Miss Susan MacDonald,

As far back as I can remember, my mother's younger sister (Aunt Linda) wouls always pass on her daughters' clothes to our mother. At the time there was only James and myself, I being the older by two years. James had red hair and I had blonde hair. No matter what our cousins outgrew, we inherited it. Panties, slips, petticoats, you name it, we received it.

This in itself was not so bad, for our mother would give the girls' clothes to families that had girls, and that could use them. There was one big problem: Mom did not know very many families with little girls in them. That left the bulk of what our grandmother gave her with us. You can't imagine the terror it puts in a young boy's heart, when your father walks out into the living room with your mother, each holding a pair of frilly rhumba panties, pink and yellow, and asking, ' Would you boys please like to try these pretty panties on for us?' They were only teasing, but we would scream in unison 'No!' folding are legs underneath us, in complete terror, hoping our parents wouldn't force us to wear them.

Still, my brother and I still wore pajamas made for girls. We never let any of our friends look in our underwear drawer, that is where mother kept the girls' panties. She said it was easier to find them when one of our cousins needed them. We would shove them way to the back of the drawer, feeling funny and tingly from just touching them. Then one year an aunt asked me, ' Wouldn't you like to wear pretty panties and dresses? If you would come live with me I would see to it that you had all the pretty clothes that a cute little girl would want. Doesn't that sound like fun?' I said 'No', and walked over to my mother, and told her I did not want to go live with my aunt. She laughed,  and replied, 'You can't, your my son not hers'. I never told my mother what happened that afternoon, now I am glad I didn't. It would have caused a lot of problems in the family, and that was not needed.

Even my second grade teacher, Sister Teresa, tried to make me wear girls' clothes. Once again, thanks to my mother, I slipped the noose. If that had not happened, then that afternoon I would have been petticoated and shown off to all the classes. This is only a small part of the problems being a fair haired and soft featured boy. And I grew up in the in the 50s and early 60s - even girl friends wanted to dress me as a girl, doesn't that take the cake?

Now you can understand why I feel the way I do about petticoating. At lease now I understand, and can say I agree with how one should do petticoating of their son or daughter. As long it is done with love and care to correct a behavioral problem, not just because the child is a male.
Best wishes,

Dennis

A Catholic education in the 1950s was an austere experience, with quite a dank medieval atmosphere still around it. I myself experienced Scotch Calvinism, and I do not think that, on balance, John Knox would have approved of 'Petticoat Discipline Monthly'. Certainly for Roman Catholic children the industrial strength nuns of the old school knew all about the overpowering effects of petticoat punishment, and I have heard several accounts of it being imposed in Catholic schools of the 1950s and 1960s.

You aunt's remark was obviously inspired by your pretty, girlish features, which often make women think that a pretty-looking male child is 'wasted' as a boy. A good many of those who were subjected to petticoating as children looked more like girls than boys, and of course often the mother had wanted a girl all along.
Susan