Our reader saw yesterday’s news about a father and son who were playing with a menstrual cup, having no idea what it was for, and decided to share her memories.
I am five years old. I rummage through my mother’s closet and find lovely white soft mattresses for a doll’s bed. It’s hard to resist and not steal a couple. I play with them until the evening, and then sneak to take a few more – to the yard of my friends. Mom, having caught me stealing, blushes: it’s impossible, put it down quickly and never touch it – it’s still small.
The fact that these were pads, I guessed much later – when I was 12 and the topic became relevant. In this regard, it is easier for teenagers – they are told at least something. Children get only “put”, “do not touch”, “do not take”.
A friend was whipped for mistaking condoms for balloons, inflating them and decorating a room with them.
“There is nothing to climb everywhere!” shouted the blushing father. As I now understand, not from anger, but from helplessness – he was not ready for a conversation. The “big boys” in the yard enlightened the boy: with a giggle they explained in a whisper about the terrible and adult. My friend was afraid to ask his parents – his father’s reaction was enough for him.
Children often end up with sterile and academic encyclopedias, where adult authors get confused in euphemisms and allegories. “Such days when”, “special highlights”, “dad sows a seed in mom”. In general, it is not clear what it is and about whom.
Parents, hesitated, explained that sex is when uncle puts his … well … this one, into my aunt’s vagina. Dumbfounded, I ran out into the yard and told the news to others.
“What do you think your parents did?”
one girl was outraged.
“Yes, probably even twice – I also have a brother!” I proudly explained. The next day, that girl did not come to me – my mother did not allow it. Modern parents have not gone too far: they are ready to show educational cartoons, slip books, but rarely can talk about sex and physicality without fear and embarrassment.
The trouble is not that the child will never know where babies come from and why pads are needed. Knows and understands. It’s bad that at the same time he will understand something else: the body and sex are embarrassing and embarrassing. This is not something you can ask mom and dad, or adults in general.
This means that in adolescence, when we are ready and pick up the words, the children will no longer come to us. Boys – to a friend, not to dad, girls – to friends, and not to mom or a gynecologist. Our teenagers will be embarrassed to tell the physical education teacher about their periods and be afraid to buy pads and condoms at the pharmacy. And they will hardly believe that one can speak about the most simple and familiar things in the same simple and understandable language, if it is suddenly necessary. And this, perhaps, is no less important than knowledge of the theory.