To think 'first blood in your knickers' and a drawing of children's underwear with blood spots

[OneOfThoseOldFashionedWomen]

Is closer to red flags than it is to child safeguarding?

No people are not immune to it, people are imagining it.

OP completely agree, on the basis that it’s an NSPCC advert, prevention of cruelty for children, so when they talk about blood in knickers I automatically assumed they are talking about abuse, and was wondering how to explain it to my 6 year old.
It took a couple of watches to figure out it’s an advert that is just a broad reflection on parenting and growing up (I don’t like the poem for what it’s worth, not half as meaningful as it thinks it is) and I still object to it, on basis that it’s pointless, and how exactly does it contribute to their cause. Spend the money on more campaigning to government on matters that are important to child safety, on keeping children safe, the stuff that I donate thinking they’ll be doing.

No, I'm struggling with that too!

Maybe they could campaign on issues like the dire state of social care for vulnerable children in this country, privatisation of children’s homes and the hugely inadequate service they are providing, children being place hundred of miles from home and support networks, etc etc.
Or any of the dozens of other relevant issues to children’s safeguarding.
Not poems.

Tetsuo · Today 12:15

MrsSkylerWhite · Today 11:40

DinaDernaDodo · Today 01:49
**
Just revolting. Society has gone to the sewers”

What’s revolting about a natural process that happens to over 50% of the population?
There's absolutely nothing revolting about menstruation, I'm very open with my daughter and she's quite happy to ask her father to buy her tampons should the need arise.
**
What is revolting, and a little bit creepy', is a middle aged man lyricising 'first blood in your knickers', with the accompanying illustration.
**
Can you not see that”

Not really. Lots of middle aged men have daughters and it’s just a fact of life.

I kinda thought the point of the NSPCC was to eleviate child abuse.

FFS
the NSPCC may have made some errors of judgement but this is not one of them.
Surely they have a brief to prevent harm to children, not just to react when it happens, and speaking openly about the fact that parenting is challenging, and its OK to ask for help is part of that
I thought the poem was very relatable and showed how the challenges change as the child grows up, and how, despite what people may thing we don't have an instruction manual.
I don't know why the fact that its a male poet freaks people out so much. Are men not allowed to mention periods? This isn't a man breaching his daughter's privacy this is a man writing about life stages and changes.
I know someone whose wife died tragically when his children were young, it was difficult for him to negotiate these things with his daughter and a time when her mother's absence was especially marked. I don't know him that well, but I guess he might have been thinking, - shit, periods- how do I cope with this?- so he might have needed some help and advice.

I don't think the illustrations were at all creepy, rather cartoonish and a bit in the style of Nick Sharrat (I think) who illustrates the Jacqueline Wilson books.

If anyone wants to write a poem about boys growing up, go right ahead but I think it will be much harder.

I think that we are way beyond admitting parenting is challenging because of things like periods and first bras etc

With everything in the news about the record numbers of children homeless, in poverty, being put into ‘care’ in inadequate homes far from their support network, online child abuse etc etc etc i would really rather they were advocating for children relentlessly on the big issues.

No idea how much this cost, these sorts of campaigns can run into millions; but any amount of money is surely better prioritised elsewhere.

Are men not allowed to mention periods?

I'm not sure he does- this is an advert for a child protection charity. It isn't a big leap to it being a different kind of blood.

I wonder how it would have been received if the author was the one speaking.

It’s cringeworthy. I’m noticing the steady increase of crass language, and graphic content that is just too much too young, there is often a new expert on the block, pushing the limit a bit more each time. The autonomy of parents to teach their children about private matters, is being eroded away.

And the fact it is a man spewing this garbage is so f creepy it makes me want to scream 😱

Just reading this thread makes me know I can’t read the poem. Illustrated too? Written by a man. Nah. Creepy.

It would be interesting to know whether those posters who have said it’s a nice poem, moving etc etc are those who have never known abuse.

and those of us who have said creepy; wrong etc have experienced abuse.

first blood in knickers said about a child. Especially by a man. Wrong.

I don't like it. I've never been abused. I think it's clichéd soundbites. It's the fake profundity I found offensive.

A man writing about cracked nipples when he can’t breastfeed and his daughter’s first blood in her knickers….? My daughter would be mortified if a parent wrote about this? I can’t imagine she would be alone in feeling that way.
I can’t see how it’s an appropriate poem for a children’s charity? it’s just bait for pervs surely?

It’s not. The ad was directed, acted and illustrated by women.

But the words, the imagery, the meaning, is written by a man.

A man imagining first blood in your knickers.

A man listing female adolescent rites of passage in a poem about a girl’s passage to adulthood from her mother’s point of view. I find this fascinating. MN constantly berates men for not parenting and then when a man writes a poem about parenting that’s wrong too.

@Ohnoooooooo yes that’s what makes it creepy. Bait for pervs.
im saying this without even reading/hearing this poem. Dont want to see it. Creepy and revolting to appeal to pervs. Weirdo man imagining the first blood in knickers. Of a child.

The man doesn’t have to comment on what’s going on in girls knickers. Thats not parenting. Thats being a perv and baiting other pervs. Leave girls and women alone.

I know that if my husband had written this poem, my response would not be, 'Oh darling, how wonderful that you are so sensitive to the female experience of adolescence and motherhood'.

Rather;

'What the fuck is wrong with you? You massive perv'.

And I'm not a a woman who has any difficulty speaking to her children (m&f) about any topics around puberty, biology or human sexuality.

And if this man was so bloody interested in the sadness that accompanies a child growing up and away, he could have written a sentimental ode to his son's jizz-stained sheets.

Why is a first period a parenting challenge?

I really like it. I relate to it.

Why is a faceful of make up? It’s a milestone.

Now I know a man wrote a poem it makes much more sense that it inexplicably wedged in nipples, knickers, bras and make up, in an ode to the challenges of parenting…