Was anyone else’s DM really weird about periods when they were younger?

[BiscoffAddict]

I’ve just been thinking about this randomly today. When I was younger and lived at home I wasn’t allowed to leave my packets of sanitary towels anywhere my DF or DB could see them. DM insisted that they shouldn’t have to look at them and she’d go mad if I ever so much as left a wrapper lying about. So they lived in my knicker drawer in my bedroom. But then I’d go to other people’s houses, use the loo and see packets of tampax or whatever on the bathroom shelf next to the other toiletries.

Then last year I moved back in during lockdown and without thinking left a packet of sanitary towels on the dining room table after I’d been shopping. She snapped at me to move them quick ‘in case your Dad sees them’ because obviously seeing a packet of always ultra is going to cause him distress isnt it? God knows what she thinks when she goes to DB and DSIL’s house and uses their look because DSIL leaves hers on a shelf next to her shampoo etc, you know like normal people do.

It’s such a weird attitude to have and it feels worse now time has gone on. Was anyone else’s DM the same?

Even so, if we ever went to a family function she'd announce when I was on my period or she'd stage whisper that I had PMT which was why I was minding my own business and reading in the corner. She would loudly ask if I had pads when I got up to go to the toilet. I'm honestly not sure which is worse

My mum was a bit like this too. I did not want to talk about it with middle aged women!

I was only bought sanitary towels by my mum maybe 2/3 times before she died when I was 16. I had to make my own using rolled up tissue which of course didn’t work very well! Periods were not discussed and i was made to feel embarrassed and ashamed which is probably why I didn’t buy my own sanitary products until I was in my late teens! Thank god I didn’t suffer too badly with cramps or heavy bleeding! It makes me angry thinking back (I’m 42 now).

I very openly talk about periods now and not embarrassed to have my always ultra on show in the bathroom!

Sex education was really good at school and my Mum did tell me what would happen but I wouldn’t say she was open. Never mentioned it in front of Dad, sanitary towels were called Dr Whites and always in a whisper. My great aunt lived with us and she used to ask us if ‘ we were bad’ when we had our periods. TBH I think she was referring to the pain but at the time I thought it was because it was shameful. She also told us we would go mad if we washed our hair when ‘we were bad’.
My dd has always known as did my ds’s. When dd started her periods she didn’t even tell me, I asked her if she had when I found her knickers in the dirty washing. She didn’t keep it a secret it just wasn’t a big deal for her.
Until I started the menopause you couldn’t move for boxes of tampax etc, DH seems to have survived such lax morals 😆 and will happily buy tampax for dd although is constantly baffled by the choice and demands exact descriptions.

My lovely mum was really open with me and helped as much as she could. She once mentioned that her mother hadn’t talked about it, but thankfully she raised me differently.

Mine was OK but people are a product of their upbringing really. She was better with me than her mum was with her and I've been better with my DD than my mum was with me (I've had to overcome my personal hang ups WRT privacy over this!).

My mum was a lot better than some of the people described on here in so much as there were always sanitary products available.

She too thought that tampons took away your virginity and nice girls didn't use them, they were discouraged. Can't remember how it started but after a few years I simply must've bought them myself.

I also didn't have a bin in the bathroom which I found gross as you had to carry the used items down the stairs, through a hall and into the kitchen, and dispose of it in the kitchen bin (which was a small bucket under the sink with a carrier bag in it) with all of the food waste. It felt gross putting it in there. This still is an issue and I utterly hate it if I have my period while at hers.

However, I never had to go without products. Reading about that and the shame makes me feel sad.

I’ve been thinking back about this overnight.

I started when I was just 11, in Y6. I missed ALL the swimming lessons in the summer term because mum wouldn’t let me try tampons and my periods were all over the place - generally two weeks on, few days off. She got quite angry when I asked about tampons I really don’t know why. I must ask her.

I also used to dance back then, I had lessons four nights a week and Saturday mornings but had to suffer with massive overnight pads as tampons obviously weren’t allowed. I’d get in trouble in ballet if my knickers were visible under the line of my leotard.

I was another one who was told I was using them too quickly so ended up having more accidents. To be honest though, I think this was more to do with the fact that at the time we were very cash-strapped and then it just became habit. I don’t recall every having to hide products from my dad - I do remember mum promising me she’d keep it secret and then maybe two weeks later making a big show of asking in front of my dad if I had packed pads for when we went on holiday. Illogical I know, but as I said I was 11!

