I was about ten, about 1967. My brother had dorky glasses. My sister had dorky glasses. None of the cool kids had glasses, and I was a nerdy little kid who was already teased about my clothes, my hair…so I hid the fact that I couldn’t see well. I squinted. I sat near the front of the room since my last name started with an A, so I got away with it for quite a while until my mom caught me squinting at a sign at the YWCA. Off we went to Union Eye Care for glasses…and since I was a nerd with no taste, I got the blue cat’s eye glasses. Not a good look. So I wore them at school as little as possible.
I got my first pair at about age 8, in about 1996. No one teased me, and I got to pick out glasses with cool multi-colored rims, and when I walked into Barnes and Noble that night, I could see all the way to the end of the store! No traumatic experiences here.
Such great input here. Thank you.
I’ll keep that in mind. She has short curly hair but I’ll probably think about putting her hair in a ponytail to start just in case.
She’s picked a pair with pink frames. She loves anything pink. Contacts are not on the horizon until at least high school. I used to wear them but found them the world’s biggest pain in the rear to care for.
Excellent tip. I’m glad to hear your niece is doing better now.
Another excellent tip. Thank you. I’ve forgotten how hard it can be to care for glasses properly.
Aw. Your son must look so cute.
As far as I know she’s the first person to wear glasses in her class. We have half days for school conferences next week so I think that might be the best time to get her used to them.
Almost exactly my story. I was a very good squinter - it took them forever to realize I needed glasses. (This is still a problem for me when it’s eye-exam time, because I know what the letters are even though I can’t “see” them clearly, so I have to make a conscious effort not to cheat.) I wasn’t really resisting them on the grounds of “they’ll make fun of me”. I just didn’t think I really needed them. Well, when I got my first pair of glasses, I must have spent three days gaping at everything because I could see. Trees blew me away completely. They weren’t sticks with green fluff on top. You could see individual leaves from far away, and see them all moving independently in the breeze!
I was teased for wearing glasses. But also for having frizzy hair, being smart, wearing the wrong color socks… and so was everyone else for their own reasons or for no reasons at all.
I was supposed to get glasses when I was 8 or 9, back in the 70s. The styles were ugly and horrible, and unfortunately for me the way I found out I needed them was trying to read the blackboard in class and failing miserably…in front of the entire class. So they were teasing me about “glasses!” before I even got the damn things.
I refused to wear them. I don’t think I ever wore them. I was the best faker ever–I managed to fake my way from about 4th through 10th grade with really horrible vision (while, I might add, getting top grades) before my mother finally let me get contacts.
I realize now how stupid I was and should have just worn the damn glasses. But those contacts were wonderful, and they sure made the world look a lot nicer! It was like a whole new world for me.
Yeah things are way different now. I had glasses at 8, my little brothers somewhere between 8-10, I can’t remember. Never was teased for them.
Of course, once she’s mature enough and wants them (I was 12) she can get contacts. Nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism (when ya got BOTH!), they make contacts for them all. And in a few years daily disposables should be cheap enough too.
Getting glasses was a wonderful event for me in 3rd grade. My godfather was an optician and I went to his house to get my new glasses. I could see the 7-up logo on what had been a fuzzy green thing on the kitchen counter. Even now, sitting 3 feet away from a map, without my glasses, I can just barely make out the 1/2 inch tall letters that say “World Map”, and . . .just checking. . . , at 4 feet I cannot read them at all. I have to move in to 16 inches to see the letters as clearly as I see them with my glasses on. I had light blue, cat’s eye glasses to match my blue eyes and I didn’t care what anyone said, I COULD SEE!!!
I was 7. It was 1974. The optical shop was on Younkers’ mezzanine in downtown Des Moines. I looked out over the main sales floor and I remember thinking WHOOOOA DUDE I CAN SEE ALL THIS SHIT PERFECTLY GLASSES FTW.
The “Trees have leaves!” thing seems to be pretty universal. I got my first glasses at about 8, and it was an epiphany. I don’t even know if anyone teased me the first few days–I was too busy seeing to notice anything else. (In fact, I don’t recall anyone ever teasing me about my glasses, though I was teased about other things about as often as any kid. This was around 1980.)
I was ten. And I needed them for a while - I have a congenital defect in one eye, which caused the other eye to overcompensate. I was pretty upset over it, but it quickly changed when I found I could see! everything!
I told my parents years before I couldn’t see well, but they didn’t believe me until they did the vision test in school or whatever and THEY told my parents.
Yeah, my parents never believed me about anything. :rolleyes:
Why so late? Contacts are relatively cheap these days. You can get a year supply for about $80. And the care is nothing. Put them in all purpose solution every night. No rubbing or cleaning, and throw them away after a month.
My son started wearing contacts at age 11.
HA! Contacts are NOT that cheap for everyone. My contacts cost over $300. Of this, insurance pays for half a year’s supply, so I have to pay for the other $160 myself.
I got glasses when I was 7, at that age, all the adults around me told me I looked cute so I believed them and was fine with it. I liked them less around middle school age, but enough other kids wore them that it was never a source of teasing.
I think little kids who wear glasses now are adorable, there are so many cute frames to pick from.
I got contacts in high school, now with all the disposable choices and easier care I would let a responsible middle schooler wear them.
My daughter started wearing them when she was four. Had not teasing or problems.
I wore mine when I was 12. Again, no one said anything about them.
You must have a unique prescription. General soft contact lenses that most people wear are relatively inexpensive. Compared to what Xbox and PS3 games costs, they are downright CHEAP.
Sort of - I have a strong astigmatism. I once calculated the odds…my problem is like 1% of the population. When I was a teen I could only wear rigid gas permeable ones. Now at least there are soft ones.
But that is just my point, that not all prescriptions are the same. I think it’s great some people can go cheap, but neither mine nor my SO’s are that cheap, and his problem is nowhere near as rare as mine. I wouldn’t trust an irresponsible kid with $300 contacts.
You have astigmatism and soft contacts? I didn’t know that was possible. I have gas-permeable due to my astigmatism, which is pretty severe. Everything about my eyesight is pretty severe. :sigh:
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan - go to a major contact lens website and search by “toric” lenses.
Let the poor child have contacts in a few years if they’re not expensive for god’s sake. You’ll help her psyche tremendously.
I may not have flossed my teeth while I had braces, but I damn well respected my contacts in middle school. Because if they ripped, I would have had to wear my glasses!
I got my first pair somewhere around the age of 12 or 13, and didn’t want anything to do with them! But I could remember being about 5 or 6 and being able to see perfectly clearly, so I admitted to myself that my vision wasn’t what it once was. My peers didn’t tease me at all, and a few years later when I got to hang out with my cousin who also wore glasses it helped get over that insecurity.
Can’t say as I share the revelation about trees since I had only mild myopia then and had had good vision in the past. Nowadays though with 1.75 diopter astigmatism (apparently that’s a lot), individual leaves are out of the question anymore.
As far as hair length, I actually got in the habit of wearing glasses almost all the time before ever letting my hair grow long, and I’ve never had a problem with getting it tangled up. Maybe it’s easier that way, since the wearer can gradually get used to their hair being near their earpieces.
The only real thing I remember about wearing glasses was that I broke them a lot. Even today, the screws tend to want to pop out, but, back then, I almost inevitably got hit in the head with a ball or wound up stepping on them.