Historically, it’s been an awkward time for families when a child gets their first period. But in recent years, it’s become a lot more clear that a big part of that awkwardness comes from how those families treat periods.
Because while they’re going to be a messy and stressful thing for someone to go through for the first time no matter what anyone does, it hardly helps when the adults in their lives treat either the periods themselves or their associated products as inappropriate subjects.
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Not only do such attitudes add an unnecessary layer of secrecy and shame to something that can’t be avoided, but there are also cases when they’ve obstructed already uncomfortable kids from getting the support they need.
And that’s why one dad felt particularly strongly when his sister tried to pressure his daughter into this old way of thinking.
After our narrator’s sister was caught having an affair, her husband kicked her out and left her without a place to stay.
So as the brother explained in a Reddit post, he decided to take her and her 13-year-old son in to live with him and his 11-year-old daughter.
This daughter had started her period before this arrangement took place and has been keeping her period products in the bathroom for the sake of convenience.
But since the sister moved in, she’s been judging her niece for this and told her she has to keep them in her bedroom.
In the dad’s words, “Julie thinks it’s not appropriate to have her pads there because other people could see them. Then she didn’t want to hear my argument because I’m a guy and just don’t understand.”
But what he did understand was that he didn’t want his daughter growing up thinking she needed to be ashamed of her period. He also saw the idea of hiding these products as being akin to hiding the toilet paper in the bathroom because you wouldn’t want someone thinking that everybody poops.
But when the man confronted Julie about this, she quickly took their disagreement to a personal place.
As the man put it, “She said she’s just caring about her niece since I’m not being a good father setting a proper example for her.”
In response, he said that since she’s the one who “imploded” her own children’s lives by cheating on her husband, she had no right to be lecturing him about parenting.
This led Julie to call him names he didn’t repeat and cry in the guest room for bringing up what happened to her marriage while she’s still in a vulnerable place.
He’s still mad about what she said and didn’t say anything untrue, but he’s now wondering if that makes him unwilling to see how harsh his words were.
But when he reached out to Reddit for perspective, they seemed a lot more worried about what Julie was trying to do.
As one user said , “You are doing an amazing job with your daughter and she has no right to come in and try to do that parenting for you. It’s also your house. She has no say in where to put your daughters things.”
In the words of another, “She called you a bad father. You pointed out she’s a bad mom. She shouldn’t judge others parenting if she can’t handle the judgement back. She did negatively affect her kids by having an affair. You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, whereas she did.”
Ultimately, they said he should put the period products back in the bathroom and if Julie doesn’t like it, she can find somewhere else to live.
h/t: Reddit | saidtomysis
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