When my son was a kid, I discovered an important parenting tip: an inexpensive toy that reliably filled up 15 minutes of our endless days. It’s lightweight and portable and fits easily in your pocket. Plus, I almost always have one with me, or a friend can pull one out of the bottom of her purse in good condition. Or if I have a quarter, or in a particularly thoughtful bathroom, a new one is at my fingertips.
Of course, I’m talking about tampons. Or as my young son calls it, “rocket.” He was pleased with them and willing beg for them. I would often see him create an elaborate story that only he could understand using tampons he found in his coat pocket or drawer, or, let’s be honest, from the many pieces of trash scattered around our apartment. plot. Sometimes he’ll find a whole box—jackpot! To be fair, these situations can get pretty expensive.
Tampons are everywhere because menstruation is everywhere. But they are also completely invisible to many people. They’re part of a secret language that half the population speaks fluently and the other half complains about or politely ignores. Of course, there’s a wide range, and most people with uteruses menstruate 10 times more often than they do at the movies. in her book Periods: The true story of menstruationBiological anthropologist Kate Clancy shared research showing that the average human has 451 menstrual cycles in a lifetime. However, Clancy explains that due to a misogynistic culture that views women’s bodies as broken and suspect, scientific research too often follows suit by discussing your period, let alone showing evidence of it (I’m in the waistband How many shirts are tied between) years of horror? ) may feel like an admission of some private shame.
Who wants to live like this? who wants parents that’s all?
I didn’t hide tampons from my son, and oddly enough, his interest in them made me braver to not hide them from the world. He plays with them in cafes and on public transport, sometimes sucking on cotton and letting the string dangle from his grinning face. I smile smugly every time someone I see as a man. I wish the other half of the world would stop ignoring menstruation, opening menstrual products one at a time, like a form of social exposure therapy.
When my son grows up one day, I want him to love not just his own body, but the bodies of others. I want him to be able to take care of his friends who have uteruses as well as his friends who don’t.
When my son ran into our bathroom one morning and saw me inserting a rocket into my vagina, I decided to explain. I told him that while he was living inside me for almost a year, the walls of his house were covered in blood, and not just blood. This keeps him warm. He’s interested in all babies, which means I don’t host them, in fact he’s an egg just like them and he’s been inside me since I was growing up inside my own mother. Although we are told that the egg is passive, “waiting for her prince,” as Clancy puts it, the uterus and everything within it is working intelligently and diligently, better than the most complicated construction site.
Afterwards, I practiced saying “I’m on my period” without shame or covering it up with humor. “I can’t take you to school today, I’m on my period.” “Want to snuggle up and watch a backhoe video? I’m on my period. It may feel creepy, even wrong, to think about our children’s reproductive systems, but My son will be an adult one day, and I want him to love not only his own body, but the bodies of others. I want him to be able to take care of his friends who have uteruses as well as those who don’t.
I’m not the only one. Many of my female friends who have sons talk to them about periods. One of them asked her middle-school son to pack pads and tampons in his backpack for friends in need, just as I had subconsciously done for thirty years. One of the children, now 15, noted that his understanding of his mother’s menstruation laid the foundation for later understanding his own hormonal changes. Boys also seem to have hormones. Just like patriarchy, private shame can hurt men.
Like many people, I first learned how to push a “rocket” into my pussy from my sister. I remember her standing on the other side of the bathroom door—she must have been 14, I was 12—trying to instruct me while I scrunched up my face in discomfort, confused by the horrific visual instructions in the box. It’s like trying to tell someone else’s hands how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I also now have a daughter, and she will not have a sister, which I am always painfully reminded of. But maybe, just maybe, her brother would have an extra tampon in his pocket, or on those many days every month she wished she could lie in bed and give her tea.
I think of the millions of caring moments I have shared with sisters, friends, and strangers. I held my grandmother’s fingers, painstakingly painted her nails, took my baby from the outstretched hand of that same sister (don’t worry, she’s certified!), and helped wash off the skirt of someone I just met in a public restroom bloodstains on. I want to make women’s bodies less taboo, yes, but I’d also be selfish in doing so. I didn’t want my son, who was born into this society to look like a man and feel like a man, to miss these moments. Being a parent is not only about carrying on your bloodline, but also about envisioning something new and better. I’m taking it one month at a time.