I only have sons and I’m very open about periods and bodily functions. I don’t want them growing up thinking teasing is an option, I want them growing up to be the sensible boys that keep spare packs of sanpro for their girlfriends and female visitors.

I've said this before but worth repeating.
We were never allowed to have any period stuff lying about in case dad and brother saw it. When we had periods we had to wrap the used towels in newspaper and sneak them out of the bathroom and put them in a bag in the spin drier. Mum used to then burn them in the garden incinerator. We lived in Australia and most gardens had one, don't know why?
Anyway, I digress. My mum's spin drier went wrong and had to go to the shop to mend it. It wasn't until it came back from the shop that mum remembered that there had been a few used pads in a bag in the bottom, she was horrified. I laughed and got told off.
I wasn't allowed tampons either, you lose you virginity with them apparently. When I was 16 and earning my own money I got them and told my mum I was using them from now on.
Once I left the 2 cardboard tubes from a Tampax in the bathroom and my brother found them, thought they'd be good for making something with (cannons for his action men perhaps?) so he came in the lounge with them in his hand waving them about and asking if he could have them.
My mum was out of her chair like a racing greyhound, snatched them out of his hand and said no. I got a talking to about leaving them about for him or dad to find.

Oh and they were never called periods, they were called "do's", as in watch out for your do's whispered every morning when we went to school.

My mum was always a prude about any bodily function as well as sex.

But she did her best. I'm 52, and can recall mum's awkwardness. She did, to give her credit, introduce me to tampons, because she'd found them so great. That was a huge step forward for me, as I used to swim a lot then.

I was very open with both DD and DS. DS is now 17 and has been to the shop for DD when I've been at work. He's not bothered at all.

I got a talking to about leaving them about for him or dad to find

I'm.curious as to how these dads would have reacted. Could the horror have all been in the mums heads?

@Whatwouldscullydo

I got a talking to about leaving them about for him or dad to find

I'm.curious as to how these dads would have reacted. Could the horror have all been in the mums heads?

God knows. Mind you, thinking about periods etc I've just remembered something. My sister and I worked in a dog kennels when we were younger, and it was a breeding, showing and boarding kennels. When the dogs came into season, we were often there when they were mated with male dogs. For YEARS I thought that people had to have sex whilst on their period to get pregnant, and wondered about the mess! I thought my friend was an only child because her mother couldn't stand the mess more than once. I was about 12/13 when I found out that wasn't right!

Never seen or talked about in my house. When i was 14 or 15 my dm pointed to a shopping bag that had sanitary towels in it, tucked out of sight in her bedroom, and said they are there if you need them. That was it, she didn't even say what they were, just pointed to them.

This thread makes fascinating but sad reading. I agree with the PP who said this is an important part of our living history that needs to be documented.

I am 41 and periods were openly discussed growing up with sanpro treated the same as any other household consumable. We had cupboards in the bathrooms with sanpro (along with spare loo roll, soap, etc) but I was lazy and so when I had my period I would usually leave the box of tampons or pads out on the windowsill or toilet cistern. I vaguely remember my Mum doing the same with her little boxes of lilets, so I suppose I just copied her. I continued with this lazy habit until switching to a menstrual cup and period pants a few years ago. I never gave it a second thought until this thread!

Reading everyone’s stories has reminded me of a school friend who used to obsess that everyone could see or smell the enormous unwinged pads she wore and would get me to walk behind her and check for bulges or leaks. It used to drive me mad. I could never work out why she didn’t switch to always ultra or just change them every break. I am guessing that either her family, who were fairly poor, could not afford them, or that periods were a shameful secret in her household I wish I could go back in time and give her some of mine.

My own DD and DS used to follow me into the loo and ask a million questions, and I’ve passed on extra information as it’s come up or as I’ve thought of it. There’s never been any Big Talk or any awkwardness about it, thank goodness!

My DM was relatively useless. I knew about periods and babies but mainly from my DF. She would only buy Dr White's for herself and buy me a pack every now and then. She thought I used them up too quickly. My DF would regularly shout if we (me and her) wanted anything when he went to the store and he would without fail get me a couple packs of the brand I preferred. Yet still she insisted that they were all hidden away!

She never discussed the menopause apart from how it was affecting her. Her favorite topic of conversation.

