The Period Conversations We Wish We’d Had With Our Parents…Sort Of?

I don’t remember the talk my mom had with me about my period, or if there even was one, but I do remember the book, What’s Happening To Me? answering a lot of questions I had… And where would any of us even be without Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret? A new video from WatchCut shows parents explaining — or trying to explain — periods to their kids, as part of the channel's “Parents Explain” series. The video consists of a smattering of parents sitting their kids down to tell them about things like what menstruation is, what the uterus does, and how long a period might last, for instance. The kids’ reactions vary. In the opener, the first girl gets up as soon as she hears the word vagina — she just cannot deal. Another calmly accepts the truth her mom is spewing when she tells her, “But it’s a part of life, you gotta go through it.” The girl nods solemnly, “Yeah,” she replies. Some kids cringe; they laugh; they stare at the camera hoping whoever is behind it might possibly be able to get them out of what’s happening.

In one scene, a dad tries to figure out what a maxi-pad is — gauze maybe? Later, when his son asks how a tampon keeps the blood out exactly, he really isn’t sure. DivaCups are foreign, mysterious objects, even to the moms. In all seriousness, though, one of the first things we noticed and loved about this video was that it was not just women telling little girls about their periods. Dads talked to their sons about periods, and they also spoke to their daughters about them. Moms had these difficult conversations with their sons, too, reminding us and parents out there (and anyone watching, really) that these are not only conversations for moms and daughters to be having. Periods make the world go round, and everyone should be educated about them. And this video, while quirky and cutesy, (and at times, truly embarrassing, even for those watching), ultimately promotes the normalizing of our periods, of being okay with having them, and being able to talk about them openly. And that is definitely something we can get behind.