Periods

My sisters are older, they told me. Mum explained when she felt it was time (I'd already heard), gave me all the necessary items.

butterandjam

My mother had prepared me ahead of time and showed me the hidden stash of pads and a new elastic sanitary belt with hooks (remember those?). I started at 13, first in my class.

By 14 , I'd seen a discreet and mysterious magazine advert and sent off for the free sample. Two Tampax arrived by post in that useful plastic holder and I was instantly converted.

Mum was less impressed, already I'd ignored her warning "never wash your hair during a period" Now, even worse, Tampax meant I went swimming during periods. Her last ditch argument was that Tampax were unsuitable for girls (virgins). Obviously another myth, Mother; like the hair thing

You've reminded me of that - ie swimming.

I'm guessing - at some level - maybe those old-fashioned mothers were trying (even if they didn't realise it themselves) to "train" us into expecting that our bodies would restrict us (even though that doesnt happen with men). Tampons, tights, the Pill, legal abortion all left us much more free to live our lives in the same way as men. But why should we be stopped from swimming for several days a month - when boys weren't?

Maybe it was "Your body will stop you going swimming for some days a month" to "Your body will cost you money paying for medical provisions your brother doesnt have to pay for" all the way up the ladder to "Don't even think of a career - rather than a job - as your body will get in the way".

No wonder many of us came to regard our body as something "outside" ourselves and nothing to do with us - and that we just unfortunately inhabited. Yep....that's still how I look at it personally, ie "5'4"" of hassle looking after this thing I have to inhabit". Definitely I talk about "me" on the one hand and "my body" as something totally different and unrelated on the other hand. Total disconnect...

Boys - up to men - probably feel much more free in their bodies and not so aware their body may get in the way of what they themselves have decided iyswim.

My mum told me about it at 11, before I went off to boarding school.
At none of the several schools I attended was it ever mentioned.

I was a late starter; over 14. I knew all about periods from friends and my mother who spoke constantly about sex and babies. I woke one morning to rusty bits of toilet paper around my bedroom and on my sheets. I knew it had nothing to do with me and asked my mother what it was . She told me that while drunk her and my older sister were trying to frighten me into thinking my periods had started and had rubbed rusty batteries around my room and me.
Why?
When i eventually did start she expected me to use 3 alternating piles of rags as she did. I stole my older sisters products and got a job to buy my own supplies. I had very heavy and frequent bleeds and struggled. She didnt buy me any basic toiletries either.
This has always stayed with me , but sadly wasnt unusual behaviour for her. My fad died when I was 16 and I left home at 17. Necessity was the mother of invention for me.
I had 2 daughters who experienced things as they should have been

I remember knowing about periods, but not really what they were. My mum just told me I could now get pregnant, but at 11 I had no idea how and she never told me. No baths either, because the flow might stop and go back into the brain. It was the dreaded Dr Whites and belt. I told a couple of my friends that I could now have a baby. We discussed me having one and the three of us could hide it and bring it up together!

We were given a book from school, Convent Grammar School, but I don’t remember periods in there. It did have prayers to say while you were washing yourself in the bath and told not to look at yourself.

My mum was given a long pad which was fastened to her vest at the front and back with safety pins. She was told, “You’ll be like that until you are 50 and keep away from boys.”

My mother had prepared me ahead of time and showed me the hidden stash of pads and a new elastic sanitary belt with hooks (remember those?). I started at 13, first in my class.

By 14 , I'd seen a discreet and mysterious magazine advert and sent off for the free sample. Two Tampax arrived by post in that useful plastic holder and I was instantly converted.

Mum was less impressed, already I'd ignored her warning "never wash your hair during a period" Now, even worse, Tampax meant I went swimming during periods. Her last ditch argument was that Tampax were unsuitable for girls (virgins). Obviously another myth, Mother; like the hair thing

rosie1959

My mum had explained it all to me in good time so it really wasn't a big event just matter of fact. She had never got on with tampons so didn't explain them to me I just moved on to them as time passed. Why were tampons indecent really odd.

I think the reason re many of our mothers generation of women were against tampons (but only for us!!! whilst they used them themselves....) was it was felt they might break the hymen inadvertently - and it would seem like we were no longer a virgin - even though we were. I hadnt been born into a horseriding family (darn it...) and I gather that would sometimes do that too - but my mother would have known me not getting the riding lessons I asked her for would have meant that hadnt happened.

