Not really inspired by this thread-been thinking about it for awhile, but hesitated because of the fuzzy boundaries, but the other thread made me rethink my decision.
Anyhoo, I’ll leave it to each person to decide when it happened, as no definition I can give (for either sex) can fit all circumstances. I will do it in 2-year steps: “11-12” means it started around your 11th birthday and really kicked into gear going into your 12th year.
Poll is private.
Not until high school, unfortunately. It appears to be genetic, as my mom, aunt, and lil bro were all “late bloomers” too. (I know for sure about Mom and Auntie, but lil bro…? He didn’t get even as tall as me until he was 15, and I’m not quite 5’4" so call it a reasonable guess.) When I was fourteen and a half I finally got my period and an overdue visit from the bossom fairy, and grew seven inches over the next eighteen months. Then I grew almost another inch during college, and that’s fairly rare in girls.
This is going to be way too scattered. First boner, first period, first cramps, first pubic or underarm hair, first mustache (boy or girl!), breast ‘buds’ (ew, even hearing that in sex ed made me think my teacher was a perv), major weight gain, first pimple, last pimple, voice breaking, growth spurt, end of growing (height)… all in the span of what, nine years?
I had my first period before the first summer I went to summer camp, when I was 9. By 10 my period was pretty regular and I wore a 32B bra.
By the time I started high school, I had my period regularly for 4 years. It’s awful getting it so young. I still have bad posture from years and years of slumping over to minimize my breasts.
A lot happened the month I turned thirteen, and that’s all I’m saying.
Yeah, difficult to choose a single date. Growth spurt began age 12 (?), pubic hair around 12 or 13, voice began changing around 13 or 14, shaved for the first time just before my 18th birthday, still shaved only about 1-2 times a week 4 years later, first orgasm age 18 (well, I think the body was capable earlier, it just didn’t happen), muscles kicked in at age…hm…still waiting, I guess…
I split the differences: 13-14.
Period at 14, at which time I felt like the LAST girl ever to get hers. I didn’t have any boobs really until 16 or so, much to my dismay.
I was a tomboy, but really I would have liked to get some feminine features a LITTLE earlier. I was way too hung up on it at the time, making those awkward years so much fun. But I guess whether you’re early, or late, or average, it all seems horrible anyway.
I was 11. Flat as a board, though. Daughter is, too. I tell her, wait a few decades and you’ll have more than you can wrangle, just like ur mom.
If only this were me! I was 10, the first of all my friends, and had really horrible ones for eight years before my mom remembered, “Oh! I went on the pill at 16 to stop the cramps - you want to?” My sis was spared 3 extra years of pain!
But I bet you’re right and that early and late both suck.
I started puberty very early as well. I started developing pubic hair at a ridiculously early age, probably 6 or 7. I had been wearing a bra for two years when I started my period at age 9. (I selected ‘‘age 8-9’’ for the poll since I consider the defining moment of puberty for a woman to be starting the period.)
For as long as I’ve had boobs, I’ve had enormous boobs. By Jr. High I was a D cup. I was teased a lot, by a handful of particular boys, but I could kick all their asses so I didn’t care (my favorite thing to do in elementary school was beat up boys.) By all accounts it should have made me uncomfortable to go through that at a younger age, but it didn’t. I always fancied myself as more mature than other kids my age. This was just confirmation and I took a strange sort of pride in it. I was an awkward kid, but at least I had my womanly body and all.
The weird thing about my period is that it was perfectly normal from the time I was 9 to the time I was 12, and then it went completely nuts – severe PMS, severe mood swings, etc–completely out of the blue. So they put me on the Pill. It was very weird being 12 and on the Pill. I definitely wasn’t alone though.
Which is why I find that other thread, about it being impossible for a minor to be mistaken as an adult, utterly ridiculous. I was well into puberty by the age of 12, and I had the same body then that I have now. Of course I was mistaken for an older woman all the time.
That’s really awful that she didn’t even consider your pain. My Mom found me writhing on the bathroom floor one morning begging her (in complete seriousness) to shoot me. She knew exactly what was happening because she had been through it herself.
She didn’t even hesitate to get me to the doctor as soon as I was functional again. The doctor poked my abdomen and told me to take a Midol.
Boy, did my Mom give him the business. She took me to see a gynecologist and they put me on the Pill. Because of her quick thinking I was spared years of excruciating pain. I’ve had my PMS issues in my 20s – pain I would describe as usually moderate to occasionally severe, but nothing, NOTHING like what I went through in 7th grade.
The odd thing I can’t get over is how it just started happening out of the blue. Three years of a perfectly regular cycle and then my uterus was taken over by demon spawn.
I sort of figured puberty was an ongoing process throughout the teen years, and wasn’t just concentrated in one or two years. Though I suppose it depends on the person.
I picked “13-14,” because I started my period at age 13, but I feel like it sort of continued on throughout high school. My boobs in particular didn’t grow very quickly (actually, they never got very big at all), which was a source of perpetual frustration at the time. I’m happy with my size now, though.
Also…
Weren’t no such critter for me, sadly. 
I voted 10-11 since I was growing boobs probably since the age of 9 and got my period at 11 (almost 12). I see all these threads about statutory rape and how it isn’t a guys fault if he thinks your boobs look 18; It makes me feel sick.
I was not even close to being ready for sex until 16 or 17, but as all the “early blooming” ladies can tell you, men approach, even if they know your (young) age.
I don’t really remember when my boobs started growing; I know they took off like crazy once they did. And I got my period (after the boobs went nuts) the week before 8th grade started; I was sorting school supplies at the time. So 13 for that.
I voted 12-13 because that’s when the heavy duty stuff started happening.
I chose 11-12. I started to wear a bra late in my 5th grade year - so just before 11, though I doubt I needed it. I stared my period a few months after 12. Leg and underarm shaving started around the same time.
My period has been irregular and 98% painless ever since (I’m 24). Thankfully, nature has equiped me with a half day of spotting as warning, and I have never bothered to go on the pill to correct a good situation.
Boners happen from infancy. They’re not part of puberty.
I’ve noticed that a lot of women who’ve never lived with young boys assume that boners don’t happen until puberty. Clearly, a change needs to be made to the sex ed curriculum.
Is it a valid to mark puberty as the time when male masturbation becomes “productive?” 'Cause that happened to me at 12.
Still waiting, I’m 38. If you want medical verification, send me $20 and an SASE.
I’m not sure what qualifies a beginning of puberty. I can’t really remember what age I was but I had boners pretty early. I distinctly remember mentioning it and a pair of male friends of mine didn’t know what I was talking about, so I think I was a bit earlier than normal.
I just put 12-13 because I’m not entirely sure and that doesn’t seem too far off.