10 yo boys find tampons at football- coaches reactions

[fourelementary]

Last night I was dropping my son off at football. On Astro pitches at a local high school so they all congregate at one area for several teams. School gives out free sanitary supplies so someone has nicked a box of tampons and dropped them outside the pitches. Lad of around 10 (not in my son’s team) picks them up and opens them and goes “it’s tampons! Omg it’s fucking tampons”. His two coaches are standing metres away- nothing. Boy starts giving out tampons to his pals, saying “haha fucking tampons. I’m going to take one home for my mum”. much hilarity ensues and some boys unwrap and throw tampons. Coaches come over… then start joking with them “I dare you to” in response to the mum comment. Then one boy says about giving tampons to the other boys in their team and the coach says “yeah when he arrives give him one and say it’s for your bad week”.

Now my son is a pretty good footballer and he loves it. But I hate the toxic masculinity culture of football. His own coaches were nearby but not sure how attention they paid to this going on as they were talking to each other. My son was embarrassed that I was there and asked me not to say anything about it. He didn’t like what they were doing and was uncomfortable with it all so went off to warm up.
I said nothing. But am still annoyed.

AIBU to want to message the coaches in question and raise this as I think they handled that in a disgraceful way- allowing profanities and littering not to mention sexist comments and misogynistic behaviour?

YABU- boys will be boys, not your business
YANBU- message them

I’d be angry about the waste and littering as much as the stupid misogyny so id focus on that. I’d contact your own coaches to say the other team coaches were condoning and encouraging the wanton waste of these items provided at school/club expense. If snacks and water were available would it be ok to open them and just scatter them about? It’s classic respect of property and “why we can’t have nice things”. Barely a step from vandalism of sports and park equipment.

It’s like you are speaking a foreign language. Girls/women are not accepting and inclusive at all. Growing up as a Jewish girl who during playtime was frequently surrounded, put in the middle with the other Jewish girl and an hijab wearing Muslim girl and then the oh so accepting and inclusive clique of girls surrounding us then threw stones and rubbish at us while jeering.

That was my ten year old self.

I can’t say it has improved as I grew up, just that as girls become women they become less overt and obvious about their exclusiveness and meaness because what they can get away with as a child is a hate crime when an adult.

Sorry for your experience, I was talking about sports teams, following the post I quoted about her daughter’s football team. And today, not decades ago.

Girls and boys, men and women are all equally capable of being nasty bastards.

Speak up. Always.

And this is why we would still need women's sports, even if we didn't face physical disadvantage.

Yes complain. Use all the inclusion buzzwords. They may be misogynists but remember even misogynists like to brand themselves progressive these days.

I think this would be time to channel rugby ref Aimee Barrett-Theron and say how disappointed you are in them all... especially a fully grown man who should know better.

It's not all male football teams. My DS plays U11's and DH is the coach, he would not tolerate this and indeed no other teams in the club would. They are inclusive at all levels, most of the teams have girls playing for them, mix of ethnicities etc. There are some bad apples in grass roots football but not all are bad and they bad ones aren't just boys teams. I have seen shocking behaviour from girls teams.

Urgh toxic masculinity. I don’t know why football breeds it! You are not being unreasonable the coaches sound vile and immature.

Can we kill the expression 'boys will be boys' please? It's nothing but an excuse for bad, and sometimes appalling, behaviour.

These coaches are setting an extremely poor example and they should be brought to book.

@SgtJuneAckland how old is your son and does he want to play?

And this is exactly why girls need single sex toilets.

I do think we need to call out such behaviour there and then, however.

@MumblesParty he's 5 and has plenty of other extra curricular activities and sports he is involved in. Most boys play football and rugby as the default

Its a tough one OP. But I think I'd have to say to my DS that his wish not to be embarrassed would on this occasion have to come second to the importance of raising this as an issue. The coaches behaviour was disgusting and really does need flagging up. I get we don't want to make our DC uncomfortable, but sometimes there's no choice for the greater good. By role modelling that you'll hopefully be raising him to be a man who understands.

I would raise it - littering, waste, cost and above all, their misogynistic attitudes.

If I could do it without my son knowing, I would, but otherwise- it's good to see people standing up against this sort of thing, even if he feels uncomfortable about it. Sometimes doing the right thing can be uncomfortable.

Do what @TulipTuesday says. Also my experience. Every club should have a welfare officer you can approach.

Contact the club welfare officer, all groups have them. Escalate! This is an example of poor practice and has to be taken seriously. If it’s not the coach’s first strike it could be taken even further…

I'd report them to the FA and ask that they all undergo an awareness session on period poverty. Players and coaches.

Excellent idea

Re contacting the school if the litter wasn't picked up then it would have been seen and noted by the caretaker or whoever deals with third party lets so it may well have already been fed back to school. I work in this area and would speak to the clubs that had used the facilities and also passed it on to my manager as facilities are meant to be respected and damage etc can lead to hirers being banned in extreme measures.

I would have spoken up there and then. My own feelings about what they were doing and also a strong will to demonstrate how to speak up when something needs addressing would have overridden my son's desire not to be embarrassed in this situation. Both my sons have seen me speak up when I am confident something is wrong and it hasn't been a problem for them.

Sounds like a learning opportunity tbh. Why should he be embarrassed? Boys - and men - need to be taught not to put up with sexism from their peers, else we'll never see improvement.

Playing devil's advocate my thoughts were along those lines too. It's likely that a similar thing could have happened if it was condoms, toilet paper or a pack of nappies or whatever...i.e throwing them around, making jokes about using them "next time you piss yourself" etc.

Yes its wasteful, messy and childish (although sounds like they'd already been dumped so were unusable and littering regardless of whether the boys had come along or not, although by throwing them around they obviously made it worse) but not convinced there's any sexism element to it or its evidence of "toxic masculinity."

@SgtJuneAckland early days then

You’ve literally just said “it hasn’t been a problem for them” so that’s not the same at all as you overriding your sons desire not to be embarrassed.
My desire to make a point wouldn’t be more important than my son’s feelings. Someone being attacked or hurt- yes I would of course step in. Not that my son would be embarrassed in that scenario.

Of course there is sexism and toxic masculinity at play here as it WAS tampons and the phrase “your bad week” is hardly progressive is it? But appreciate your comment.