I saw this movie on TNT (or something) over the weekend.
A scene shortly after the halfway point of the film: Vada runs from the bathroom screaming, “Ack! I’m hemorrhaging!” Then a touching scene ensues where Jamie Lee Curtis’ character teaches the young lass the facts o’ life.
What I don’t get is how any 11-year-old girl in America, even in the 70’s, would be startled, frightened and ignorant about her first period. Didn’t they teach this stuff in schools back then?
And, playing up the whole single dad angle: you’d think that Dan Ackroyd’s character would have taught Vada such important information, or at least hired a female cousin or someone to do it. Really, people, we weren’t that squeamish in the 70’s, were we?
So to the women (& girls) in the crowd: did you know this information at Vada’s age? Did you still freak out? Can any of you who were around in the 70’s shed a little more light on Vada’s ignorance?
And to the single dads in the crowd: how do you intend to broach this subject with your daughters? Are ya gonna hire your own mom to do it for you?
I did not know this information at her age. I think she would’ve been in 7th grade, though I’m pretty sure I received “the speech” in 8th grade. You have to remember though, with the single dad angle, he’s probably postponing the inevitable for as long as possible. (Daddy’s little girl and all that.)
But then again, she knows the meaning of the word hemorrhaging, and not menstruation? My question is why someone as seemingly-jaded as Vada’s character wouldn’t have already known or had an inkling.
Didn’t have the “speech” until 8th grade? If you don’t mind sharing, when was this? I ask because I’ve heard that girls are starting earlier and earlier. I reached this point of my life in the late 80’s. We had the “speech” in FIFTH grade. Several girls I know started their period in the sixth. I started the day before 7th, age 12.
And hell, yes…we all knew about it. Couldn’t wait for it. What were we thinking!?
I can’t remember not knowing about sex, etc. Of course, maybe having an older sister had something to do with that. I starting reading at a very early age, and I probably picked up a copy of her “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” along with various other Judy Blume books.
I learned back around the end of sixth grade (ah, trauma, trauma! :eek:), but didn’t get it until mid eighth grade when I was about thirteen. I don’t know, maybe Vada’s father didn’t think about it, or didn’t think she’d get it that young. You know…one of those things you keep saying you’ll talk about, but then you never get around to it?
Anyway, not knowing at eleven can’t be as bad as not knowing at seventeen…(a la Carrie). Okay so that didn’t happen…but still.
We got “the talk” in school in 6th grade (age 11), which for me would have been in the early '90s.
But I already knew most of the stuff before that, because I had read “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret.” And also because I had a mother and aunts, etc., who had grown up the in '50s, '60s, '70s, and who had never been told anything about anything, so they completely freaked out when they got thier period, and they were determined that no other little girl be traumatized so. I swear I got “the talk” from half a dozen different people.
When I finally got my first period (on my @!$%& 13th birthday) after having been warned about it for a good 3-4 years, I wasn’t at all startled or scared or happy (a la “Maragaret.” I never understood why she was so thrilled about getting her damn period) or anything. All I thought was “Well, it’s about freakin’ time.”
I’ve not seen the movie, but wasn’t the character in question preoccupied with death? If that is the case, it doesn’t seem so farfetched to think that she’d think the worst when she saw blood in her panties, even if she had heard of menstruation before.
I’m one of those late bloomers, I started midway through freshman year (14). Oreo and I are probably the same age, but like I’ve said before, my mom’s quite naive, and up until a point so was I. Let me add that I wish I hadn’t been as naive as I was.
I remember reading a novelization of the movie, where she says she knew what menstruation was, but she didn’t think that there was going to be that much blood. I don’t recall if she says that line in the movie.
In the UK in the late eighties, we didn’t get ‘the talk’ till 1st year seniors - the school year in which you turn 12. I started before that, and really had no clue about it. I knew there was such a thing as periods, of course, but didn’t know how much blood there would be, how long it would last, even how to put the pads on. And this from a reasonably bright child who had a female parent and older sisters - they just never talked about it.
