Well, I knew SOMETHING was up when ma would always decide it was time for us kids to go to bed whenever those old CareFree maxipads commercials would come on (anyone remember who the gymnast in those commercials was? I had a bit of a crush on her - though by no means as big a crush as I later developed for Mary Lou Retton). This got me curious - don’t parents realize that the best way to get kids to learn about something is to try to hide it from them? If she just let the commercials pass without comment, I’d doubt I would have even thought about them (except, of course, I still would have had the crush).
I picked up bits and pieces, but it really didn’t come together until 7th grade in science class. I remember I was the only guy (in fact, as I recall, the only person) to ask questions. It made me a minor hero for a few days in the schoolyard.
I just had a little conversation with my daughter about it. She came out of the bathroom waving a tampon: “What’s this, Mommy?” I couldn’t think of any reason for coming up with a creative lie, so my husband and I gave her the Mr. Rogers version. It was pretty funny–she has the general idea about babies coming out of Mommys’ tummies and how boys and girls are different. I recall using some sort of diaper analogy. She’s three. I sorta thought I’d have a little more time to get my story straight.
I was nine years old and had to share a room with my sister who was two years older than I. She kept this purple box of ‘sanitary napkins’ on our upper closet shelf. I thought it was weird that we had stuff for the dining room in our closet! I said something like that to my mother who slapped me across the face and told me to go to my room. I was STILL rubbing my face when she came into the room and threw a little pink booklet at me and told me to read it, then I was to go outside.
Wellllll, going outside was what I wanted worse than reading this stupid little book! So I opened it to the middle where I saw a drawing that reminded me of an open parachute with a weird person in the middle of it dropping down to the ground (womb with fallopian tubes if you can’t figure it by the description!) I put 2+2 together and got, ‘hmmmm, NEVER ask about those napkins AGAIN!’ and went outside to play.
My ‘period’ started when I was fourteen in 1967, and as Lisa mentioned, I was convinced I was shuffling off this mortal coil. I broke down with the news to my mother who FASTENED THE NAPKIN AND THE BELT ON ME (let’s be humiliated to the Nth degree shall we???) and said, ‘Now you’re a woman’ and stalked out of the room. She threw all of my horse figures and stuffed animals away, I guess since ‘women’ don’t play anymore.
Hey, mom, you should see the toys I have NOW!! hehehehehe
I also went a long time after my son’s birth without a period - 15 months - that with the 9 months of pregnancy made it 2 years without a period - it was great
I also started late - was almost 15. We had one of those movies in 4th or 5th grade to explain the whole thing so I’d been well aware for quite a while, thanks…
I think I was in the 6th grade when we had sex education. I’d had some idea before then, especially after the time my brother and I got into Mom’s stash o’ tampons. We discovered that if you dipped it in water, then used the cardboard tube as a kind of flinger/launcher, the tampons would fly across the room and hit the picture window with a totally satisfying SPLAT!. Then we got Dad’s shaving cream and fashioned ‘body parts’ on them, and called them “window slugs”. Needless to say, when Mom got home and saw what her two precious ones had gotten into while she was out, she was pretty horrified.
When I was about 5 or 6 I read “Dear God, It’s Me Margaret” by Judy Blume. What a silly idea for a book. [“Dear God, it’s me Margaret. Please let me have my period…” How many people actually wanted their period after they found out what it was? Not me!] That was the first information about menstruation that I received.
My best friend and I found a book and read it. I asked my mom about it and she swore up and down that she told me about it. I think I’d remember if she did. I remember we were like, “Ewww! That’ll NEVER happen to me!”.
It’s funny how we think about our periods as time goes by. The first reaction: “Ewww!”
Then: you see who among your friends gets it first and can’t wait until you do (I was in 10th grade). Then you realize what a pain it is and hate it and wish you didn’t have to have it. Then you start having sex and pray that you get it. Then, some women try to have kids so they start wanting to not have it. It’s a vicious cycle (bad pun, sorry!)
In the 5th grade our teacher separated the boys and the girls. We (the boys) went out in the school yard and played kick ball. The girls had to stay inside. Ha! We had so much fun and could not wait to tease the girls. When the next period came the girls told us (I’m sure this is what the teacher told them to tell us) that they got to watch “Star Wars”. Damn! That pissed us off so much. I think the resentment lasted for years. It turned into a major issue for us. The 5th grade boys bitched for quite some time about not getting to see “Star Wars”. Can you imagine the laughs the faculity had over this?
My knowledge was gained in the “Disney” movie they showed (only to the girls) in grade school. Mom filled me in on the true facts shortly thereafter.
However-
the BEST thing about it I ever saw was the Mary Tyler Moore show episode where Mary and Rhoda were visiting Rhoda’s mom and she sat Valerie Harper down to read a letter she had written after Rhoda’s birth. Eventually, she got to the point where she talked about this wonderful thing that was going to happen someday, blah blah blah, that would make it possible for her (Rhoda) to have her own little one. And, best of all, it would happen EVERY MONTH FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE-or some such thing.
“On Wednesday, the fifth grade girls will be seeing a movie in the library with the school nurse. The fifth grade boys will be going to the gym to play basketball. Girls, here are your permission slips…”
Permission slips to see a film. Heavy stuff! Actually, since my sister was only one grade ahead of me, I already had some idea what was in the film, but that was when I really learned the details. My mother desperately wanted us to know, since she about died the first time she got her period - she knew nothing about it and thought she had contracted some horrid disease - but she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it to us until we were pretty well adults. So she was grateful for the school nurse and her movie, and the “Growing Up and Liking It” booklets that were sent home with us. She did however manage to let us know where she kept the maxipads. (Beltless, thank goodness.)
Good thing I knew what I was happening. When my first period showed up, I was alone in the house with my teenage brother. I don’t know who would have been more embarrassed if I would have called to him for help.
Exactly the same. My mom had me totally prepared. When I told her it happened, she started crying like a baby… "My little…sob… giiiiiirrrrrlllll’s growwwwnnnn uuuupppp…sob sob.
