Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Schools Providing Sanitary Products

298 replies

Sansastark45 · 20/01/2020 13:53

Don't get me wrong periods aren't nice at the best of time but don't our schools have enough on their plates without now having to take on this??

Am i being unreasonable to think that if you have a daughter you should be having the conversation with her?? Basic own brand sanitary products are cheap enough to buy - our schools shouldn't be left to deal with this too!

OP posts:
Foofedifiknow · 20/01/2020 22:52

Girls miss school because of no access to period protection. Pads/tampons should be like toilet paper- available everywhere as a hygiene necessity.Shows a lack of imagination for a life less privileged than your own. YABU

lotsofoysters · 20/01/2020 23:01

Pads/tampons should be like toilet paper- available everywhere as a hygiene necessity.

Exactly. Everyone has unlimited access to free toilet paper at school because it's a necessity if you don't want kids sitting around in urine/poo soaked pants all day. How is blood any different? Why shouldn't all girls have easy and unlimited access to free sanitary products? It's such a bizarre attitude to be against it.

goose1964 · 20/01/2020 23:05

When I was in secondary school the school nurse would give out sanitary towels. It's not unknown for periods to just start out of the blue and for them not to be expected. This was 40 years ago and both secondary I went to had a supply.

walker1891 · 21/01/2020 05:17

awhishes....we were also told that about Universal Free School meals and then they cut small school subsidies by the back door. Teachers now have to serve meals during their lunch because we can't afford dinner staff.

squeekums · 21/01/2020 06:00

I don't agree with reusable in this instance as it does require help and a bit more nurture that may not be available.
However, I think all adults should give them a go. Honest to god game changer!! I've converted half my friends
I hear this but I'm firmly camp some things are not reusable lol. Plus I don't want extra washing
Its the ick factor for me, same reason we used disposable nappies.

Don't have kids you can't afford
So let the kids suffer hey?

I have 4 daughters and I'm far from rich but sanitary protection is cheap, and they've never gone without.
Personally, I use reusable rags that get washed as it's much better for the environment.
They are lucky
My father had 1 daughter and still couldn't even provide the basics, much less talk about it
So where would it get washed in a house with no electricity, a shaming parent and no walking distance public laundry?

bellinisurge · 21/01/2020 06:32

I make reusables. They are great . My dd loves them (where "love" is a relative term) but they require a bit of managing. As well as laundry routines. A girl or woman in a dysfunctional household should not be expected to fit this routine into their life. Disposables all the way for anyone who wants them.

hopefulhalf · 21/01/2020 06:48

Means testing? You mean I should quiz a 12 year old about her parents' financial situation before I decide whether she can have a sanitary towel or has to make do with bits of toilet tissue falling out of her underwear because 'well, your Mum's got plenty of money'? Quiz her in an office that has older male members of staff sitting there about her flow or positioning of the towel, as she's already had one I 'let her get away with' yesterday? Say 'Your Mum can afford them. I don't care if it's staining your socks, she has to pay for them.'?

Bollocks to that. The towels/tampons/whatever are there. Help yourself. I don't care whether you live in a ten bedroomed mansion or a single room between 7 in a bug infested B&B, whether the child benefit goes on Coke, Champagne or paying the shortfall in the rent, whether they've been fucked over by Universal Credit by being paid early for Christmas or whether you had three towels for the day and you actually need five. Just take what you need. Come back if you need more.

This

Bluebobolink · 21/01/2020 07:25

Another good thing about the initiative is it "normalises" sanpro. I grew up with enough to eat and money for sanpro, but had very irregular periods and came on during our sports class, for which we had to wear very brief brown knickers over our ordinary ones, and a very short skirt that covered nothing if you were 6ft tall like me. It was bad enough sitting on the bench and having a friend point out I was bleeding, having to leave the class and go to the office to ask for a tampon, I then got a lecture about being old enough (at 14!) to have provided my own and not needed to bother them about it, very thoughtless of me, blah blah. I'd not had a period that whole year so hadn't noticed my little emergency box with 2 in hadn't got refilled. I shudder to think how much worse a girl would feel if they were made to feel bad about needing something so basic and couldn't rely on getting more sanpro at home for whatever reason. Making it "need the red box, miss" and knowing there will be supplies there must be so reassuring!

