Is this weird parenting?

My mum got me a magazine, chocolates and a new hot water bottle. I've never forgotten that. Was really thoughtful and the perfect gift.

Nobody has to say “you’re a woman now” to celebrate a milestone in a young girl’s life. However, the OP’s DD is doing GCSEs, and teachers routinely refer to girls that age (and secondary school age more generally) as “young ladies” and “young women”, so I think any girl of 13 or over is probably able to understand that she isn’t being “stripped of her childhood” by being occasionally referred to as a young woman. Getting your period marks a bodily transition that is significant for girls; it doesn’t have to be made sexual or patriarchal or OTT to be celebrated in as low-key a way as anyone wants.

Obviously it’s weird to say sepulchrally to a nine year old that she’s “now a woman”, but McNish is being pretty OTT to suggest a 16 or 17 year old is going to be weirded out by this.

I’m interested in why in a whole thread of women, getting a piece of jewellery from your mum to mark a female milestone is seen as so weird. Would people see it as weird to get an engagement ring, wedding ring, eternity ring or “push present” (to use a recent term)? Why is jewellery somehow okay if it marks a woman’s patriarchal relationship to a man, but it’s “cringey” that your mum might buy it for you? Periods must somehow be embarrassing to mark, or too extravagant. Women and girls should be pretending nothing’s happening, or feeling bad or panicky or “mortified” by it, it seems.

It's strange thing to mark on that way, and mkre so that's its pink and almost drop shaped, bit on the nose?

I think its a lovely idea and will do the same with my daughter when the time comes. It marks the occasion and the the changes starting. I do think that the gift - if it's jewellery should be something that wears well. Vermeil while better than plated will show wear and age more thank solid gold or silver. Get her self defence classes too 💪X

weird . just buy her pads, new knickers and a shit load of chocolate. Then give her a knowing nod and wish her well. job done!

It’s annoying how early we get periods really. Over half of women don’t have a baby until at least 30 (and that number is expected to climb) yet average age for first period is 11 or 12 😭 Nature can be pretty flawed sometimes.

In Hinduism we have a whole flippin' ceremony involving family and friends and lots of gifts. I personally found mine embarrassing,but it was culturally normal for us. So to me, this is not weird. Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs and Quincineras are nothing to do with menarche, but lots of cultures celebrate what they consider to be the beginning of adulthood.

This makes sense but I think we can and should mark the occasion and use it as chance to prepare for womanhood, not necessarily you are now a woman.

I think it is nice to mark transitions with rituals... but then I read this from Holly McNish.. and wondered..

Morning scribbles
please, when your daughter starts menstruating, at 8 or 9 or 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17, do not tell her she’s a ‘woman now’. It is a really inaccurate thing to say and it is often frightening for a child or young girl. It was for me. The idea that a girl, on first bleeding, is a ‘woman’ is an idea that has been pushed by certain men in charge for centuries often as an excuse to now buy or forcibly marry young girls. Menstruation is one of many ongoing processes of puberty. It is not a sign that a girl is ready to ‘bear children’. It is still hugely unsafe for a girl in early menstruation to be pregnant because her body is not fully developed. It is all just gross and has heinous undercurrents. A girl who starts menstruating is a a girl who has started menstruating. We don’t tell a child they’re suddenly an adult when they start sweating or growing pubic hair and so on. It’s all a gradual process developing and growing up. So please let’s stop this ‘you’re a woman now’ stuff the minute there’s a first drop of blood. Just help them deal with the bleeding without stripping them of the childhood they are still in.

Aw you sound like a lovely mum. You do you. Ignore the haters.

I think it’s a lovely idea. To de-weird it, package it up together with a bundle of practical gifts: a few pairs of period pants (they are great as a backup for night time), navy blue towels (hospitals sometimes use navy bed linen on patients who are bleeding heavily), paracetamol, and one of those new hot water bottles that you can tie around your waist. And a note maybe giving tips on how to clean bloody clothes: salt, cold water, a soak and a scrub. And some chocolate, of course.

My Dad bought me a cake, but no massive ceremony nonsense

I was going to say 'Bloody Hell!!' but that might have been a bit too like the truth!! Poor kid! I had no idea that could happen. Very glad I didn't know as a teenager!

“Teen girls around me do panic about periods and holidays, because for many of them, period and swimming pools don't go together. It's a simple fact.”

That’s because a patriarchal society expects women and girls to carry on as a normal when we menstruate. We shouldn’t be expected to brush our periods under the rug and carry on as normal. We should be given space to rest and respect our bodies. Until we start understanding and respecting we are NOT the same as men, things will not change. Actually celebrating the start of our periods and the marvel of a woman’s body is a positive step in the right direction of reclaiming our power and beauty.

I agree. And no I don’t find anything ‘shameful’ and ‘gross’ about periods at all but it’s literally just another bodily function that’s often an inconvenience and annoyance.

My mum bought me a bracelet, I didn’t think it was weird. I really liked it

Only you know your DD, and if she’ll be happy with it. Who cares what others would or wouldn’t do.

It's telling that I write about inconvenience and you translate it immediately by "shame" to fit your agenda.

I do love that "body-shaming" manages to be thrown into this for good measure

Please don't call her a woman. Just because she has started her periods it doesn't mean she is a woman. My dd started at 11. She was still very much a child who had lots of years of childhood left.

If you want to buy her jewellery do it, but say it's because you love her and want to treat her.

I don't think it's weird at all. I think it appropriately marks a rite of passage.

My first period wasn't embarrassing. I was relieved, I was 14. My mother gave me a hug and took me to a big boots and we chose different sorts of pads to find out what I liked best. She told my grannie.

My dd had her first period aged 10.5 I took her to have her ears pierced to mark her transition to womanhood. I bought her different types of pads, as my mother did for me and a little makeup bag to keep them in her school bag with spare pants, tights and wet wipes. Just in case.

She still tells me when she has her period and she's 27. She tells me far more than I ever shared with my mother.

I'm always shocked when MNetters post that their mothers didn't support them with periods or provide enough pads, etc.

Really find it sad women like this are raising daughters to have so much internalised shame at natural bodily functions that bring life

My mum threw a family party! Was embarrassed at the time but now think it was very sweet and a lovely memory to mark this time.

I mean honestly:

periods are not something positive we want to celebrate

That really is negative and anti-female and patriarchal and body-shaming. Such a shame to see such internalised misogyny on MN.

@JillAndJenTheFlowerpotMen OP I bet you would get some different responses to this on the feminism boards or at a different time than a Saturday afternoon.

I think it’s a lovely thing to do but I think you need to reframe it. Rather than being shit for the next for the next 30/40 years, it’s a rather a powerful gift that can be successfully navigated. I recommend you reading “period power” and gifting copies to both your daughters. I plan on marking the occasion for my daughter and make sure I never associate my period as a bad thing to any of my children.

Er, very obviously not the same thing? Does your teenage boy have to carry “wet dream protection” with him to school?

What a downright silly analogy tbh, which betrays some bizarre assumptions about how boys should be defined by sexual pleasure but menstruation is some kind of inverse sexual experience for girls. (Newsflash for you: girls also have “wet dreams”’ where they get aroused in dreams too and orgasm. It’s not remotely the same thing as starting periods.) 🙄

Really, the OP is definitely not the weird one on this thread.

Cringey