Menstruation has been treated with secrecy and shame in many cultures, but accurate and honest conversations about menstruation are developmentally appropriate beginning in early childhood. A period is, at its core, a biological mechanism that is part of the reproductive cycle. Children may experience many emotions when learning about menstruation ranging from curiosity to fear to disgust, but by normalizing the process, parents can potentially prevent those strong reactions from turning inward and resulting in shame.
Key Takeaways
The vagina is a self-cleaning organ—it does not need to be cleaned internally with products like douches or with soap, despite advertisements to the contrary.
Menstruation occurs when the endometrium (lining) of the uterus, which is made of nutrient-rich tissue, is sloughed off and ejected through the vagina. In anticipation of hosting a fertilized egg, the endometrium grows back, but if fertilization does not occur, menstruation begins again. This cycle recurs monthly for some people, and at less predictable intervals for others.
People with a uterus typically begin menstruating around the same time they are experiencing puberty (though other health factors can impact this), so preparation for periods should start when signs of puberty begin to appear.
Periods can also coincide with other body changes like increases in vaginal discharge, breast discomfort, body hair, and body odor.
CHAPTER 7 Pen15 Club
“Dude,” Jessica said with alarm, “I can see your pubes!”
“What?” her son Mason replied quizzically.
“I can see … what are you doing? I can see your pubic hair!”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Why are you pulling on the front of your swim trunks like that? I get it, these new swim jammers are way tighter than your normal trunks, but like. What is going on? You need to stop that.”
“Uh, no. I won’t be stopping that. Thanks,” Mason said dismissively.
“Wait, what?” Jessica was shocked, and with her eyebrows that far into her hairline, Mason knew he had to explain.
“I learned at swim team initiation that I can’t stop.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Back the truck up. What do you mean, ‘initiation’? WHAT IS GOING ON?!”
“Okay, Mom, don’t freak out.”
It was too late. Jessica was freaking out. Her son, a seventh grader, had just joined the swim team. He was lanky and lean and actually quite quick in the water. He also loved swimming. The swim jammers were a somewhat new experience for him, though, and much tighter than normal swim trunks. It had taken him a bit to get used to them, and now every time he got out of the pool he was pulling out the front of them, way too close to showing people what was underneath. If he pulled just a little bit farther, there would be nothing left to the imagination. This was not okay, and if the older boys on the team were leading him to do this, she had a really big issue on her hands.
“Mom, let me explain.”
“Okay, I told you I’d always listen, so I’m listening.”
“I didn’t know that with the temperature of the pool and the way that swim jammers work, when I get out of the pool, they kind of like … vacuum seal to my penis.”
“What?” Jessica asked. This had taken … a sharp left turn.
“Yeah, they like, suction on and I didn’t know. I was just getting out of the pool, but the older boys showed me what they meant,” Mason explained patiently.
“I am still so confused.”
“Mooooom. When I get out of the pool, it suctions onto my penis, and you can see every outline of everything. How long it is. How big it is. If it’s really, really cold, or if it’s going to get … you know. Do you get my drift?”
“Oh.” She did, indeed, get his drift.
“So the older boys told me that when you get out of the pool, if you just pull the top of the waistband a little bit, it like, loosens up and then you can’t see as much. I promise I won’t pull it out quite as far. I’ll try to make sure that you can’t see everything,” he offered as a sort of compromise.
“My dude, that’s totally fine. I understand now. Thank you for telling me. I am sorry I didn’t get it before.”
“It’s okay, Mom. You don’t have one and you’re not a swimmer, so I don’t expect you to know. I didn’t.”
It can be really hard to talk about the parts you don’t have, because you’ve never lived the experience of having them. If you don’t have a penis, you don’t know at all what it’s like to wake up with “morning wood,” and you don’t have any idea what it’s like to have a surprise erection in the middle of class. If you’ve never had to navigate it, guiding a child through how to handle it can be intimidating. It might even be tempting to use books or movies or other media to allow the education to happen without you. Supplementing our children’s education is exactly what this book is aiming to do, right? But the goal shouldn’t be for our children’s education about their bodies to happen without us—that’s not fair to our children, or to us. No amount of representation or factual written word can replace information presented with love, thoughtfulness, and guidance by their caregivers.
“Mama?” the sweet voice said sleepily from the foot of the bed.
Barely registering her consciousness, much less the small human next to the bed, Marcy replied, “What’s up, baby?”
“Something is wrong with my penis.”
Well, she was awake now. “What do you mean, something is wrong with your penis? Are you hurt? Did something happen when you tried to go potty?”
“It’s … long.”
Now her brain was on overdrive. She felt like essentially any other adjective would have registered better than “long.” But there she was at 6 a.m., trying to figure out what might cause a “long penis.”
“Long? What … what do you mean?”
“Look at it!!”
What even is life?! Her three-year-old was standing next to her bed, undies around his ankles, concernedly showing her his “long penis.”