In the 1950s (when my mother got married) they made a point of walking down the aisle a virgin and wouldnt have wanted a "technicality" (like broken hymen) meaning we might not be believed. The morality of that era was that "Nice girls didnt and nice men didnt ask - and so they were entitled to wear white walking down the aisle" was about the gist of it. I would have made it plain "hands off" myself to boyfriends in that era just-in-case.

My mother would have been more conscious than most - as I eventually realised years later that the woman she told me was her 17 years older sister was in fact her mother and the woman she told me was her mother was actually her grandmother. She never did admit she was illegitimate to me and I had to figure it out for myself in the end many years later. A hymen would have been seen then - even in our country - as "proof we hadnt indulged" so to say.

That "not before the altar" thing was very logical in that era and if I'd been a 1950s woman then I would have stuck to "not before marriage matey" attitude myself. As it was the 1970s and Cosmopolitan magazine was the thing in my time = I had a very different (and pragmatic) attitude to all that. Though I've been gobsmacked - both before and since that era - to see there are still people saying "Well - babies just happened and you expected it with marriage". Speaking as someone who - if I'd decided to have children = it would have been a positive decision and not "Mother Nature did that to me" and there would have been one at 32 and the second one at 34 = job done...end of...

Can’t remember exactly but I do know our parents were told we had to be informed before we went to Grammar School so my mother must have told me when I was 11. I do remember her telling me one tall younger girl at primary school started her periods at the age of 9 but none of the rest of us knew.

Gosh it's quite sad to read how little we knew. I'm one of the shocked ones. For a few months I feared I'd got some terrible disease. Mum gave me the belt etc, and said 'You'd best keep away from men' - that was my sex education. Practical!

I think my mother was quite forward thinking compared with some. Apparently she wanted me to ask questions, rather than sit me down for "the talk". I was a bit slow, despite her hoping that listening to radio plays that might make me curious. Finally, when I was about 10, I asked how a woman knew she was going to have a baby before she started getting fat! That prompted a full, proper biological, explanation about periods and everything else.
When I went to a Guide camp, aged 11, she told me if by any chance I got my first period, I should go to the leader in charge of first aid and tell her, as supplies of pads were always part of the first aid kit.
We also were given a book in school, when we were about 12, so I think all my classmates were well informed.
I was 13 when I started, but never had that much bother with periods until peri-menopause when they got heavier. I used tampons mostly, but enjoyed the period free time when pregnant and breastfeeding.

My mother was useless. I got all the information I needed from friends. When we moved on from Dr Whites one of them told me I’d find tampons easy because I rode horses!! 😂

Boy was I glad to be rid of periods come menopause time. My mother had given a very brief description of that - "Six months and it was over". So I expected that too and it went on for years! Thank goodness it finished very much on time - ie 52. Periods were such a nuisance to me - way too long, way too heavy and often made me feel ill. I landed up having a scan one time and also had one of those D & C operations one time (and they sent me home with a hospital-acquired infection from it). The scan revealed two fibroids - which I was told were "an orange and a grapefruit" in size - so that may have been the reason I had such problems. In the event I waited it out until menopause when I got offered a hysterectomy - but I then read a "pros and cons" book about it and decided against that and hence decided to wait for menopause (as I was in my 40's then).

Basically I was waiting it out until menopause for all the trouble to stop. Not to mention the expense - and I still can't believe the Government charged VAT on provisions (and I think they still do). So - come the time when I was sure it was Over At Last that was rather a big bag of "provisions" I took into work and gave to a younger female colleague to use up.

I was 12 in the early 1970s so thankfully the days of the little pink elastic belt that came with Dr Whites - were on the way out and pads with adhesive were on the way in.
I always bought my own as my Mum didn’t want to be involved no doubt having “left all that behind” even though I was the youngest of five daughters!
She told me that tampons were for married women or dancers when she saw some Tampax I’d bought🤣
Bless her she was just a “product of” her own mother’s Victorian upbringing.

Friends at school kept me informed.

The only thing my mother ever told me was that if I got pregnant before I was married she’d kill me!
I had no idea how one actually ‘got’ pregnant - thank goodness for school friends with knowledgeable older sisters.

