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?

There was nothing "wrong "with these women, they were simply obeying the cultural norms at the time!

Really don't agree. There is no 'cultural norm' about it. I was 10 and off to Brownies when my periods started. Like many others on here I thought I was dying.

I'm now in my sixties and my DDs knew everything well in advance. We are very open. I imagine DM wasn't told much if anything, why didn't she break that cycle?

We have to remember, when I was young there was nothing like sex ed at school, no magazines with anything in, so growing up in ignorance was horrendous. And then there's virginity... like many of my age group, we learnt about sex by losing ours

A cultural norm of silence, a taboo, is very much still a cultural norm. A woman who talked freely about menstruation was likely to do anything.

Yes, and stained knickers needed to go into the nappy bucket to soak (ex nurse, and doing cloth nappies for the younger DCs). But a muttered explanation in the dark on the first night it happened to me was all I got.

So about 5 weeks later, I was given out to for stained underwear in the wash and not in the bucket - it wasn't me, but another DSis who was so terrified that she just used toilet roll and said nothing.

But completely hidden always, and only the Maxi pads allowed, no such thing as tampax apparently (when I bought some with my pocket money, there was war because "nice girls don't use those"...). And barely enough were given so you had to ration them. (A handful from her pack, no such thing as your own pack so you had enough, or getting anything thinner than a brick).

From someone who not only was a nurse but a midwife, it was a very strange attitude that she had.

I think embarrassment was an element of it. But she'd been through it, and I had an older sister, yet I had to go through this shame

I remember that the shopkeeper across the road used to put my Mum’s Dr White’s ( whatever happened to him?) in a brown paper bag.
He put girlie magazines in the same bags..
Says all you need to know about the 70’s really!

I vowed not to be like my mum when it came to supporting my dd with periods and related stuff, because she clearly found it desperately embarrassing and I definitely had the impression that it was something a bit shameful.

However, reading through the thread, I think maybe she didn't do such a bad job after all. She did talk to me about periods - in a very awkward way - and she supplied dsis and me with pads, and I think later on, tampons. They were kept in a drawer or cupboard, but we weren't specifically hiding them from my dad - he rarely used the main bathroom in any case.

I had really bad period pain as a teen, and I remember both of my parents being sympathetic about it. So I think she did her best, it was probably just hard for her to shake off the embarrassment about periods that she had grown up with.

My mum was ok about it. Pretty matter of fact. But we never had a bin in the bathroom which was so annoying and I had to keep my own supplies in my room. I have a bin with a lid in each bathroom now and a supply of pads and tampons in the bathroom cabinet.

I used to work in a corner store when I was a teenager and the (male) owner used to make us put the pads into white paper bags before putting them on the very bottom shelf. You could read through the paper but it was more “discreet” apparently. One day a lady came in and was asking for a certain brand name in a whisper. I had no idea what she was talking about as it wasn’t a brand I was familiar with me. Then she looked all around and hissed “pads” at me like it was a drug deal.

I don’t agree this was a generation thing or anything to do with ‘cultural norms’. Most of my friends mothers were much more open. I remember when I started my periods at twelve one of my closest friends couldn’t believe my DM didn’t have ‘drawer full of tampax’ that I could help myself to like she had in her home. She was the youngest of four sisters and it just made sense for her DM to do that for them. Her DM was about ten years older than mine.

Thinking back my DM was an inadequate in lots of ways though. She just really couldn’t be arsed with anything to deep.

I don't remember my mum being odd about leaving them out - they lived in a drawer in the bathroom but then so did most things which could be put in a drawer - my mum is a believer in "a place for everything and everything in its place!" It wasn't something we talked about a lot, but it wasn't secret either.

However, I do remember mum asking me rather than dad to pop to the shop and buy her some when she ran out just after my younger sibling was born as, "Your dad would be embarrassed," which I found at the time and still find odd - it's not like people would have thought they were for him, right?! (There's a big age gap between me and younger sibling - I was easily old enough to be going to the shop so no issues there.)

My mum was OK in that she bought me pads and never told me off for leaks or accidents. However my dad was a bloody nightmare. He would go mental if I asked for painkillers or had a got water bottle. And they had to be smuggled out of the house to the outside bin when he was out.

He was also weird when I was pregnant. I was staying at theirs over a hot summer and had a t shirt on which meant you could see my bump. He went mental and tried to get me to wear a dressing gown to 'cover it up'.

My dh comes from a culture where this stuff really wasn't discussed. He literally knew nothing about periods until he was an adult! He has never had a problem talking about them, though, or buying tampons etc. He is just bemused by the fact that, despite having two sisters, the existence of periods was completely hidden from him.

My Mum never spoke to me about peiods, or sex actually. She did buy me sanpro, but I always felt awkward asking. And it was always hidden away so as not to embarrass my Dad. There is none of that in my house. Dd7 knows exactly what periods are, and what sanpro is. Its never hidden away, and DP frequently picks it up for me when I run out.

I had to check my self a while ago talking on the phone to my DH almost in code about periods because DS was in the car. I stopped and changed tack and talked openly and then had a chat with DS about it earlier.

I was always embarrassed and we didn't talk about these things. As a mother to boys I need to encourage them to have a healthier attitude so they can be support partners in the future.

Yup. It was all hissing whispers through teeth etc. When I wanted to use tampons she disapproved and got her mother to hang up in me about it too telling me that guests at my wedding would judge me for wearing white and whisper ‘she’s not a virgin’ as I walked down the aisle.

When I was in uni she got her mother to call me up and she me if she’d needed to get the council to put a red light outside my bedroom window - I was committing the terrible crime of having my boyfriend stay over.