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 11:05

Means testing? Hmm

Honest to God, I don't know what some of you people are on.

Aderyn19 · 21/01/2020 11:45

Personally, I can't think of a better use of public money than feeding children and supplying them with sanpro. Adults can mostly look after themselves, children can't.

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 11:58

Aderyn19, absolutely.

MorganKitten · 21/01/2020 12:05

We have a red box at work, actually three - the client, hostel side and kids club. Lots of the women need them as paying rent and feeding kids is seen by them as more important.
I can’t use bog standard cheap ones as the cotton or chemicals used make me irritated.... now imagine if you had the same issue and told well these are cheap do t be silly buy them... also there’s a pride thing for some of the women.
I regularly add to our boxes at work because I’m able to. Something small sometimes is huge to someone else.

marshmallowkittycat · 21/01/2020 12:42

I've met teenage girls who can't afford period products. Most of them live in families where either their needs are not important, and no money is made available for these things.

Or, the girl knows her family are poor and puts her own hygiene needs aside so there's more for heating and eating. She probably won't ask for period products, even if she's from a loving family.

I just don't understand why some people don't realise that the lives of others can be messy or complex and just plain difficult sometimes.

BrimfulofSasha · 21/01/2020 13:23

regardless of the poverty angle- as someone who started their period in the middle of the school day I was very glad my school nurse provided sanitary products!

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 13:57

It's great news but where are they going to be? On show in the unisex toilets?

jakey*, why not? Will boys get the vapours if they have to see a box of towels/tampons on their way to the loo?

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 13:58

Oops, jakey, I meant.

SarahTancredi · 21/01/2020 14:07

Will boys get the vapours if they have to see a box of towels/tampons on their way to the loo?

If you read any of the period poverty articles and those about mixed sex toilets you will see that period shaming is a real barrier to a girls education. The last thing they need is to be ridiculed for being on their period and poor....

Many women on MN have reported incidents if boys going through their bags looking for evidence they are on their period, taking guesses as to who's on their period.

Think it's better all round if girls can have little privacy rather than being watched ro see if they take one fir boys entertainment

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 14:13

SarahTancredi, I'd love to see a day when there was no period shaming. Maybe having sanitary products out in the open (along, one hopes, with an ongoing sensible school discussion/attitude about periods) might just help to normalise them and break the taboo?

And products freely available to all would mean that boys couldn't go through girls' bags looking for evidence they are on their period; and that no one would need know how poor individual girls were.

SarahTancredi · 21/01/2020 14:19

And freely open to all means they can throw them around, watch who takes one , hide them for a.laugh etc.

Fed up of girls somehow always having to be the victims and guinea pigs of ideas that expect to be able to undo several years of lack of parental input in an instant.

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 14:23

Well, I don't disagree about short-term bad behaviour and I don't think taboos and bad behaviour will stop ' in an instant'. What I hope for is that education and open discussion will ultimately mean that kind of thing stops happening.

SarahTancredi · 21/01/2020 14:23

And sadly there are many many parents out there who seem to be against girls getting anything of boys arent getting something too.

I I wouldn't put it past parents to tell their sons to mess up the supply cos theynarent getting anything.

You only have to look at the twitter thread about thos article to see how horrified alot of people are that there are plans to do this. Because its girls.

SarahTancredi · 21/01/2020 14:25

Think girls have enough to contend with without their periods being an educational opportunity aswell...

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 14:29

Again, I don't disagree and I am angry about these things too. All I can say is that I hope and think that longer-term – as in over generations – education and breaking down taboos will change things.

If things stay as they are, they're much less than ideal as well. I don't want girls whose parents can't afford/won't provide sanpro to suffer, nor girls who are caught by surprise by getting an unexpected period. Freely available sanpro is an obvious way to address these things.

IntermittentParps · 21/01/2020 14:29

Think girls have enough to contend with without their periods being an educational opportunity aswell...

You are either genuinely misunderstanding or being disingenuous and twisting what I've said. I don't know which.

Hoik · 21/01/2020 14:30

why is San Pro different to toilet roll??

San Pro is only for women therefore not "essential".

If periods were a male bodily function then you can bet your arse that shit would be free to all and would utterly normalised with no shame or stigma attached.