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?

My mum wasn't like this but I have seen friends parents be like this.

For my muslim sisters, have you ever been told to hide your eating during ramadan because some people wouldn't understand?

I've also had friends shy to buy food at the shop incase the shop keeper will know they are on their period.

My mum made me use scented nappy bags for them as a teen and to this day I hate the smell of scented nappy bags - so much so I never used them for my kids nappys (never mind the unnecessary plastic use)

We always kept them in our knicker drawer too - although it wasn't so people wouldn't see them. I still keep them in my knicker drawer and I have weird reasoning that if damp/steam from the bathroom hits the pads/tampons it'll ruin them.

@Jobseeker19

My mum wasn't like this but I have seen friends parents be like this.

For my muslim sisters, have you ever been told to hide your eating during ramadan because some people wouldn't understand?

I've also had friends shy to buy food at the shop incase the shop keeper will know they are on their period.

I had a muslim friend who told me she still fasted on her period because she didn't want to announce to everyone she was on her period.

Some of these are really sad 😞 my own experiences weren’t much better. The education we got at school was actually really helpful.

I’ve gone the other way and my DD will have stories of her own to tell! She is 9 1/2 but she is very tall so I want to be prepared. I have bought so many varieties of sanitary towels, and also bralettes but she has zero interest in any of it. It’s there when she needs it though 😃

My ma used to refer to tampons as ‘those internal things’. Any area of anatomy below one’s navel was ‘your front’. My auntie only started mentioning anything to do with sex to me after I got married ....aged 38....having lived with the fella for years! It was as if the pretence must be maintained I’d been innocent until my wedding day.

It’s sad that women of earlier generations were given such shame about natural bodily functions.

My mum was the same, like it was a shameful secret. I remember that when I put my pads etc onto a shelf in the bathroom she went ballistic, God forbid a man even glance at one 😱 definitely not doing it this way when I have kids

My dear old dad once referred to a pack of Always as "Man Hole Covers"
I wasn't sure what to make of it at the time

Nope. My dad had two daughters including myself and would often buy us sanpro at the supermarket (and normal paired it with chocolate, he was mostly a terrible parent but periods didn't phase him).

Oh yeah. I'd forgotten. My mum had this creepy old box she brought out when I started periods to show me all these big pads and even a strange belt thing. I guess it was just an old box where she kept them. Maybe I was expecting treasure or a consolation prize of some kind. She spoke quietly and didn't really explain properly what was going on. Thanks Mum for making it weirder than it already was! Haha.

What the fuck is wrong with all your mothers?! It makes me feel sick thinking that you all had to act like something shameful and disgusting was happening to you. You’d think as women they’d understand...

My mum was open about it but horrified and upset that I was using tampons as opposed to pads. Also my dad explained periods to both of us when I started mine as her own mother wasn't around to give her the proper talk. So no secrecy as such but she was uncomfortable about what I chose as san pro. Many friends at school said they 'weren't allowed tampons' either- so much misogyny.

@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.

My mother never told me about them. When I first started I didn't even tell her, just had to sneak the mattress sized pads from the airing cupboard. Had to tell her eventually when they ran out.

Was determined dd wouldn't face the same situation. We're very open about them.

My late Mum was like this, but this was when I was a youngie in the mid 50's era. She never spoke about periods at all, and in school it was never mentioned either.. Thankfully I used to visit my lovely grandparents most weekends when I was about 11,they had a small holding,one day myself and a cousin were horse riding down a country lane,and I was suddenly aware that my periods had started, I was on the back of a horse ! We were then near my Grandparents small holding,my cousin started yelling at me to jump off the horse, as she thought I was bleeding to death ! I ran up the long drive.my Nan saw me, she was pruning some roses, and straight away saw the state of me.. She told me to get a bit cleaned up in the bathroom,and then hurriedly ran down to this little tiny old shop in the village,and bought me some sanitary towels,and one of those little elastic belts that you had to use with them...

My Nan had to explain things to my Mum when I went back home after the weekend. My mum then had to start buying the period stuff but she always put it at the bottom of her shopping bag. and told me to keep the stuff out of sight haha.. She never ever explained periods to me, I just had to pick up info from the girls at school.

She also said, that I could not wash my hair when having a period. !!

I know I'm really lucky because both my parents acknowledged periods. it's a shame that its not the norm. I know my friends/family didn't think the same way parents did. My mum had the talk with me at 9 even though I started at 14. My pads were always bought for me and plenty of them. Both of them made me cups of tea and filled hot water bottles for me. And I didn't have to wake up for ramadan fasts.

