She never talked about sex. She never told us about dating or boys except to say, “Don’t bother.” She could barely bring herself to mention menstruation. I suspected that my mother had roughly calculated the age at which my younger sister and I might start our periods, because around the time I turned 14, a giant box of Kotex maxi-pads (plus belts!) made their mortifying appearance in the cupboard below the vanity. My mother hadn’t had a period since an emergency hysterectomy some 10 years earlier, something she’d bring up in horrifying detail whenever possible.
Read Full Article »
