways. Like Fudge, he’d get into snacks like cookies or animal crackers, devour them all, and then if caught, he’d blame me. He’d blame me when he threw one of his toys across the room or if one of his toys broke. But he didn’t stop there.

  He thought up elaborate schemes to get me on the wrong
side of Mom, including one called the Tonka Truck Ploy.

  His con was evil but simple.

  He’d sneak up behind me while I lay on the carpet watching cartoons, then clunk me on the head with his giant metal Tonka dump truck. Naturally, in fair retaliation, I’d swipe at him, landing a blow (a lot less painful than a heavy metal truck, I might add) on the leg or arm.

  Matt, a master flopper even then, would turn on the water-works and start screaming as if I’d just removed one of his toes with a pair of pliers. He’d run to Mom, claim I’d beaten him within an inch of his life, and instantly Mom would start in on her “Cara, you’ve got responsibilities” speech.

  This would have probably eventually led to a concussion, except that Mom caught him once whacking me on the head with his favorite Tonka, and that ended that charade. But my brother soon found new ways to torment me.

  Like all younger siblings, he wanted to get into my stuff. I don’t know if Mom watched him during the day or if she just patted him on the head and let him waddle into my room unattended, but every day when I got home, I found my room in shambles. My Barbies lay strewn across the carpet, decapitated and dismembered. My diary and coloring books would have pages ripped out or colored in. And my sticker collection? Forget it. The precious unicorn puffy stickers I’d been delicately saving would be plastered all over my wall, or worse, the toilet.

  The toilet, in fact, was my brother’s favorite toy. With his never-ending toilet fixation, I was convinced he’d grow up to be a plumber. He flushed entire rolls of toilet paper (including the roll bar). He flushed potpourri, Matchbox cars, my mom’s mascara, the dog’s collar, and an entire box of Legos. He kept flushing until he plugged up the toilet and it overflowed, and then he’d clap his hands, laugh manically, and run away, as if it was all part of his plan for world domination.

  Ironically, while he loved flushing inanimate objects down the toilet, he took forever to potty train. (He wanted to use the toilet for every use, except for the one it was intended.)

  I tried putting up “Do Not Enter” signs, along with “This means you, MATT!!!!” warnings, but they were useless, in part because Matt couldn’t yet read.