Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

How much did your Mum 'help' you with puberty?

96 replies

inforapennyinforapound · 17/05/2014 22:37

Just had my Mum here for a week and been reflecting on how I think my parenting to my 2 dds differs from her parenting of me and my DB.

I've been thinking through a few things that I realise now my Mum never ever spoke to me about and trying to work out how much of it may be generataional.

I'm 35 and my Mum is 65. When I was growing up she never, ever spoke to me about puberty, didn't explain periods to me or ask me if I'd started them, never took me to a shop to be fitted for a bra (I think I grew up stealing her bras?!) Never ever told me about the facts of life (though did consent to me being taught about it in school).

When I was about 15 had a brief dalliance with bulimia which she found out about (can't remember how, I certainly didn't tell her) and she told me off then never, ever spoke to me about it ever again.

Just extremely uptight about everything to do with being a teenage girl, basically.

I always assumed it was normal, but my DDs are only 6 and 3 and I realise already how much more open I am already about this stuff I am with them than she was with me.

If you're a similar age - was this just how it was in the 80s? Or is it my mother?!

Is all that normal, to be so 'uptight' about

OP posts:
RubyGoat · 17/05/2014 22:40

Not just your mother. Are you my secret sister!? (Except my mum did buy me a bra.)

LairyPoppins · 17/05/2014 22:40

When I was 11, my mum gave me a leaflet, with hard to read cursive writing on the front that said 'Bodytalk'.

From 11-14 (when I started getting an allowance and buying my own) she put sanitary pads into my cupboard on a regular basis.

At 17 (first boyfriend) she took me to the Doc and I went on the pill.

Other than that, we did not speak of it at all.

Yes, I am much, much more open with my DCs.

Original poster
inforapennyinforapound · 17/05/2014 22:43

Ooh, interesting, thanks.

I had forgotten the whole boyfriend thing, too! I had a bf at 17 and my Mum was basically just really disapproving about the whole thing and trying to catch me out staying over at his when I said I'd been at friends. But never, ever, ever once attempted ANY kind of contraception chat with me.

OP posts:
yoyo27 · 17/05/2014 22:45

My mum came me 'The Usborne Guide to Growing Up'. I can remember it clearly!!

I don't remember her ever speaking to me about it though. And when I wanted to go on the pill at17 (I wasn't sexually active yet though), I wrote it in my diary knowing she would read it!!! And she did! And went ballistic!

I am very open with my children. Yesterday my girls found a box of tampons. They came in giggling. My step daughter asked what they were. My eldest (10) said "they're for women when they get their period".....so I guess I taught her well!!

heyho1985 · 17/05/2014 22:46

My Mum was very open with me she used to make me fetch her sanitary towels when she was on the toilet! Blush And she took me to M&S to get my first bra which would probably still fit me now as my boobs never grew!

I'd like to think I would be so open if I had a daughter although I'd probably be more open about sex than my Mum was. To be honest we didn't really speak about it and I think that's because she has only ever been with my Dad!

MrsMcEnroe · 17/05/2014 22:48

Not just your mother OP.

I was born in the 70s, teenager in the 80s. Mum very open about puberty and periods etc but sooooo repressed about sex, she gave me such hang-ups about it!

meandjulio · 17/05/2014 22:48

Let's see. My mum put a pack of sanitary pads with special hooks on them, and a matching pair of special pants with clips that the hooks attached to, in my clothes drawer when I was I think 11 - 1980. Never spoke to me about them.

When I was almost 13 and about to go on my French Exchange (hooked pad still unused) she stood in my bedroom looking out of my window and said that if I started a period while I was away, I should ask the mother of my exchange partner what to do.

Driving into town one day at around the same age, she said I didn't need a bra yet as I was still 'flat as a board'. That phrase stayed with me for years - somehow I continued to believe I didn't have breasts, when I was comfortably a Bcup by the time I was in my late teens.