I remember when I got married and my Mil was so funny and secretive about them, and forced me.to be too. It was extremely frustrating!

My DGM made a point of telling me (I was about 9, and completely uninterested) about periods in great detail. It was a bit odd, as although we were close it was a 'fun' close, and this was unusually serious for her.

Then she told me that whe she started her periods she had no idea what was happening. She woke in the night bleeding, and ran to her parents bedroom in a panic, blood all over her nightie, screaming she was dying. Her mother grabbed her told her to shut up and she wasn't dying, shoved her out of the room and shut the door!!

She was left, still no idea what was going on, all alone.

She was really close to her dad (strangely she didn't like her mother much...) and often cuddled him or sat on his lap. From that day forwards her mother would forcibly remove her from her father if they had any physical contact. She thought that by DGM starting her periods, and therefore not being 'a child' anymore, she was somehow competing with GGM for GGFs affections. She was a truly horrid woman in many ways.

I don’t remember a big conversation about periods but supplies were kept in the bathroom and, bless my dad, he always knew when to offer a hot water bottle and chocolate. Sheets/knickers soaking in buckets were also a regular feature in our house! Love to all of you who had to navigate it solo/hide it from adults who presumably knew how babies are made.

My mother rationed our access to clean pads. DSis and I had to show her our soiled pads and she decided if they were 'used' enough, often made us turn them round as there were none used patches.

No we've never forgiven her and our DDs always had plenty of supplies and DS has always known.

Our dad was open minded it was all her.

I started at 14, in a Middle Eastern country (no access to shops for me) with a mum who had never had the talk with me and was beyond prudish about periods. Went for the best part of a year without any proper sanpro. Just used copious amounts of wadded up loo roll. Still remember a favourite dress ruined on the school bus due to a flood/two-ply toilet roll (no school uniform). It was completely horrific. Spent a lot of time with cardigans wrapped around my waist. I consider myself a fairly well adjusted adult considering the effect that had at the time. Now in my thirties and about to have a hysterectomy due to endometriosis, you can imagine the discomfort my mum feels at the end of the phone while I’m updating her on that one.........

Yes my mum was weird about it. She still refuses to have bins in her (many!) bathrooms, but the difference is that now I'm not mortified to be having a bodily function. I was when I was 11, and would hoard my used towels in my room until I could sneak them to the outside bin with no one noticing . Mum wouldn't buy enough of those bags so I had to double them up, and having never suffered with hers she was very skeptical when mine were heavy enough for me to get massive clots and make me pass out.

She's a lovely mum honest, she just had some weird blind spot about this!

What the fuck is wrong with all your mothers?! It makes me feel sick thinking that you all had to act like something shameful and disgusting was happening to you

I know. I put it down to the fact I'm in my sixties and I was the youngest, but I had a sister, god knows why I had to skulk around in shame. And don't get me started on her buying me a bra! I was the last girl in my big class and that lived with me a long long time. I really needed one.

My mum was the same, no products on view in case dad saw them. At one stage there were 5 menstruating women in our house - how could he not have been aware?
Tampons were also 'not for virgins' according to her. Wonder what she would have thought of my teenager's mooncup !

Seems to me the men that the mothers tried to shield from our natural bodily functions dealt with it better than they did!

My mum doesn't call it a period, she refers to it as 'tummies'

'Have you got your tummies this week?'

Oh god yes

She was 18 when I was born so hardly from the Middle Ages but not a thing was mentioned to me. Thank god for
Just 17!

I’d occasionally be bought some pads that were like nappies, and never enough of them. She told me I was “going through them like sweeties” so I had to keep them on too long.

I’d inevitably soak through the pads and then she’d smack me for ruining clothes

@DDIJ

I was told my grandma had a prolapse and never complained

Omg I'm another one whose nan had a prolapse and never complained. Every time someone has a hysterectomy I have to hear about how my nan had a prolapse and never complained. The implication being that women are just having hysterectomies for fun and making a terrible fuss about nothing, instead of soldiering on proudly.

Then we had the tale of a mutual acquaintance who had a hysterectomy then had to have it done again This was not completely accurate. I think perhaps she sees a basic understanding of female reproductive organs as a sign of loose morals so she shows ignorance as a means of virtue signalling.

Victoria Wood got comedy mileage out of this attitude: "....and we weren't running off to the doctor every 5 minutes like girls these days - if something went wrong down below you kept your trap shut and turned up the wireless"