My mom gave me “the talk” when I was 10 or 11, so I was ready when mine started a year later. With my own daughter, I was much more open much earlier, which was good - she started when she was 10.
And I’ve never heard her use the word “hemorrhaging” - in fact, I doubt that I’ve used it myself more than a couple of times.
We had “the talk” in 5th grade. They held a class just for the girls. The only things I remember were them mentioning a girl who’d started much earlier (around 9) and answering a girl who’d asked if boys got periods too with, “Yes.” :rolleyes: I’m still angry about that bit of misinformation. Even at the time, I remembered thinking that I’d folded the family’s clothes, and I didn’t remember seeing blood on my dad’s underwear. I was really confused.
We got the talk in 6th grade - that would be 70-71. It wasn’t so much a talk as it was just a Disney movie. I don’t recall the teachers saying anything beyond “you are going to see a movie and the boys have to leave the room”. I remember thinking at the time, “why are they showing us this stuff?” and didn’t really understand how it related to me.
My two girls grew up knowing all about periods and such. I never hid anything from them and always answered their questions. They are now 18 and 15, respectively, and our conversations sometimes go like this (with Dad covering his ears screaming “TMI, TMI”)
“Is it time for my period?”
“I think it’s next week”
“I just finished so you should be starting in a couple of days”
“OK, do you have any pads left, or do I need to get more?”
“No, I have enough, can you get some tampons, though?”
My mom is the “Edith Bunker” type of person, or rather, she was then. She didn’t say anything about periods, ever. She did try to give me a sex talk on night, though. I was 17, and had come in from a date at about 2AM. “I know all about it, Mom”, I said, “go back to bed.” And that was the end of the sex talk.
I used to tease my elder sisters and mother about wearing tampons until I finally learned why they were really used. All of the times I saw the commercials on TV for them I thought they were for people who peed their pants.
DairyMary, I thought the same thing about my mom’s pads - Everyone had heard of depends and the like, and I thought it mut be that as you get older, you gradually start to leak, and pads were just a step away from the fuller coverage. I didn’t find out what they were really for until sex ed class in about grade 5. I never even got “the talk”, I guess my parents figured I read enough I’d figure it out eventually.
We saw a film strip (remember those?) when I was in 4th grade around 1976. My mom gave me heads up, though, when the permission slip to watch it went home. I remember the film strip looked like it was made in 1952. They told us we shouldn’t swim and to make sure we wore make-up to make ourselves feel better?!? Just because you feel bad is no excuse for not looking your best. I wish that lipstick that cured cramps was still around.
I didn’t have the benefit of the school-sponsored talk beforehand, since I got my period the summer before 5th grade. We didn’t have an official sex-ed class discussion until 5th grade. I remember reading some stuff on menstruation in books my parents had at home, and I think my parents did talk about some stuff when I started wearing a bra (that would be 4th grade, and if you think there’s nothing awkward about a 4th grader in a bra, well, that’s another thread), and of course the classic Are You There God It’s Me, Margaret and its pathological counterpart Carrie, but I wasn’t prepared for it to actually happen. I don’t think anyone is, really. Teaching oneself to use tampons, though, that’s the real challenge. Even now I still mess up and I walk around like a penguin with a hemorrhoid.
My mom started hers when she was 9, so she made it a point to explain everything to me nice and early, since there was the distinct possibility that I would be an early bloomer, too. I started at 11, a few months before the fifth grade Video Where the Boys Had to Leave the Room.
Related hijack on the videos and movies: I still remember that we had “Julie’s Story” in fifth grade and “Growing Up Broadway” in sixth. I remember that “Julie’s Story,” in which Julie reacts to menstration with emotions better befitting a Lifetime Original Movie, was newer, but less interesting, than "Growing Up Broadway, in which girls and women who had been in various Broadway and touring productions of “Annie” talked about how growing up made them lose their jobs as adorable urchins. I guess we were maybe supposed to think, “Gee, I may be bleeding from the crotch, but I don’t have it as bad as these girls!” Anyone else care to review the versions of The Movie the Boys Couldn’t See?