O-mama - Opinionated Moms

• By Valorie Schaefer • 10 Comments
• Tagged in: For Kids

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If, in fact, I ever had “the talk” with my parents, I have no memory of it whatsoever.  I have a very vague memory of my friend, Jane, telling me about “periods” in the 3^rd grade at recess.  I didn’t believe a word of it.  Then in 4^th grade, a new girl came to school and for some reason, she had all the dish, and she seemed so worldy and fabulous—she had an awesome Dorothy Hamill haircut—that the rest of us took every word as gospel.  So then the rest of the details, I sort of learned via osmosis from books, I guess, and friends. Thank God for Judy Blume.  What would we have done without Are You There God It’s Me, Margaret and Forever? 

One of my BFF’s got her period in the 5^th grade, and we all piled in the bathroom with her to talk her through it.  No one wanted bras then, even though our uniforms required us to wear clingy white polo shirts which were the absolute worst when we were sporting our “breast buds.”  I think my mother eventually got me the classic Warner’s training bra, which I really did not need. 

Then…I didn’t even get my period until I was 15 years old, and get this, I was on a plane to Tokyo and had to use this gigantic airplane pad after telling my mother (who awkwardly hugged me from her airplane seat, congratulated me on becoming a woman as my dad cringed next to her and gave me the vague instruction to use whatever was in the plane bathroom.)  Then to add insult to injury, tampax was all that was available at the hotel, and my mom put my older sister in charge of the entire operation since she was my hotel roommate. (We’d all been travelling for hours at that point—however long it takes to get from LAX to Tokyo.)   Needless to say—since we were teenagers and only 2 years apart, my sister pretty much hated me, but to her credit, she did manage to talk me through the basic insertion program through the door.  So then I come out of the bathroom—she’s lying on the bed dejectedly flipping through the Japanese TV channels—and I sort of stroll past her walking like a cowboy after a long day on the range.  (This is a funnier story if I am in the room with you and can imitate the walk.)  So she asks me how it feels and I say that it’s okay—not great, and she says I really shouldn’t feel it at all, and I sit quietly for a bit—feeling IT quite a bit.  She stares at me for awhile and then says, (bless her heart for figuring this out) you threw away the applicator, right?  And I say, what applicator?  Good times, right?  So I head back in, remove said cardboard, and then, and only then, did I feel like a real woman.  I did a few running leaps to demonstrate my new freedom until my sister told me to knock it off.

So, traumatizing?  Not really.  Puberty in general isn’t much fun, though, and I have to say that experiencing puberty within the confines of a non-communicative, somewhat repressed Catholic family may have made it slightly worse.  So, all that being said, I vowed to myself when I had my kids that I would be a fabulous, open Earth Mama type for my daughters as they became women.  Plus I married a Swedish nudist (practically) and he gets very prickly if he senses any repression of natural instincts happening.  I personally think he would be well served to suppress some of his urges periodically but that’s another story. 

So my oldest sprouted the smallest of buds last year and it’s pretty much been the hot topic ever since.  I told her all about the joys of menstruation as well and now every time we are in the market, she asks me IF I NEED ANY TAMPONS IN A SUPER LOUD VOICE.  I have not totally explained the actual birds and the bees yet, but we have danced around it a little and I am just waiting for her to ask me to give her the real low down.  I think one of her friends may have filled her in though.  I just have this sense based on her sudden FRANTIC interest in what’s going on every time Mom and Dad’s door is locked.

The BEST thing I did, though, was buy the American Girl Book THE CARE AND KEEPING OF YOU.

My daughter loves this book.  She reads it every night before bed.  It’s not creepy at all like some of the “sex-ed” books they had when we were kids.  As a matter of fact, the emphasis is truly on health—and certainly not just sexual or “developmental” health, but all aspects—from zits and teeth all the way to swimmer’s ear, dandruff and toenail clipping!  Schaefer explores healthy eating vs. eating disorders as well as easy ways to incorporate  exercise into daily life—all of which are big hot buttons in our society and subjects that can cause friction in an otherwise healthy mother/ daughter relationship.  For whatever reason, when my daughter reads the flossing, nail, hair, and facial care tips in the book, she immediately adds them to her daily program.  Somehow, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think she would so readily accept such suggestions from me. 

The author does a terrific job of helping her readers—her American girls—discover themselves and learn to love and respect themselves, and as much as I’ve been sucked in financially by the whole American Girl Multi-Media Machine—I must say that I truly appreciate this book.  More importantly, I cherish the conversations it has sparked between my daughter and me.