Member-only story
I Don’t Want to Wear a Bra Today!
Unhooking From Negative Beliefs About My Breasts
It was a hot spring New York City morning and I wanted to wear my new Captain Marvel tank top. And I didn’t want to wear a bra with it.
BOOM. Floods of countless thoughts then fill my head on why I should and shouldn’t wear a bra. The bottom line is I have been socialized to believe I physically look better and I am a more respectable woman if I wear a bra.
When I told my twenty four year old daughter that I wanted to write about these incessant thoughts, she said, “Oh wow, I didn’t know you had those feelings!” And that is when I knew I absolutely had to write about it.
Pushing Down the Push Up
I took my daughter for her first bra when she was 11 and by the time she was 16 she would only wear push up bras. That caused some friction between us. I believed her breasts were beautiful the way they were and I saw how the media influenced her need to look a certain way. She did not agree. I remember the day we were in Victoria’s Secret arguing as we circled the racks of colorful lingerie, picking out very different items. It got more and more tense between us.
I heard a voice inside me say Let her pick out the bra she wants -they are her breasts, after all. Hmmmm…