At some point, two of my sister's old bras (we are a completely different size and shape) appeared in my drawers as well. I don't know who put them there. Those were the only bras I had for years, though I had a couple of camisoles, and vests.

That was the sum total of my preparation for puberty and sex. My mum is lovely Grin but totally wimped out of this area of parenting.

redundantandbitter · 17/05/2014 22:49

Er, you just wrote MY puberty story from the 80's. (except for the bulimia, so sorry you went through all that- sounds dreadfully painful).

Shit really isn't it- when I look at my two daughters and chat about 'mums boobs' and changing bodies, discuss deodorant and why it's needed... I think "would it really have been that hard to talk to me?" ... Throw in 3 older brothers and no privacy. Urgh.

Have a houseful of girls now. Magic .

EBearhug · 17/05/2014 22:49

We talked about it, probably prompted by saying we'd had the Tampax lady in at school and so on. I don't remember. I do know that when my periods started, I knew what it was and I knew I had to tell Mum, as she had a stash of tampons and pads ready for the moment. It was a few weeks earlier (the same summer, between middle and upper school) that she had taken me to M&S saying I needed a bra. (I'm still an A-cup. I still don't wear one half the time.)

I also remember one excrutiating journey to swimming club, a car full of me and my friends, and as she drew up to the traffic lights and we waited for them to turn green, she came out with, "I was at the Family Planning Clinic today, and I asked them about the best form of contraceptive for girls your age..." This conversation pretty much guaranteed I wasn't ever going to have sex with anyone ever, if they knew I was related to my mother. i.e. anyone in town, anyone I was likely to meet. (So it was very effective contraception in its way, although the answer was apparently actually the minipill, but then there was also the obligatory AIDS talk, this being the mid-'80s.) I don't know if my friends remember the conversation (still in touch with one of them), and I'm not going to ask in case they do remember and I have to die of embarassment all over again.

JonesRipley · 17/05/2014 22:53

I am in my 40s.

My mum bought towels in preparation for me starting my periods. She kept putting off telling me about tampons (I saw hers and asked about them) and then I started using them of my own accord from my second period.

I clued myself up, basically, with library books and medical magazines that my great aunt passed along to me (she was a cleaner for a GP!) I think she knew that, so not much was said.

I wish my mum has talked to me about hair removal - I was very hairy and ended up trying to shave with a blunt razor and no having gel ..... But I think she did not want to raise it with me and make me feel I ought to do something about it.

I asked her to buy me a bra and even though I didn't really need one we went together to get a tiny 28AA. Wish they had had T shirt bras in those days.

I told her after I had gone on the pill at 17 and I think she was a bit shocked but she was very restrained about it.

I have boys and I am note open with them. Although DS1 threw Let's Talk About Sex out of his room in disgust when I left it in there for him a few years ago Grin.

redundantandbitter · 17/05/2014 22:54

My best mate at uni told me that her mum wS a very practical nurse but I wS her dad who sat her down and told her everything. Periods, sex ..the lot. Mate was fine about it. (i think). Even explained orgasms etc. He was such a lovely laid back guy, I thought how great to have a dad like that .

JonesRipley · 17/05/2014 22:54

more open with them

letsplaynice · 17/05/2014 22:55

OP not just you that was my mothers parenting strategy too. I'm now 32 & she's 57

Original poster
inforapennyinforapound · 17/05/2014 22:56

THese are intteresting replies, thank you!

meandjulio - I think I am slightly young enough to have missed the horror of the special belted sanitary towels! Though I remember reading a Judy Blume book about them and being horrified at the thought of them

OP posts:
letsplaynice · 17/05/2014 22:57

Though my mother did give me the usborne book as well!

Original poster
inforapennyinforapound · 17/05/2014 22:57

In fact, I think Judy Blume taught me everything about Judy Blume that my mother didn't!

