Eastlife Spring 2020

Mum’s
The
Word
LITTLE EAST
Let’s Talk.
Period.
Written by Dolly Osborne
Each year spring is sprung with sugar coated imagery about new
life. Frolicking lambs, gambolling rabbits, cute fluffy chicks and
chocolate eggs. The wholesome, happy scenes of Easter might
be rather different if the coming of new life was portrayed as the
gore-fest that it is. Don’t worry, your roast lamb is safe. I’m not
talking about the meat industry. I’m talking about periods.
My 12-year-old son came home a little pale the other day and
when I enquired why he seemed to shudder a little and said:
“We learned about periods.”
I decided to stay fairly quiet and let him ask what he needed to
ask. My memory of period lessons from primary school were that
the boys were separated out from the girls, and the girls were sat
before the intimidating sight of the buxom nurse who we only
usually associated with injections and nits.
This time ‘Nitty Nora’ had all sorts of props with her and the
girls were all horrified at the sight of looped towels and their
accompanying scaffolding. We later emerged shaken but slightly
smug as we knew things the boys didn’t and carried that special
knowledge around with a swagger until the horror of monthly
haemorrhage started in the following years.
| Even into my teenage years’ periods were seldom talked about,
definitely not without ridiculous euphemisms like ‘Aunt Flo’, ‘the
painters are in’, or the horrifying ‘Liverpool are playing at home’
(even as a Kloppite I’m not comfortable with my vagina being
linked to Anfield). As a feminist mother of a boy I decided early on
to be frank about functions of all bodies and so I was fascinated
to hear what the school could have told him that I hadn’t.
He sat down next to me, gazed at me in a sincere, worried kind
of way and said: “Have you ever used tampons?” When I said I
had he exclaimed: “but the string just hangs out of you! You have
to put the whole thing inside you, what if you lost it?” I explained
that as the vagina isn’t a 60,000 seater football stadium losing it
was unlikely but that you did need to remember to change them
because of toxic shock or leakage. He looked at me as if I was a
war hero. But he was clearly steeling himself for more. Reassured
he decided to breach the thing which had clearly shaken him the
most: “What about those cups? They just sit inside you? How?
How do you get them out? Why would you use one?” I explained
the function of a mooncup and how for many people they are
the best choice, how environmentally friendly they are etc.
Eventually he seemed to have his queries answered and had a
new-found empathy for those who have periods. He clutched
my hand…”and this happens every month?”…“Well until the
menopause but that’s a whole other story…” again the sincere
eye lock “Not for today then Mum, not today…”
www.raggydollywrites.wordpress.com
Twitter @Osborneosaurus
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