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?

I wasn't allowed to leave anything in the bathroom it had to be in my knicker drawer, which was just really awkward especially when I was young as I used to forget to take things with me. We also weren't allowed a bathroom or bedroom bins so everything had to be put in a bag and taken down stairs and put in the outside bin which felt like a walk of shame.

I have made very sure we have bathroom bins and the kids have bins in their bedrooms plus I have a really well stocked bathroom as I always hope that any visiting teens could feel that they could help themselves if needed.

Never had a single discussion even mentioning them to this day. It's hard to imagine how someone could have been brought up in a more repressed environment, really.

My mum has never yet even mentioned periods to me.. and I’m nearly 50😂

A pack of 10 pads would magically materialize in my drawer every month. And why only 10, for a heavy 5 day period? So much needless shame and discomfort on this thread. What the hell was wrong with people😕

Not as weird as some people’s mums on here, but towels/tampons were always kept in your knicker drawer, if I took a pack in the bathroom she would return it to my knicker drawer, and any used ones had to be put in a scented nappy bag thing & put straight in the main bin, never the bathroom bin. Seems weird now as it is just logical to me to keep pads etc in the bathroom

@nocoolnamesleft

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

I had absolutely no idea that was how it started. I didn’t know much about the founder, what an amazing man, especially for that day and age.

I can’t help picturing the opening scenes of Carrie when she got her period and was ridiculed in the showers. I know it’s fiction, but I think it’s happened in real life to many girls 😢

My grandmother was like this. As a teenager you were told about the special basket and you were given paper bags for your used ones and they went straight into the outside bin. You also weren't allowed to hang your underwear on the main line. She had a line behind the shed for that but I was never told and I went to stay with her for a week and came out and thought someone had stolen my underwear 🤣🤣🤣 she had just moved it all behind the shed.

We never had them on show but it wasn’t a taboo subject. I have mine and DD’s in a drawer in the bathroom. I don’t need them on show, per se, DP has never batted an eyelid either way and if I put Liletts on the shopping list he’ll ask ‘pink or purple ones?

I don't remember ever having the chat with my mum. I used pads until I moved out as she never talked to me about tampons and never used them herself so I would be too embarrassed for her to find them in the bin!

I plan to be much more open with my future kids. I'll find it hard though, it makes me cringe when people say they've "come on". Me and my husband call it "being girly" 😂 maybe I'd have been different if my mum had been more open about it.

Yep my Mum was very nervous and embarrassed around those kind of conversations! She also could not cope with me discreetly breast feeding in public - got in a right old flap! Nothing was on display. She is also a younger grandma as she had me very young. So she isn’t really that old!

Ironically my sisters and I are very open and the same with our own children.

All hidden away when Iwas young. Only ever discussion was ' do you know what periods are ?' Me 'yes' and never spoken about again. I'm still waiting to be taught the facts of life

Mine used to be furious that I got them, like it was my fault. Had no sympathy for pain. In fact I wasn’t given any pain killers. She used to tell me I needed to go for a brisk walk, I suffered a lot when I was in my mid teens with pain. She never bought me enough sanpro.

My MIL loved to tell me that period pain was abnormal and she’d never had any ever (she was lying I’m sure).

I’m very open with DD. She does mention it to DH. He freaks out about sanpro in the bathroom but I tell him to grow up.

I wasn't told anything, and I was left a bag of big thick sanitary towels and had no idea what to do with them once finished with.

And when I'd saved up enough to try tampax, my DM told me she knew someone had died from using one. At this point I took no notice and just carried on. But buying them was a mammoth operation to do it without anyone knowing. I skulked around in shame most of the time

All this is so awful isn't it

I caught myself asking DD if she needed any tampons in a hushed, but carrying, whisper at Tesco once.

Only then did I realise how little my DM had ever talked or supported me through starting my period and vowed to change, for the sake of my daughters.

Oh god yes. It was treated like a secret 'between girls' but in a way that also alluded to shame, like periods were dirty and to be spoken of in hushed tones.

Tampons 'were only for married women' and you couldn't have a bath, wash your hair or go swimming as it 'makes the blood come away faster'.

Needless to say I ignored all that illogical shit. Much to her annoyance.

I wasn’t allowed to leave my packets of sanitary towels anywhere my DF or DB could see them

Same here. She even objected to this when I left some in the toilet of my own flat. Maybe she thought my brother hadn't heard of periods. It's a wonder I'd heard of them, she certainly never told me

My DF used to buy mine cos I was too embarrassed! So my family weren't weird but I was (I was 12 when I started to be fair)

@Roussette

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.

I still call mine my Aunt 😂

I have 3 DDs oldest is 9. I’ve never kept it a secret from them, they know I bleed each month, my period, they know it happens to all women and it will happen to them, yes it may hurt, no it may not. My oldest knows a bit more now, but that’s the gist so far.

My 3yo walked in on me a couple of months ago and asked what I was doing so I said my tummy’s bleeding so I have to wear these in my knickers, she now tells people I wear mummy nappies but daddy dosnt have to because his tummy dosnt bleed because he’s a boy.

Oh my goodness yes! It didn't help that I started my periods at 11 on the first day of secondary, but my sister (5 years older than me) didn't start until 17. She called sanitary products 'doings' and would whisper about it. She would also buy me the cheapest thickest pads you could get, it was 97!

My mother and I have never said the word 'period' to each other, never mind to anybody male. It's so odd. It was women who complained in the ?70s when sanitary towels were advertised on TV and got the adverts banned for years.

I used to have very painful periods as a teen as well. Far more painful than they are now. I can remember struggling to concentrate at school it hurt so much, DM was useless though. Never explained it was normal.

My Mum was very weird about periods. She didn't like it if I asked for sanpro and would often pretend to forget. She had her own in her room and would notice if I took some, but never provided me with any. So from age 11 I was buying my own from the corner shop (about 4 times the price as a normal supermarket) and I hid them in my room. Spent my teen years thinking it was disgusting and something to be ashamed about. Even when I lived alone I kept everything in the back of my sock drawer. Now I have a basket full of sanpro in my en suite, and the downstairs loo and guest bathroom has plenty, on show.

Never discussed in my house.
But I think my Granny (mums mum) was worse; she would cringe if we said knickers- if she had to refer to underwear it was "unmentionables"!

AliceMcK bless your little lad!

Never an issue with having them in a communal bathroom cupboard, but my god did she have issue with the brand or quantity I used.

I preferred super pads with wings as I had heavy, long periods. She would always buy me what she used, wingless regular pads, one pack to last a period. Her reasoning was that one pack should be enough otherwise there would be more in a pack, and she thought I only wanted super so I wouldn't have to change them as much 🤨

Yeah, I wasn't allowed to leave my pads in the bathroom either. I had forgotten about that until your thread. Also my mum refused to explain periods to me before mine started. My dad ended up being the one to explain them to me, and give me a little talk.