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?

When we got to about 17 me and my younger brother used to wind my mother up if the Bodyform ad came on by singing along to the song at the top of our lungs...

Said younger brother once found me crying my eyes out on the stairs as I was in absolute agony with period pains. My mother wasn't there so I thought 'fuck it' and told him why...he went down to the local pharmacy and bought me strong painkillers and a coke! He was only 15...far more mature about the whole thing than my mother ever was. She went mad - at me! - when she found out...

@Aprilwasverywet

My dm never told me about periods... Luckily I started as a friend's house and her dm sorted me out. Dm never refered to protection as anything other than 'things'..

That reminds me of my first boyfriend who thought that women wee from their vagina 🙄 .

Just remembered I wasn’t allowed to use tampons, or always...had to use the large cheap pillow type ones. (Used to sneakily buy tampons out of my lunch money). Also had to wrap the used towels in tissue and hide them in my knicker drawer and throw out discreetly at the end of my period

I was so open with my DDs because my DM wasn't.

She sat on my bed one day and went beetroot red and her finger went round and round on my tummy and she said... one day you will have a visitor.

That was it.
I thought my Auntie Joan was coming to the house!

When I started my periods I thought I was dying of something. Awful.

Not exactly the same but as a teenager I once asked my mother if she had ever been on the contraceptive pill, she went ballistic at me! Apparently that is private
I am much more open with my children (son and daughter) if they ask I tell them the truth

My mum never talked to me about periods, she found out from my cousin/aunt that we the school had done a talk about them. She then gave me a book about puberty/periods.

She bought sanitary towels tho and they were kept in a special drawer in the bathroom.

These days she tells me all about the menopause and women issues and I sometimes wish she would go back to not talking 😂

Yes similar story here, I remember I had to wait until I was 16 until I was 'permitted' to use tampons, all those unnecessary years of mess & discomfort! DD will definitely be in control of her own periods rather than me controlling them like my mother did, it was quite usual then though in the 90's!

Yes, same here.

My DM told me about periods, in a very awkward hurried conversation at the age of 12. In the same conversation she told me, in an irritated tone, that she’d bought me some bras that day. I think maybe she just had a tough time about me growing up, but she remained weird about it.

Of course I already knew about periods from a book I’d got at the age of 10 (not to mention teen mags which we all read at 11) but the fact it wasn’t acknowledged until over 2 years later!!

I remember in year 7/8 at school we needed to tear out adverts from magazines for a school project of some sort. DM wouldn’t let me go through her ‘essentials’ and ‘prims’ in case I saw something ‘unsuitable’ (ie adverts for sanpro.....)

Once I’d started she was initially fine but then often forgot to buy me towels. I’d have to sneak into her room and steal a few from where they were very carefully concealed in a draw, behind underwear (obviously lest they offend my father!)

All very strange indeed now I think about it.

Yeah i never knew about contraception either. Well I did, but I found out from teen magazines like J17 and Shout etc. It’s quite shocking how ignorant I was really.

I have to hand it to my mum, she was weird about lots of things, but not this.

My mother called them wotsists 🤦‍♀️ I can’t think of the crisps. She also had a cream bucket with a lid that stayed in the kitchen where she soaked her underwear.
The only advice she gave me was to put the sticky part of the MASSIVE sanitary towel onto my knickers
Helpful

mine never told me about them nor bought me any products either. she also made me leave the room to breastfeed too - so my Dad didn't feel uncomfortable. I have raised my DD very differently to this.

My mother and grandma had perfectly open conversations about periods. I have perfectly open conversations with dd who is now 22. However we all expect products to be kept in the bathroom cabinet. Along with everything else.

God I had the opposite! Came on first time on Christmas Day 😱 my mum decided it should be a celebration I was obviously horrified at the time. But looking back she was right... no shame there! I was always quite happy to send my boyfriend to the shop on those days

My mother was prudish to the nth degree. The word ‘periods’ was never used, sanpro was doofers, tampons the work of the devil because it meant you weren’t a virgin etc.
When I had my first period she said ‘Oh good’, and told all her friends!
I had to ask for towels every month, and she’d make a huge palaver about it.
I had excruciating dysmenorrhea every month, doubled up in pain, sick etc and I got walloped for ‘making a fuss’. When I started nursing I went to the staff doctor who put me on the Pill. My mother must have gone through my handbag one time when I went home and she went berserk, calling me names. Needless to say any future times I went home were few and far apart.
When I was pregnant with dc1 she told me that i shouldn’t be seen outside because ‘Everyone will know what you’ve been doing’! I was married, 25 and a midwife ffs!
Things were very different for my DD!

OMG Roussette I think that’s what they call tragi-comedy!

I know!

Looking back now it's unbelieveable, really it is.

Wasn't the Samaritans founded after a schoolgirl killed herself because she thought her period was some terrible disease?

@ShirleyPhallus

My mother never even spoke to me about periods and stuff. Never bought me sanpro at all

Me neither. I had to use wadded toilet roll.

Mine pushed and pushed me to use tampons.
I tried and really hurt myself because she went on and on and how great they were, and how everyone she knew daughters were.
WTF?

My DH comes from a different culture and one of my SILs told me she was taught that when she married, she should never wash her own underwear which she'd worn whilst having a period with any of her husband's clothes. It was really drummed into girls that it was something to be ashamed of and hidden from men as it was so disgusting

Yep mine too, I don’t think it helped I was the only girl and my mum never had periods as she had a hysterectomy about 8 years before I got mine. Yet apparently the reason we fought so much was because we were apparently in sync🤔

The worse part after her making a big deal about it being something personal to me and keeping them in my room and not to talk about this in front of my dad and brothers was that she then went downstairs and proceeded to tell my dad and brothers they had to be nice to me as I just got my first period🤬

nocoolname

Yes. That is exactly how the organisation was founded. It was in the fifties, and the young girl killed herself for that reason.

Good on Amy!

She's a good actor.