Rosetta Stone Representative (0:00)

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Apple Product Representative (1:07)

Today the Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. IPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Dan Kennedy (1:39)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. Before we go on, I've got one quick thing to tell you. The Moth is going to fly westward and land in Michigan. How about that? I'm going to be hosting the Michigan Grand Slam. We are going to be there April 11th at the Ark in Ann Arbor. This one's going to feature winners from both our Detroit and our Ann Arbor. Story Slams again. That's Wednesday, April 11th at the Ark in Ann Arbor. For more information and to buy tickets, visit themoth.org okay, this week's story is from our archives. It's by Joyce Maynard and it was told live at the Moth back in in 2002 the theme of the night was American Stories of Us.

Joyce Maynard (2:25)

Well, my mother was a woman of large and expansive appetites for all things of the senses and had the body to go along with it. She was what is known as a full figured woman and reveled in her body, her breasts in particular. In the year 1953. When I was born, she was the only woman on the maternity ward who insisted on breastfeeding her babies. That was me. And for the next 35 years, she didn't let up a whole lot in the mothering department. And I must confess that there was no more comforting place on earth than her bosom. Probably says something about my marriage that that was. So I continued in the tradition of the mothering and the breastfeeding and the kind of marriage that she had. And 35 years later, found myself, to my amazement, getting a telephone call to say that my mother was suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. And I left home immediately to take care of her during what turned out to be the last summer of her life. During that summer, while I was at her side, most of the time, I was up on her rooftop. One time she was sitting in the wheelchair and I had taken off my shirt and was lying out in the sun beside her when she looked over at me and she said, have your breasts always looked like that? Well, no, they hadn't. As I say, I had breastfed enthusiastically three babies of large and hearty appetite and had the breasts to prove it. At the time, I was too involved in grieving for my mother to grieve over my breasts. But my mother died early that fall. I should mention that I. Before I left home, I had hired a teenage girl to take care of our children, to help my husband take care of our children. And she did a splendid job and an even better job of taking care of my husband. So when I came home. This really isn't a sad story. It was actually not a sad story, but was at the time I came home and discovered that, having lost my mother, my marriage was also over. And I found myself in what I continue to think of as the saddest and loneliest and most bereft moment of my life. That fall, I wandered around looking for some kind of alternative source of comfort. I bought a whole lot of CDs. I installed a shower stall with water that sprayed out in all directions. My mother was not a wealthy woman, but she'd left me a bit of money, and I spent it in odd ways. I bought all new underwear. And that still didn't do it. I did. I did get a boyfriend that winter. And one day, lying again naked next to him, this time he looked over at me and said, not that you need it, but have you ever thought of plastic surgery? Well, from that moment on, I thought of nothing but. And I became obsessed with breasts. Obsessed with breasts. I was Going to a Y a lot and swimming. And I stared at the women in the locker room with more interest than any of you men have ever looked at any breasts, I'm convinced. And as I say, my mother had left me a bit of money, not a lot. If I'd been living in la, if this was an LA or New York story, this wouldn't be so surprising. But I was living in rural New Hampshire. I didn't know anybody who'd ever gone to a plastic surgeon. So I did what you do when you don't know anybody. You go to the Yellow Pages. And I drove two and a half hours into the city of Boston to the plastic surgeon whose name ended with A, began with A, and told him I had always been a small breasted person myself. And I never minded that I had briefly had these inflated breasts when I was nursing babies, but they hadn't lasted. What I minded was the deflation of the breasts and the droopiness of the breasts. And I explained this to the doctor and asked him how it was going to turn out. And he said, well, you never entirely know until after the surgery, but it's going to be great. And showed me his nurse's breasts and they were impressive. And I came back a few weeks later and had the surgery. I was bandaged up very thoroughly, so it was only afterwards when I got home and unwound myself that I discovered to my amazement that I, at the time, I should say I was a very skinny person. I'd been taking care of my mother and I probably weighed about 100 pounds total. But I had size 40 breasts and they were as anybody. I'm sure nobody in this room has breast implants, but they were totally upright breasts, which was pretty astonishing. I had been told I wasn't going to need a bra and I didn't believe it. But after I had the breasts, I saw that there was no need whatsoever. I could have carried an entire tea service on my chest. You might have thought that I would have been horrified. And I have to admit that I was kind of thrilled. I had never in my