Dear Miss MacDonald,

Having stumbled across your site by accident, and after reading many of the letters on it, here is my contribution.

I was unaware, but pleasantly surprised, that such an amount of petticoating goes on: I knew it happened, but thought it was only to an odd few with eccentric and open-minded parents...however, the picture on the March 2002 issue reminded me very much of myself at that age.

This is how my first experience of petticoating came about. I was around nine years old at the time. During the holidays, I was helping at home, taking washing off the airers and putting it into the ironing basket. The last item that I came to was a pair of Mum’s tights.

I had always found them curious, as they seemed to shrink so small, yet stretched to fit an adult. I held them by the waistband and held them against me. The toes didn't even reach my ankles. I did not realise that Mum was watching me. She smiled at me and said ‘They’re very stretchy!' Embarrassed that she had seen me, I folded them and put them in the basket with the other clothes.

I thought no more about it until a couple of weeks later when I was getting dressed, and I opened my undies drawer to find a pair of tights sitting there. I felt a buzz go through my body. Why were they there, I wondered? I felt myself going red, but somewhere inside, I started to feel excited; I remembered Mum seeing me holding them against myself, and the look in her eyes as she smiled. Were they there for me to try on?

I quickly dressed and went down to breakfast. Mum said nothing about the tights in my drawer as we ate, but I could not get them out of my mind. I knew that she had put them there. She knew that I had seen them. After breakfast we washed the pots together. I couldn’t contain myself, and just had to say something, so, I just blurted out that there was a pair of tights in my drawer.

‘I know’, she said with a smile, ‘ I put them there for you’.

I almost went crimson. Mum saw this, put her arm round me and smiled. ‘Are they for me to try on?’ I said, doing my best not to be bashful.

‘Well, not exactly’ said Mum, ‘they are for you to wear. I have been thinking for a while now that you should spend some time in girl’s clothes. It’s good for boys to know how clothes feel for a girl, and when I saw you were looking at my tights the other day, I thought that as you were showing an interest, now would be a good time for you to start dressing as a girl'.
 
It turned out that my mum had been talking to my best friend’s mum (my best friend was called Susan; I’ve always made friends with girls rather than boys), and had heard how Susan’s cousin had been petticoated for teasing his sisters. Though I wasn’t exactly a naughty boy - I was always something of a sissy anyway - Mum thought that it would be good for me to have the experience, and judged correctly that once over the initial awkwardness, I would enjoy it.

I looked at her with wide open eyes, panicked and excited all at the same time.

Do you want to? she asked.

Yes, I said meekly, blushing madly and smiling back at her.

‘Good', she smiled, 'because that’s what you’ll be wearing for the rest of the day'.

We finished the pots, and I followed her upstairs to my room. She sat on the bed and told me to take my clothes off, which I did.

‘Undies off too’, she said, holding out a pair of white girl’s knickers for me to step into.

She put them on me, and then told me to take my tights out of the drawer. I sat on the edge of the bed while she pulled the toes over both feet. Then I stood while she pulled them up for me. They felt wonderful, even better than I had imagined they would. They were so soft and stretchy.

Mum then took me into her room, where she put a cream roll-neck sweater on me, and an oversized brown checked skirt that she had altered to fit me.

‘There’ she said, How does it feel?

I paced up and down a bit, feeling all the new sensations; the tight elaticated legs of my knickers the soft stretching of my tights, and the flapping of my skirt. then I burst out into tears. It all just felt so wonderful.

Mum hugged me for a while, and when I had stopped crying, she produced a pair of fluffy slippers for me to wear. They were her old ones, and a couple of sizes too big and they sloshed about on my feet; but they were so comfortable that I didn’t care.

We spent much of the day looking through catalogues and choosing girl’s clothing for me: skirts, blouses, undies, ribbed tights in different colours, and a beautiful green dress that turned out to be one of my favourites. I spent the rest of the day dressed in those clothes, and went to bed feeling ecstatic.

When I woke the next morning I hazily remembered wearing girl’s clothes, and lay there for a few moments wondering if it had been real; but when I got out of bed, my clothes were all still there! My brown skirt and cream top, and on top of them sat fresh pairs of knickers and tights. Right next to them, on the chair, were my boy’s clothes. Mum had given me the choice.

My mum was so pleased when I came down to breakfast in my skirt, she hugged me, and said how good I was. Then she noticed that I was not wearing my tights. I couldn’t get them on’, I said, a bit embarrassed. (I had struggled with them for several minutes before deciding to give up) She laughed. ‘it just takes practice’ she said. Don’t worry, you’ll be getting plenty of it!’

Although Mum and I didn’t regard it as discipline as such, that was my first experience of wearing female clothing. Hopefully I’ll find the time to write more later.

Louise

Well, you were certainly blessed with a very perceptive and kindly mother, who could sense what you secretly wanted, and who helped make it such a positive experience for you. Tights are very good for making boys of that age more pleasant to live with, especially the 'little girl' knitted tights with a cable pattern or something similar. Much nicer and warmer than ordinary nylons.

You must have had a lovely childhood, and please write more when you have the time.
Susan