When Did You Get Your First Period?
I was 13, but it was summer and I would soon be turning 14. I had so eagerly wanted my period, all the way back to when I discovered my older sister's pink booklet from school (she was 11 and I was 8) with a pretty drawing of a girl on the cover surrounded with twinkly stars: "So You're a Girl."
I read all about it, over and over and over. I took one of her gift sanitary napkins and wore it until it was tatty. I checked my panties whenever I went to the bathroom to see if I had started yet. I examined carefully, mindful of any dots. I remember doing this for like a whole year.
Where Were You When Your First Period Started?
Well, I was actually at home, in bed. Despite having studied it for years, and with three older sisters, none of us really talked with each other about these things. It was all hush-hush. My mother was even rather backward on the issue, as when I was 10 years old she screamed for me to come to her for a "prayer circle" because my little brother, about 4 years old then, had walked in on her while she was changing her pad, and she didn't want the experience to "ruin him for life" so she wept to God and Jesus to wipe the memory from him!!! Despite this, I was amazed to wake to a bloody sheet and called for my mom, who was OK about the sheet and just gave me my napkin and belt and that was that. Oh yeah, I ended up suffering severe cramping and PMDD.
Lessons Learned
- Don't give your daughter the message that a woman's menstrual blood can ruin a boy's life and that the whole thing is somehow deeply secret and a sign of female inferiority.
- Do talk openly about the subject. I gave my daughter child-friendly books on the whole subject of periods, the difference between males and females, procreation, how babies grow in the womb, what sperms are, etc.
- It is related, but laterally----make sure your daughter knows what an erect penis is and means before she is 15 yrs old. I was so naive about sex, but I did know that girl's get periods. That is what I knew and it stopped there.