life been a bimbo. And I recognized immediately the effect that I was having on people. It was a completely different experience to walk down the street with those breasts and to pump gas with those breasts. My ex husband, who was off with the babysitter, noted it and looked bemused and baffled. My daughter, who was just 12 years old at the time and developing very small tender breasts of her own, was horrified and mortified. My boyfriend, I don't Know if there's any connection. But shortly after this, the relationship ended, actually, at Fenway Park. One day we were at a baseball game and he said to me, you know, I keep on thinking when I go out with you that people are going to think I'm a breast fetishist. Which actually he was. So. But in spite of this, I was actually surprisingly happy with the breasts. I got a whole new wardrobe. I used to go to a store and sort of ask, what would Audrey Hepburn wear? And now I was saying, how would it be for Sophia Lorenzo? And there was no way to look like a slim person. I had this sort of shelf food that would once have landed in my lap, stayed here. But I got a real kick out of them. I did, I have to admit that. And over the years, they did calm down and my daughter got a little bit more used to them. Although one time I remember listening to a sleepover and girls in her room were comparing notes on their breast development. And one of the girls said to Audrey, well, don't worry, we know what's going to happen to you soon. But it seemed after six years of possession of these breasts, it did seem as if maybe it wasn't the best idea to keep on having this, this body. And by this time I'd moved out to California, the land where everybody had breast implants. And I decided to once again visit a plastic surgeon. Once again, I still didn't actually know anybody who was one. So I went again to the yellow pages and announced I wasn't prepared to go back to the body that had insisted the surgery in the first place. So I asked just for more moderate, middle of the road kind of breasts. And I woke from the surgery this time and I knew right away that something wasn't so good. They seemed to have taken a dislike to each other. And actually this continued over the years. They began to drift apart. There was a sort of wall eyed effect and each one kind of had a life of its own. I actually happened to be a retrograde proponent of silicone breast implants. These were the more healthy and unattractive saline. But then one day, sitting at my computer, working hard, I all of a sudden felt this slosh of liquid pouring down my chest and discovered that one of these breast implants had actually rubbed right through the skin. I knew there'd been a problem and my doctor had put some duct tape on that breast to hold it up, but didn't work. And this is true. And the implant had ruptured and the fluid, the saline solution, enough to Put many contact lenses in, had poured down onto my chest. So I went off to have emergency surgery. I could have had the other one taken out, too. I couldn't have had a new one put in because. Because that wound had to heal. So I was left with this dilemma, and I couldn't deal with it. So I just had the deflated one removed, and I lived for the next year. And I felt that this was my punishment for my vanity. I lived for the next year with one substantial size 36 breast and one virtually flat side of my chest. While I debated, I was at a crossroads in life in many ways. My daughter was telling me. My daughter had become a real feminist by this time, and she was telling me that women needed to embrace their bodies however they were, and this was that I should go back to this natural way. But I was still feeling a certain pull towards that fuller breast and all those great bras that I bought. So I lived in this indecisive point for a year and a half and finally found that I couldn't quite accept the. The idea of another possible breast deflation. So I had the final implant taken out, and I then lived with a very flat chest for several years after that. And I told myself by this time, I was 43 years old, I think, And I said, you know, really, I should be over this breast thing. My daughter was celebrating. My sons, who had really loved the breasts when I was young, had lost interest in them by this time. They'd found other breasts, and so they were fine. But I have to say that I missed having breasts. I missed having breasts in there. And I did still have a little bit of money left in my mother's fund. So I went back one more time, and this time I did not choose a plastic surgeon out of the yellow pages, and I chose a smaller, again and more carefully placed pair of breast implants, which are on view this evening. I want to say that my daughter. My daughter was older now. She had said at the time of either the second or the third surgery, she'd been taking an Introduction to Feminism class at college. And she said, you know, mama, you. You really got to get rid of those implants. You have no idea what women have gone through. But my daughter by this time was 23 years old, and she knew a little bit more what women had gone through herself and was old enough to know that there was plenty more she didn't know. So she forgave me. My sons paid no attention whatsoever. And it came to me as I wrote the check that completely emptied my mother's inheritance fund for the final operation that men have, of course, sought refuge and comfort and solace with the breasts of women since time began, and if I found a little myself over the years, that was okay.