OP posts:
JonesRipley · 17/05/2014 22:59

Our Period talk at school consisted of a video about those belted towels. They were still being sold but the stick on ones had been invented by then. I scared the life out of us. I think that's what made me determined to use tampons straightaway. But because my mum never told me about applicator ones, I use Lillets, which were much harder to put in, IMO

JonesRipley · 17/05/2014 23:00

X post

I loved Judy Blume too

The joy of Sex (found in my mum and dad's under-bed drawer with the family photos) helped too

catsofa · 17/05/2014 23:01

Same age as you with a same age mum, but mine was really open, went naked in the house, talked about sex and bodies and whatever just whenever it came up. She just answered any questions I had when I asked them from when I was little, so I don't remember not knowing about periods or finding out what was involved in intercourse etc.

I consider myself very very lucky to have had a mum like that, and particularly admire the fact that I know she wasn't raised that way and so must have had to decide from scratch how to do things differently with me.

Since I now work with teenagers, can I suggest that you have a think about how you might like to introduce/tackle the subject of consent with your own children? Just because a lot of the problems I see young people have to deal with in early adulthood would have been helped a lot if they had had a good basic understanding of the concept of consent, and the expectation that they alone have the power to give or withhold consent regarding what happens to their own bodies.

Eating disorders, for example, often result from underlying issues about control. Also relevant to whether effective contraception is used, and if a young woman accepts or does not accept a boyfriend not wanting to use condoms, and all sorts of things.

It's tricky when they're young as that is the one time we all do have to let adults physically do things to us that we may not want e.g. put our shoes on, brush our teeth etc... But being aware of the issue and keeping an eye on it might be one of those things that you'd like to differently from your own mum?

Original poster
inforapennyinforapound · 17/05/2014 23:01

sorry, taught me everything about puberty that my mother didn't, I meant to say.

Haha - yes, the joy of sex! As prudish as my mother was, she still left her copy on display in the book shelf in the lounge Confused

OP posts:
JonesRipley · 17/05/2014 23:02

catsofa

I have talked to my boys about consent - especially in relation to drunkenness

Original poster
inforapennyinforapound · 17/05/2014 23:09

catsofa - thanks, I already do that with my own DDs. They know that their bodies are their own and nobody can touch them unless they are ok with it (6 yo knows this almost too well and will attempt to use it to get out of things like walking to school - "it's MY body and only I can decide what to do with it" Grin )

Interesting what you say about control - Mum was very controlling when I was growing up, particularly over my body. I once asked her to trim the very end of my fringe when I was about 14 and she grabbed the scissors and cut it off about an inch from the roots as it had been 'annoying' her the length it was, apparently. I had to spend the next 4 months gelling it back to the rest of my hair. Grrrrrr.

(I work with teenagers too btw!)

OP posts:
Nocomet · 17/05/2014 23:10

Dad did sex (facts of life when I was a toddler, contraception when I was about 15), mum did bras and periods. I sorted contraception I was 20 and at university (mum must have had a quick nose, because she quite deliberately told me a cap fitting joke).

DMum is alway outwardly more embarrassed about sex, but it's a bit of an act to keep DDad from being to vulgar. Truth is she knows alway knew everything and wasn't phased.

ShatnersBassoon · 17/05/2014 23:10

She spectacularly failed to be normal about. anything even vaguely associated with sex. Everything was shameful.

homesforsale · 17/05/2014 23:13

I'm 35 and my mum didn't tell me much, although she did buy me bras (not properly fitted - just cheap ones from a market stall) and she gave me sanitary towels when I started my periods. I started my periods in primary school aged 10 and my parents hadn't told me anything about periods then, but I knew about them from books and chatting to friends. I read Judy Blume, Just 17 and some pamphlets given out with Tampax packs. I also read various sciency books from the local library - was quite fascinated by the Family Medical Encyclopaedia and the Hite Report on Sexuality at one point! So I figured it out myself really - I definitely wasn't naive about sexuality but I had a natural curiousity about it.