There must be some people, known to any of the Teeming Millions, who showed signs of adolescence early–and I don’t mean growing to an adolescent’s height.
For boys:
Voice changing; whiskers; pubic, chest, axial hair
For girls: menarche; pubic or axial hair; rounded hips/bust
Normally, of course, these things occur at the age of 13 or 14, when kids are in junior-high or high school; but certainly some grade-school kids must have shown adolescence. Any information?
Actually (and this is strange so bare with me) I heard that the hormone that a lot of dairy farmers are injecting into cows is having an effect on the maturity rate of today’s adolescents (sorry, I’m a horrible speller). That’s just a theory I heard though and I’m from a cold desolate flat land in the middle of nowhere Canada so hey… maybe I got brain freeze.
ants spend 20% of their day working…
The Neo-Comintern
I got my period at 11 and I had a narrow waist/wide hips and butt before that.
–
Teeming Millions: http://fathom.org/teemingmillions
“Meat flaps, yellow!” - DrainBead, naked co-ed Twister chat
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Age 10: started to get a figure…ignored it for a year till the teasing was too much to stand, finally got a bra when I was twelve.
Age 11: started my period. Cup size went from a largish A to a C. This is when I became convinced that I was “fat”… nevermind that I still weighed 100 lbs.
Ain’t youth grand?
“…being normal is not necessarily a virtue. It rather denotes a lack of courage.”
Youth sucks, is what it does, and it makes little kids nasty. There’s a reason I’m afraid of children.
I started wearing a bra in fourth grade, and since I was already a complete dork and outcast, that pretty much finished me socially for the next couple of years until the other girls caught up.
Didn’t get my period until I was 12, but was, as you might imagine, pretty fully developed well before that.
Catrandom
I was trying to find an article I thought I read on the BBC website a week or so ago about the onset of puberty. I couldn’t find that link, but did find one that was pretty interesting. It covers a study that found that girls with close relationships with their fathers or mothers went through puberty later.
http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid%5F464000/464637.stm
I had pubic hair by the time I was 8. Didn’t have breasts or my period until I was 12, though. That’s about when my hips started getting a little broader too. Same as Chris, I thought I was fat. I wasn’t. I was just short & curved, not tall & thin, as was popular.
13 or 14? I don’t know about boys, but that seems a bit late for a girl, though certainly not abnormally late. I got my period a couple months after I turned 10. I already had pubic hair, underarm hair, breasts, hips… Now, my breasts and hips weren’t fully developed at that age, but they were most definitely there…
The Minty One
“Satan’s spirit flew right out of my TV Set and into my soul.”
You know that there are a couple of threads running on this topic in GD, right?
The actual average age of menarche has been holding steady at about 13 years old (close enough) for 30 years.
From cave man to 1850-ish, people were about the same size then since 1860 people have been getting taller and starting puberty sooner. I think the average increase in height from 1850 is about 4 inches. We have leveled off for height, too.
The actual average age of menarche has been holding steady at 13 years old (close enough) for 30 years.
So the number of kids starting puberty in grade school should have leveled off as well.
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
I, personally, was a late bloomer. I didn’t see a wisp of pubic hair until I was 12, my breasts did nothing appreciable development-wise until I was 14, and I didn’t get my period until I was one month shy of my sixteenth birthday. My ex-girlfriend, on the other hand, claimed to have had full pubic hair at 8, and menarche at 9. I’ve often wondered if this wasn’t reflective of the hormonal imbalances that the two of us almost certainly had, and consequently helped to account for our decidedly incompatible personalities.
“That’s entertainment!” —Vlad the Impaler
Here’s a link to the GD thread - several cites from scientific articles.
http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000982.html
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
I read that Loretta Lynn became a mother at 13 and a grandmother at 31; this doesn’t do much for me, but urban intellectual snobs seem to seize on this kind of thing as “proof” that rurals have lax morals and let their kids get married at junior-high-school age. (My own sister started to develop a figure at about 12!)
:o! I made a mistake here! I should have written “axillary” (armpit) hair instead of axial… :o :o
First shaved at age 12.
Studi
Don’t speak ill of your enemies; plot it.
Well, I’m 37 and still waiting for my first period.
Shit. I didn’t really intend to post that. Wrong button, again. Damn.
So, UncleBeer, does that mean you have permanent PMS?
“You can be smart or pleasant. For years I was smart.
I recommend pleasant.”
Elwood P. Dowd
Is 45 too late?
Started developing breasts at 8, got my first bra at 9, about the same time that I started getting pubic and armpit hair. I started my period the week of my 12th birthday, by which time I was 5’8", 125 pounds, B cup, and was mistaken for being nearly twice my age on a regular basis.
I’d say I was an early bloomer.
“Buffalo Bills? Oh, yeah. The guys that always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” --WallyM7
My voice changed in 2nd grade. My music teacher tried to fget me to use falsetto, saying that “your voice will stay that way” if I didn’t. I just told her that i wanted it that way. I could grow a pretty full bear by early high school.
Of course, I’ve also gone almost completely gray in my beard and around the temples, and I’m 37. By 47, I’ll probably be dead of old age!
Bucky
Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.