Periods

My intelligent modern mother was extremely prudish and could never discuss periods or sex. I’m afraid that as a result I was much the same and found it nearly impossible to talk to my own daughters.
We, and our mothers, were brought up in secrecy and ignorance and teenage pregnancies were the result.

I was given a book on The Facts Of Life, but the details about everything were very vague. For instance it mentioned the male sperm uniting with the egg but gave no explanation of how that happened. I was 13 when I started and my mother hadn't prepared anything. She sent me off to school with an old terry nappy safety pinned to an elastic belt. We did eventually have quite a good film at school, but it was about 2 years too late for most of us.

Although my mother gave me the full facts about periods and what would be required at an appropriate age. I do remember being really young and going shopping with her, when this mysterious item has to be collected. It was carefully wrapped in brown paper so the contents were concealed. A certain amount of subterfuge was employed by both the shop server and my mother as to what it was, nothing could be revealed, which made me all the more curious. It was extraordinary the lengths people went to to keep the buying of sanitary towels top top secret.

I was 14 and other girls at my school had already started so I was aware periods existed, but dare not ask anyone for more information. I certainly would never have been able to discuss anything like that with Mum. I was going on a French exchange and bought myself sanitary towels and a belt with the money I earned working in a second hand book shop (under age of course but my parents knew the owner). Good job I was prepared because my first period started on the cross channel ferry to France. I was sea sick all the way with terrible pains in my stomach, but when I saw the blood I knew immediately. I often wonder what the French family thought of me arriving soaked to the skin from standing on deck being sick, white as a sheet, clutching my stomach and completely unable to face food of any kind. I had to tell my exchange partner who was entirely matter of fact, handed me a supply of pads and showed me how to use the bidet. From then on I simply bought all my own sanitary products. No idea what Mum thought because the subject was never mentioned, nor was there any talk about the facts of life. It was my Granny who mysteriously told me everything would be alright as long as I kept my knees together at all times until I got married!

Rocketstop2

we had a film at school that consisted mostly of dire warnings never to wash your hair during a period !!!

Oh dear - I could amend the phrase "With friends like that who needs enemies" to "With schools like that who needs enemies". That was so wrong of them to tell you a myth like it was a fact..

Id just turned 11 and woke up one morning to bloody sheets and literally thought I was dying so stayed in bed. Mum came shouting up the stairs to drag me out of bed. When she saw me crying she just asked if I'd started something. I didn't know what on earth she meant so just nodded. She disappeared, came back with a sanitary towel and that awful belt and left. Not another word was said so I had to fathom out how to attach the pad to the belt. I thought it was a one off. She would never make sure there was a supply for me so every month she'd give me money to get them myself from the local chemist. I can still clearly remember the embarrassment each time being served by the male behind the counter.

we had a film at school that consisted mostly of dire warnings never to wash your hair during a period !!!

My mum was prepared but hadn't told me anything. It was the Summer holidays before I started senior school, I went to the loo and thought I was dying! It just wasn't something her generation talked about.

It was 1972, when I was about twelve, and in my first year at secondary school.

My mother hadn't told me anything about periods, but luckily my primary school had given all us girls a full afternoon lesson in our last term which covered that, as well as showing us a film of a woman actually giving birth to a baby! There was no way I would have told my mum about it as I knew she would have been very embarrassed about discussing it.

We also covered basic sex education in science lessons in the first or second term in secondary school, so I knew roughly what to expect.

I was at school the day my periods started. I packed my pants with a wad of rolled-up toilet paper. I dreaded having to tell my mum, but I had no option since I had no proper protection to use and no money to buy any myself. It turned out that Mum was prepared, as she took me to her bedroom and handed me a pack of stick-on pads. But apart from that and asking me once or twice how I felt, that was that. At the same time, she started giving me a monthly allowance and made it clear that I must buy my own sanitary products out of that. That suited me, as I didn't want to have to keep telling her when I needed them, or possibly even justify how many I was using!

