It dawned on me today that It won’t be as cool when mom shows up at 7th grade and sits in the classroom and takes pictures. I took the opportunity to sneak in the classroom since I was already at the school for Shea’s ‘birthday lunch’.

I had forgotten how rough sixth grade could be on girls. I remember my whole sixth grade year revolved around wondering if Mrs. Licardo really wore a wig because of a car accident and the love in my heart for Dewayne Collins.
That’s it. That’s ALL I remember from that whole grade. I remember playing ‘footsie’ under the table during reading with Dewayne Collins and then being completely ignored by him for the rest of the day.

I also remember the big fucking jacket I wore.

One of the girls in the class wore a similar jacket. She was very sweet and hung out with me while I took pictures. After lunch we made our way to the garden and I asked her, “So why the jacket? it’s like 90 degrees out here?”
She looked down and said, “Oh I am ALWAYS cold.”
I could pussy-foot around it or I could be me.
“Liar.” I said.
“No really, I’m always cold.”
“I remember why I wore a jacket in 6th grade. I wore it if it was a hundred and twenty degrees out and I was boiling and sweating.” I admitted.
“Why?”
“So boys couldn’t tell I was flat chested.”
She looked down at her chest which was clearly NOT the problem. “Uh. well.” she laughed.

Right about this time the other girl that hangs out with my girls came up and caught the end of conversation.

“You know what they called me in sixth grade?” I offered up my humiliation.
“WHAT?”
“President of the Itty-Bitty Titty committee.”
I had forgot how loud 6th grade girls could laugh and I had the urge to take their heads and bash them together to get them to stop laughing.

The first girl admitted that she wore the jacket because when she walked or ran they bounced and the 6th grade boys were total pervs.
The second admitted that hers were small and the sweatshirt added a sort of padding to hide behind.

We sat on the grass and I talked to the girls. I wanted them to shed the jackets and be comfortable with who they were. I wanted them to see that in a few years they would slap themselves in the head and say, “How dumb I was!”.
I know one conversation wasn’t going to make a difference though.
The only thing I could think of was this:

“Look, you’re wearing a big ass jacket to cover yours. You’re wearing one to cover the ones you don’t have. So only the people that have the perfect size get to wear normal clothes?”

They looked at each other and laughed and talked about the size of some of the other girls in the class and how that one girl doesn’t have any, but wears the huge padded bras. They also pointed out that Kara use to always wear big jackets too. I told them that about 4 months ago I informed Kara that she would never have boobs. I told her to just except it and enjoy being the Vice President of the Itty Bitty Titty committee.

We sat on the lawn and talked about boobs. The one girl took off her jacket for a few minutes until the boys started to swarm around like flies.
I explained that would happen even when she was 90 years old. She was cursed and no jacket was going to keep her safe from that.

They laughed. I never laughed about my lack of ta-ta’s in 6th grade. I never talked about it to anyone. NO.WAY. to talk about boobies would mean that someone would look at my chest and someone might yell, “OMG! I NEVER NOTICED IT! YOU HAVE NO TITS!”

I wish our schools had something that helped girls talk about shit like this. They assume that every kid has a mother and father. They assume that every parent talks to their kids about boobs and lets them know if they will have them or not.
Just a class a week where someone comes in and talks to the girls openly about their body. A class where girls can say, “Why does he play footsie with me during reading and then ignores me all day long?”

Just once a week to be able to say, “I don’t understand why…” and get some honest answers.

I’ve got the old people, Kathy has the new hair hotline, so someone else take on this mission okay?