To be shocked at Dd's friend's tampon experience

[EdithBouvierBeale]

DD is ten and her class just had the period chat at school. One little girl, whose mum is a GP, was shown how to insert a tampon. Her mother demonstrated on herself by lying on her bed while her 10 year old DD watched.

I'm so glad I grew up in a time when people were more repressed. My mum showed me how to work a sanitary belt with loops by showing me the equipment at the kitchen table. No need or suggestion of me trying it on in front of her! I am a very private person and I think lots of people are when they are young and that doesn't make them prudish just people who have firm ideas of where their comfort zone and personal space is. It is a good trait to have and helps protect them from people with unsavoury intentions. There is such a thing as being too open and naive which leaves young people (and some older ones too) vulnerable to being groomed if they think that objecting to privacy will lead to them being ridiculed for being prudish.
If anyone had tried to show me how to insert a tampon I'd have run a mile and spent the rest of my life avoiding them like the plague.
Using sanitary protection isn't complicated and unless a person has some sort of impairment that restricts their ability to understand instructions or look at a diagram and make sense of it then practical demonstration is not required.
I 'discovered' tampons for myself and worked out how to use them for myself too.

Step too far for me!

Although a diagram would be good (or even on a model given Mum is a GP!)

I didn't realise that the application actually went inside you, so the first few I put in, I held the applicator to my skin and pushed the tampon out. Very uncomfortable.

So I needed more info definitely. But not this much!

The applicators confused me too Star. It took me 6 years of me throwing the applicators away to realise that lilets exist

Sorry but seeing your mother insert in a tampon....really? That's a bit graphic IMO. Daughter doesn't NEED to see it being inserted.....just needs to understand where it goes. How to know if it's in right etc. There is a perfectly good leaflet that comes in a box of tampons with instructions and diagrams. I chatted with my daughter about it and then I told my daughter to read the leaflet and if she had any questions to ask me. She didn't have any questions and happily told me she had no problems.
My own mum explained to me how to insert etc and told me to read the leaflet. Wasn't embarrassing. If she'd demonstrated.....good god I'd be scarred for life!

I'm in my mid 50s (when did that happen ?) and I was brought up in a family where we were comfortable walking around naked (no en-suite bathroom back then) and not shutting the bathroom door.

My ds is now 15 and I'm having to force myself to remember to wear a dressing gown when ds is likely to be up in the morning not very likely at weekends but it does happen on occasion and to shut the bathroom door don't always remember

I can also remember reading those letters in Jackie in the early 70s about whether using a tampon would affect their virginity and knowing how ignorant they were. So my mum must have made sure I had the right education

I also remember being mortally embarrassed by my parents when they kept reminding me that family planning clinics wouldn't ask my age should I feel the need to visit one. I'd have been 14/15 at the time. (To be fair, some of my friends were becoming sexually active and the message was as much for them as for me).

I couldn't/wouldn't have done this this with my daughter, although that's only because I'm personally too physically private.

I wouldn't have thought it odd if my own mum had shown me this way (in fact it probably would have helped as I never did get the hang of it!). But then, I also watched her give birth more than once, and that was a lot more prolonged/graphic.

Having said that, I'm not sure how usual it is to watch your mother give birth? I was glad of the experience and found it useful when it came time for me to give birth.

DD's 4 and 7 have both seen me insert a tampon. Not with any instructional purpose, but because they simply won't leave me alone for a minute or because we've been out for the day and they came into the cubical with me. Nothing quite like having to do it with a 3yr old crouched down for a better view . I surely can't be alone in that?? I'm becoming a bit more adept at shaking them off while I go to the loo, but if they're there I just get on with it and answer questions as they come.

It's different when your kids are little. By the time your own daughter starts their periods you should have developed boundaries and an assumption they can deal with their own bodily functions. Which they can.

What's clear from this is there are so many variations on privacy within families.

I am happy to walk around naked in front of DH but would never inflict it on my children. I'd like to have been more relaxed about nudity but it wasn't in my nature and now my kids are late 20s it's not gonna happen now!

I think it's understandable that parents with young children are happy to be naked- DD saw me getting changed for swimming/ buying underwear when she was 3 and was fascinated by my pubic bush- much to the amusement of others in adjoining cubicles.