My periods were horrendous - long, heavy very frequent and painful, but I struggled on in silence, as I had no more desire to tell my mother than she would have had discuss it.

Whenever I had my period at school ,I was terrified of bleeding through my protection and it being visible to everyone, even though I used both tampons and towels at the same time, and even kept using thick wads of toilet paper too as an extra precaution. I would panic every time I felt a heavy gush.

In fact, periods ruined a huge chunk of my teenage years as there was so much I couldn't or didn't dare to do because of them.

In my mid-forties, the GP who I had gone to see for some completely unrelated reason spotted that I was extremely anaemic . That led to my being fitted with the mirena coil, and I have never had another period since. Bliss!!!

#aggie I think the be careful was equivalent to my mother warning me to stay away from boys. I was 11, was handed a sanitary towel and told the previous about boys. I thought I would die from bleeding to death. Thank heavens it's all so much better and open now.

Flakesdayout
five minutes to ruin your life did that include the post coiltal cigarette 😂

My mother didn’t tell me anything in advance so I was scared stiff when I woke one morning before school to find I had ‘started’! I told my mum who gave me the requisite Dr White’s plus belt and a little pink book about the birds and the bees. That was it! I remember being quite shocked by the book which had something about ‘when a man and a woman love each other very much’ in it!! Luckily my best friend started her periods the same week so we worked it all out between us. We must have had some sort of sex education at school as I remember a text book with a full frontal picture of a man in it and thinking ‘I’m never letting anything like that near me’!! Such innocent times.

I really don't remember exactly. I do know my best friend started her period at 10 and she wasn't aware. She sat with her knees up on the sofa and I saw blood on her knickers, I know I quite casually said ' I think you have come on' and was not shocked at all. Her mum was in and did make a much of it just gave her a pad and showed her how to put it on. This would have been around 1966.

Great discussion : I cant remember how old I was but I was given a sanitary towel/pad and belt. The pad itself had two holes at the top and clipped through the belt. I remember my Dad going to the shop to get some pads for me and I was embarrassed by that. My mum told me that it only takes five minutes to ruin your life and I didn't understand what she meant. I used to hate those 'glug' moments and went onto Lillets. When I went on to the Pill (much to my parents disgust when they discovered them in my bag) my periods were ok and lighter. I called it red week.. I remember coming home with my Dad standing in front of the fireplace saying that 'he understood I was having sexual relations'. I was engaged at the time.
I stayed on the pill for many years and didn't even know I had had my menopause. I had two sons so didn't have the 'period' chat and Im sure my DIL will be very informative to my two grand daughters.

My mother told me about periods and I realised years later that the little paper bag she always had with her must have contained the necessary belt and pads. She gave them to me to take before I went to Guide Camp when I was about 13 and that’s when I realised in a coach trip to a Scottish Castle, I’d started. I dealt with it without telling Captain: at least two other Guides also started at that Camp but had to be taken by Captain to a chemist, a distance away, to get the necessary bits and pieces. Be Prepared!!

I was lucky as started late and being summer born most of my friends had already started. My mother considered it dirty and shameful and tried to insist I used thick pads and plastic/rubber pants with them.
I wanted to use tampons as according to the adverts in magazines you could swim and play tennis. She was horrified and said I would have to buy them myself as she wouldn't. Luckily I never had any problems.
I decided that I would be open with my daughters and granddaughters and even now make sure there is an emergency pack in my bathroom for when they visit (the modern pads are so much better)

I don’t remember my mother telling me, but she must have done, because I didn’t get a shock when my periods started at age 11, last term of junior school. It had been talked about a lot in the school playground (small all girls school), and because I was the first to start, I was the object of much envy and admiration!

Later I had a friend who had been told nothing, and evidently periods hadn’t been talked about in her junior school. She thought she was dying. It is really unforgivable not to make sure girls know what to expect.

Came as a total shock to me. Mother provided me with a belt and pads, removed used ones and provided new ones each month. No real understanding until we were given a booklet at school. I was told in no uncertain terms that if I got pregnant I would be sent away. Never had much of a relationship with my mother in later life but I did make sure she was well cared for.