My mum had explained it all to me in good time so it really wasn't a big event just matter of fact. She had never got on with tampons so didn't explain them to me I just moved on to them as time passed. Why were tampons indecent really odd.

henetha

Nobody warned me. I didn't have a clue, so when I woke up one morning and found blood I completely panicked. Mum tore up an old sheet and tied a strip around my waist and then folded some up to make a pad which attached to the strip.
And then I rode my bike to school as usual, but fainted in morning assembly and got sent home in a taxi.
I used torn up sheets until I got a Saturday morning job which meant I could buy proper pads.

Eek at you being made to use torn-up sheets by your mother!!!

It's a medical necessity.

What I do remember is I was told in advance by my mother what was what and how to deal with it and she did buy an initial pack to demonstrate.

Though I've got an idea she made me buy my own "provisions" !!!!! - despite it being an obvious medical necessity!!! Shocked at remembering that - it's a surprise she didn't make me buy my own darn toothpaste and soap in that event! I was perfectly well aware it wasn't my responsibility until I started work in a full-time job. Shuffling off parental responsibilities onto the child themselves (ie me) did get noted and remembered.

I had to find out for myself re tampons - as she never told me. When I had bought my own darn tampons one time and said that is what I would be using - as they were obviously so much better a way to deal with it = she went off on one about it!

She wouldnt even say why she was upset. But I ignored her and thought "My body - my decision - and you are making me pay myself for what is a medical necessity that is the parents responsibility whilst I'm still at school......so..........". She didn't dare argue as to what method I was going to use in the event she was making ME pay for them. I'd seen that that there were stores in that she'd bought for herself - so was thinking "Why is she trying to stop me using them - when that is what she uses herself?" Presumably she thought I might technically land up "not a virgin" because of them - though that was not an issue and "So what?" in my opinion. I was far too logical a child for someone like her to try and parent....

I had no clue no one told me and I had 3 older sisters you'd think i should of been prepared but no total shock. Eventually my mum bought me pads and belt.

I was 11 years old, and not prepared at all. I had two sisters, one 9 years older than me and the other 6 years older - they didn’t say a word about periods. My mother hadn’t warned me and there was no information at school.

One of the more "developed" girls in my class told the rest. I started on a Thursday aged 12 at school and had to go to the senior mistress to get those hammock type sanitary towels and a bandage to make a belt. When I got home I told mum. Her response "You realise you can get pregnant now. " That was it, but supplies of Dr Whites appeared in my pants drawer from then on. Tampons were regarded as indecent,so much so that when I started using them once I bought my own, mum was disgusted. I made sure my sister who was 11 years younger than me, didn't have the same experience and told her all she needed to know when she was 10 years old.

No information at school for me either. My mother told me I would be 'poorly' once a month and not to discuss it with anyone including my father.
I was told not to bring trouble home but had no idea what was that trouble may be.

Nobody told us at school either.

A schoolfriend told me during a school dinner during our last year before senior school. I don’t remember my mother ever telling me - I think she’d just assumed I knew already. We weren’t taught about it at school.

Periods were one of the things I hated most about being a woman. Dirty messy filthy things and painful too. I used to scream with the pain. My mother said it was something I just had to put up with. When I began to use the internal tampons she said they were indecent . I used a brand called Lillets - not Tampax.

In my 20s I went to see a private gynecologist and paid the consultation fee. I had the op done on the NHS within 2 weeks of seeing him. I had scanty pain free periods after that until I hit my 40s. I began to take the pill end to end and never had another period. When I stopped the pills to see what would happen my body clock has stopped. Nor did I appear to have a menopause. My sister had pain free periods but a terrible time during the menopause.

I was terrified when I started my periods at eleven. Had just left junior school. My mum just said ‘well now you are becoming a woman’ and gave me the dreaded belt and sanitary towel. None of my friends had started so I felt like a freak. I remember getting blood on my bedding and stripping the bed to put it in with the laundry, I felt so ashamed and sure my mum would get cross but she just took it off me and got on with things. When I came home from school my bed was freshly made with a sprig of lavender on the pillow. From then on I felt much better about it.

We were told in biology at school. There was a film about Susan and her mother giving her sanitary pads and belt. There were also biological diagrams. However, no mention of sex or feelings.
I can’t remember my first one, but I think I was twelve. My mother didn’t talk about such things! She just gave me the necessary.