@CockneyCutie

My Mum died when I was 9 so DDad brought me up. I remember telling him I needed bras so we went to Woolworths and bought some, same with staring periods, he was very matter-of-fact. We went to town and told me to get whatever I needed. I was very sporty but he never stopped me showering or washing my hair (this was 1977) I have been very open with my ds, and have been known to point out that if it wasn’t for how our bodies functioned, none of us would even exist!! Our periods are part of our life cycle!! One of my ds girlfriends said she was amazed at how unfazed he was about the whole period thing so I must have brought him up ok!😁

@AMillionMilesAway

Thank you for mentioning your fasting etc... it never occurred to me that you girls would be fasting during your periods ... that must be very tough for you!! Sometimes only chocolate gets you through!🍫

It wasn't me fasting- it was a friend. I can't even imagine lasting till lunchtime!

My mother was always quite open and matter of fact about this sort of thing, so that was good. We knew what to expect etc. That was during the seventies and early eighties.

The one thing that did irritate me was that for some reason my parents would never have a bin in the bathroom, meaning that you had to wrap your used sanpro in toilet paper and carry it through the house to the kitchen bin. There would very often be people in there eating, chatting etc. and I found that cringeworthy as a teenager.

One other anecdote, but not from my family at all. My then boyfriend (now DH) was at first rather squeamish and embarrassed by women and periods, even though as far as I can tell his mother had always been fairly matter of fact about them around him and his sister. He just tended to back off in horror. No obvious reason why.

One day fairly early in our relationship when we were in our early twenties I was staying with him and his parents.

He happened to see that I had a pack of pads and a box of Tampax in my holdall. He whispered to me in apparent disbelief that I couldn't have these items in this house. I of course told him to grow up and stop talking such utter bollocks. That if I was likely to have a period when staying in their house then there would be nothing that I could do to stop it so he had better get used to the idea.

Fortunately, he decided to grow up. We wouldn't have been married for 28 years and have our own three now adult DDs if he hadn't. He never pulled that shit again.

My born in 1930 grandmother made my grandfather go to the shop for sanpro once when I was staying with them. No embarrassment from either of them.

My mum wasn't weird- but I was!
She was totally open about periods all through my childhood. I saw her changing tampons and she and my dad would casually discuss her being on her period.

Stocked a drawer for me when I was getting to the right age and tried to talk to me about it. I just shut her down! I was mortified! Refused to even discuss it. Ended up buying my own tampons because I could not bring myself to ask her (they gave me the money so I assume they knew what it was for!) My mum also had to have a word because I was hiding used towels in my drawer because I was too embarrassed to take them to the bin (victorian house, inside toilet was a separate later addition upstairs with no room for a bin and the bathroom was separate downstairs) and the smell was pretty vile.

No idea why I was so embarrassed, my parents were medical and open, my younger sister has always been super open and unmbarrassed and my friends were the same. I was 13 so not super young.

I also nearly died of shame when she forced me bra shopping as a was squeezing my B cup boobs into crop tops and pretending they weren't there.

I was a weird kid.

I'm fine now though 😆

Yes and nor did we talk about anything else. I was abused by her boyfriend and we weren't allowed to talk about that either or tell anybody.

At 11 I brought home a plastic bag with a couple of sanpro freebies and information from school. I (as directed by school) found a quiet moment to mention this to my Mum.
She said “I’m sure you understood what they said, now put them away”.

Since then NEVER have we mentioned periods/sanpro (I’m 40). We’ve never both been in the same room as a visible sanpro packet.

I had no pocket money and only started my periods at 16 (not that she would know) and so after that spent birthday money on it when in town on my own.

The whole situation was RIDICULOUS!

My mum was the same. She wouldn't even use the phrase 'sanitary towels', she used to say 'do you need anything for your secret drawer' when she was going shopping.

This made me really secretive about periods for years, even thought we shouldn't be. When I moved in with DP, he was really open about it, and for the first time in my life I can talk to someone about it! I can tell him when I've come on, if I have cramps, if it's uncomfortably heavy. And he doesn't cringe!

Better than that, I can store my protection products in the bathroom with the other toiletries, without having to hide them in my bedroom and surreptitiously hide them up my sleeve to get them to the bathroom.

Freedom is great!

@DarlingWithoutYou my grandmother believed that washing your hair whilst on your period would make the (menstrual?) blood rush to your head.
I tried explaining to her that that was physically impossible but she wouldn't hear of it!
I often used to stay with my grandparents. Ironically because she had such weird ideas about periods, she made the whole thing into an unnecessary drama that I felt really awkward about the whole thing whereas normally I didn't! My mum had been totally cool about it, I had tampons and pads freely available and could wash my hair! My grandmother was outraged by my mother's lax attitude and there were furious exchanges all round. Just bizarre!

Yes, my DM was awfully weird about periods. I can remember walking through town with her one day, I was about 11 and we'd just been to buy gym knickers for school, and for no reason at all she turned around suddenly enraged with me and said, "You'll be needing big knickers soon anyway" (meaning I'd need them to house sanitary towels, I guess.) I was more upset because a middle aged man was right next to us and he must have heard it The strange thing is I was so tiny and such a late developer I didn't start till I was 16. Why was she so upset about it when I was 11? It still puzzles me. It's like she wanted me to stay a child forever. Any kind of sexuality was similarly verboten. I think she'd have had a heart attack if I'd ever got a boyf. But then later on was livid when I said I never wanted children The boomer generation was truly messed up.

My mum was always great, but she was brought up believing that men should never see sanitary products, so she made sure my sisters and I were very open about it. My daughter and I both talk very open about period pain etc in front of my teen son and husband, it wouldn't occur to my son to find anything to do with the body remotely embarrassing or a point of ridicule.
I do remember a friend growing up who was from another culture. She wasn't allowed tampons because they took your virginity!!