I have a DS but he knows all about it and has seen me buy Sanpro or walked for miles with me to help shift the pain. My Sanpro was kept in the bathroom and his girlfriends would be free to help themselves if they needed to. If I had a DD she would have the brand and quantity she needed. It's a basic necessity and a fact of life.

Mine was quite similar, I never got the talk from her and I remember having a fit when I started my periods as I was so scared, she then thrust a packet of towels at me and that was pretty much it.

I've been completely different with my DD. I bought her a book on hormones, bodies changing etc and we read it together then she used to sit reading it by herself. I showed her how to put pads on and what kind she needed so she was well prepared. She got her period and sailed through it.

My DM tried to do better than her own mother, who had just told her that she would get this every month now, when she went to her in distress about bleeding.
She said it meant I could have babies now and it would carry on until I was about 50. She got me the hammocks with a belt. So far, so OK. More than I would have expected, given her prudery.
Tampons were anathema, of course, until I insisted a few years later, and she got in a huff about it.
She hit the roof, in a display of rage rarely seen, when I inadvertently left a drop of menstrual blood on the loo floor in the dark. (She wouldn't let us put the lights on in the dark mornings. Because it was morning and one doesn't have lights on in the morning.)
What I hated was having to burn the used hammocks on the fire. It was a bit like Mission Impossible to smuggle the damned things downstairs and get them on the fire before DF saw them, because he would faint or explode or something. I remember poking the fire and turning them over so they would quickly blacken and resemble lumps of coal, instead of the shameful white bundles.

My mother only approved of tampax. She absolutely refused to buy me towels.
The tampax provided were nothing like adequate, but she insisted that they got used up too fast and I must be selling them at school :(
There was never a bin in the bathroom, and for a long time no lock on the door. And nothing could be seen or mentioned.
Misery.

I have recently watched this Newsround Period Special with my Y4 dd and Y7 DS, and DH. I thought it was done well. It means that the subject is "out in the open" amongst the DC now. DD is well informed (we have also had some chats and looked at some San Pro) and DS has a clue !

I had a slightly older cousin (DM's bother's child) and when I was about 10 she showed me a little pack her mum had given her with a book about growing up plus some towels/tampons in nice wrappers. She told me her mum had spoken to her about periods etc and given the pack to her so she could have a look at them and so she had everything she needed when she started.

I expected to get the same when I was a bit older but it never happened. I was 14 when I started my periods and by that point mum had had a hysterectomy so didn't have any towels etc in the house (not that I had that information at the time). When I told mum I had started she sent Dad to the chemist to get me some and did not say another word about it. Towels appeared in my bedroom drawer every month but she never spoke to me about it or asked what I wanted.

If I ever left sanpro in the bathroom it was removed and I was warned not to do it again in case it embarrassed my brothers. I never felt able to speak to my mum about periods or anything related to them so I remember running our of towels and using toilet roll rather than ask for more, and also hiding knickers that I had leaked on in a carrier bag my school bag so I could thrown them away in a public bin on the way to school.

I lived with my parents and my brother for a few months in my 20s and when I left a box if tampax in the bathroom one night I was told it would be very embarrassing for my brother. At the time he was 22 and had a girlfriend so I suspect he could probably cope with the sight!

I speak openly to my DD and my DS about periods.

Another here who had to keep them in the underwear drawer, and if I needed to use one I would have to smuggle it into the bathroom up my sleeve or something.
Mum was shocked when she saw my sanpro stash in a basket in my bathroom (postpartum as well so the heavy duty stuff!)

Savannah I just love that! Your DD 😂

My mother called sanitary towels ‘necessaries’ and every month I had to ask for them. Cringing with embarrassment I’d keep putting it off and steeling myself to ask.
I wonder now if this was her way of knowing I wasn’t pregnant, every month from age thirteen. Hardly necessary as I was extremely shy, went to a girls’ school and knew no boys.

My mum never once talked to me about periods and referred to sanitary towels as ‘mummy nappies’ until I was way older than it required. She had silly made-up words for female genitals, too. I knew nothing about my own body until I started my period at 12 and read about it myself.

To be fair, my granny (86yo) still calls pads ‘ladies comforts’ so my mum probably didn’t have a great example there!

Talking of boyfriend being clueless I remember reading on MN about a guy who thought that his GF should just have her period later on if it clashed with their plans. Like you went to the loo, "had" your period like you would a poo and then that was it done :o

NRTFT if its already been mentioned, sorry!