I remember my mother sitting me down and telling me about periods when I was nine. She made sure that I wouldn’t suffer the same experience she had in the early fifties when she had her first period at the age of ten. She was naturally terrified and thought she was dying. My very prudish, even by the standard of the time, grandmother gave her the prerequisites and told her that this was what she needed to use and it would happen once a month from now on. A few weeks later, at school, the girls were taken into the hall and a nurse told us all about it, including showing us a sanitary towel, which we passed round: a stick on one by this stage (mid-seventies). We were also given a booklet called Very Personally Yours, which was sponsored by Kotex. Despite my mother being concerned that I might start early, as she had, I was a fairly late developer and started when I was fourteen. It was still considered a private, confidential matter even in the seventies and the pads were still thick and uncomfortable, even though they were stick ons. I progressed to Lilets within the year. Apart from a few tummy aches as a teenager on the first day, I was fairly lucky with my periods until I was 49 when, all of a sudden, I had continual, heavy bleeding for months. This had happened to my mother and her sister at a simple age so I wasn’t entirely surprised. They both had hysterectomies but I had a newer, less invasive technique called a womb ablation, which stopped everything. Apart from the occasional hot flush, which only briefly affected my face, the only menopause symptom I had was no more periods - bliss.

On an amusing note, my husband is a few years older than me and was a child of the sixties when Dr. Kildare was a very popular TV show. One day he was playing at being Dr. Kildare in the garden with his next door neighbours. His mother looked out and was horrified to see that he had used one of her sanitary towels as his surgical mask - the loops fitted on his ears perfectly.

I was later starting my period- thirteen, so I had already found out from school friends what to do. My mum and even my two older sisters never said a word!
My mum just gave me a belt and a sanitary pad and said she knew because I'd had tummy ache a few days before!
It wasn't a big deal really- and it was ages, almost a year, before I had another period.
I was relieved more than anything that I could tell my friends and be like them!

I remember being at the swimming baths with my friend who had 4 older sisters - we went into the toilets and she asked me if I knew what the tampon vending machine was for - we were about 8. As an only child I had no idea so she casually said oh it's for when you bleed every month but no further explanation. I started my periods at about 12 - my mum had a drapers shop and we sold pads and Lillet belts so she gave me them but never explained anything more other than to say well you know what can happen now don't you?! I got pregnant at 16 so I obviously didn't take heed of her 'warning'

Betcha the answer to that one at some level "Why were women so cruel to each other, especially Mums" is the last thing they wanted us to do was to think that a body could be a pleasant thing to have (or at least - not a problem to have). Might help keep us away from men after all......cynics 'r us.....

Not just periods though I guess - as I've not forgotten a comment my mother made to me incautiously when I was a young teenager of "I didnt love your father when I married him". Cue for I was absolutely shocked and had taken a message that she did from the way her answer to "How did you meet?" had been she'd looked across the dancefloor and thought "That's my husband over there" and cue for he and another man walked towards her from different directions. Job done....

That got me setting the bar very high at that point and promising myself I didn't want any future man getting told that (in my fathers case by me - who thought he knew that fact = he didnt) and I then found he wouldnt speak to her for weeks because of being lied to basically. Yep...my father was absolutely livid she'd done that to him....it wasnt the woman that was the romantic in that relationship...

Nowt wrong with a "marriage of convenience" if you both know it is - rather than one not realising...

Why do you all critisize your Mothers, that was the way it was at that time. I felt no shame, I was really proud. I had become a woman

My mum told me about periods and what to expect and wear but had no idea what they meant and what could happen

I was playing with my friend Isobel, late afternoon, I was sat on there doorstep and suddenly felt very wet down below, I felt down there and there was blood on my fingers. I told Isobel I had to go home because I thought I was dying. Mum of course said it was nothing to worry about and we went up to the chemist to buy some pads. I told my sisters very proudly that I had become a woman when they came in from work. I was 10 and no one at school believed me.