But as kids reach puberty they want to be private- mine started to be 'shy' when they were 9 or 10. This is perfectly natural and I think it's some kind of inbuilt behaviour to prevent incest.

I think the mum who showed her all to her D was out of order, dr or not. It's actually quite sad that maybe dealing with the naked body in her day to day job, means she's become insensitive to the feelings an adolescent child may have.

Although we try to view genitals as non-sexual and be terribly rational and 'modern' about it in some context, taboos still exist.

Lying on bed to insert tampon easy peasy way to do it. I pictured mum fully clothed demonstrating position rather than insertion.

I wouldn't encourage my child to use tampons until she was a teen and I definitely don't be giving her a practical demonstration when the time comes! I didn't need a demo. Might have ruined a few getting the knack at first.

I just can't understand why people think that anyone who has periods is too young to try using tampons.

My mum was - is - a Victorian. All information that needed to be conveyed to me about bodily functions was covered by the inevitable 'get a book about it' approach.

I have tried hard to overcome this in my relationship with DD, though it is hard because it was never 'modelled' to me. DD - dancer - needs to wear tampons. She knew all about them, we'd done the whole tampon in water thing - but she still asked me to be there the first time to check that she was putting it in correctly. Despite a small 'eeeeeek' internal moment, I did. Neither of us is scarred by the experience. I'm not at all sure she would ever have wanted me to show her on myself, though - and as I am a Mirena user with no periods, the opportunity has never arisen.

If the girl genuinely wanted to know and see fair enough but....I can't see how? 😑

"I wouldn't encourage my child to use tampons until she was a teen"

Why ever not? (I mean, presuming that she's menstruating, otherwise using them would be a bit weird)

I didn't get my first period until I was fifteen, so I've no idea what I've done if I'd had it earlier, but I used tampons almost from the off.

Surely you just sit there and push??

Just as weird as laying on the bed.

I never had to put my leg up on the loo after the first few times so it's strange to hear that people do that as the norm. I just sort of leant to one side, but then i'm a stander upper bum wiper too. I wonder if there is a correlation?

They obviously have a great open relationship and I think she sounds like a fab mother to be honest. I wish my mother had been more open with me, I couldn't approach her about anything regarding puberty or the birds and the bees. She will still grapple for the tv remote to change channel if there's so much as a snog scene on a soap

Well I'm in the "why the fuss? its only a body" camp. I don't think I would do this myself , but I think it is frank rather than strange. I really struggled to use tampons, it took me ages to work out the correct angle, and I really wish that someone had explained properly to me, how to use them, and the difference between the types. I can realy remember being there in the bathroom, with a lillet covered in vaseline (thus rendering it waterproof...) and STILL struggling, hurting myself and getting upset and stressed. I think I left it for about six months before I tried again, and I was 16, not really young.

I did ballet classes so maybe that's why it never crossed my mind not to use tampons, even over 40 years ago

No way was I going to use the horrible bulky back then sanitary towels which would be visible under my leotard. Quite apart from the fact that they were uncomfortable

For those of you thinking she is too young to use tampons - my daughter is 11 and a national champion swimmer.
What choice will she have if she wants to continue?!
It wouldn't necessarily be my option but I'd like to think I would do anything for my daughter....!!

That's cool, I think my daughter and I are close enough to do this. People are way too scared of bodies. My daughter is 9 and sees me naked all the time. Also I used a non-applicator tampon my first period (never ever got the hang of nor saw the point of applicators). Now use a mooncup and the sooner I can encourage my daughter to use one the better.

I don't really think a demonstration is necessary. Like lots of others here, I seem to remember there was an instruction of some sort in the box. It's good to be able to discuss things like this, absolutely. But like others have said, I think it's important that the parent respects boundaries also, and be aware that while they feel free about nakedness and so forth, it might well be excruciating for a youngster just starting puberty.

I don't understand all the 'Ewww, disgusting!' reactions tbh. Maybe she was just trying to be brisk and no nonsense about it, in a 'don't be embarrassed way.'

I still hope DD gets the hang of it from the instructions though :o

I still can't use Tampax even though I can use Lilets ,a sponge and a mooncup with no problems at all. I wasted boxes and boxes of them as a teen