Carolyn: I was so naive, so very naive, about the birds and the bees and . . . the blood. Even when I was pregnant with a baby growing in my belly, I still barely understood how that baby got there. My own mama never taught me about the facts of life (much less the rumors), so I was as in the dark as a vampire bat in a cave at midnight. It wasn’t like things are now—where you can just Google any- and everything—so if you didn’t get information from your parents, there weren’t that many other legit places you were gonna get it. Sex education at school was clinical and brief, and crammed into one day where the girls and boys were split up.
Who knew what they taught the boys? For that matter, who knew what they taught the girls? I certainly didn’t—I had the flu that day and missed it all. Every last bit of it.
I knew there was such a thing as a period, and that some of my friends had theirs already, but I had no idea what a period was. I didn’t know what it looked like, what it felt like, or why it happened. So one day, when my stomach was hurting really bad and I found blood in my underwear, I immediately burst into tears. I thought I was dying and probably only had days to live.
My mom found me crouched on the stairwell and bawling. “Mommy, there’s blood in my panties. I’m gonna die!”
“Oh, child please” she said. “That just means you’re a woman now.”
What?
“Let me get you some Kotex.”
Ko-who?
Back in those days, pads were about the size of a diaper, and you wore them attached to a sort of belt that went around your waist and had these metal clampy things in the front and the back. Mommy showed me how to put it on, and then handed me a stack of pads. “Make sure you change it regularly,” she said, “or you’ll start to smell.”
And that was the end of that lesson. I was a woman now, with no idea what the hell was going on. Was I gonna die soon? I still felt like I was. I didn’t even know that having my period meant that now I could also have a baby.
I was left to fend for myself.
And I didn’t fend very well.
When I got pregnant, my prior sexual experience consisted of some poking, prodding, pushing, and pain, but never any pleasure. I had met this older navy man who was cocky and intense and intimidated the hell outta me. He knew what he was doing, but me . . . I wasn’t a virgin—I’d had sex once before and didn’t know what was happening except for a lot of “ouch!”—but I was still as clueless as a kitten. This went here, that went there, he moved around and yep, we made a baby. At that time, being pregnant without a husband was an extremely shameful thing, and my parents were—you guessed it—extremely upset. At their urging, I called the one telephone number I had for Mr. Navy.
His mother answered the phone, and I told her the news.
“Honey,” she said, “that’s your problem.” Then she hung up.
I was shocked, then numb, then crushed. Then feelings of worthlessness flooded in. Her abrupt dismissal of me and the baby growing inside me made me feel like I wasn’t a person but merely a thing—actually, two worthless things—she needed to protect her son from.
I never wanted anything like that to happen to Tyra. Ever. So when her Aunt Flo came calling, I wasn’t gonna just spill the beans. I was gonna add ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, molasses, onions, and bacon to those beans. (That analogy makes odd sense, but I thought I’d sneak in my recipe for doctoring up canned baked beans. They will make you wanna slap yo mama! But you better not.) What I’m trying to say is, I was gonna tell Tyra a helluva lot more than “You’re a woman now.”
Embarrassment and awkwardness—c’mon. Y’all two are invited to the lesson. Cuz Miss Tyra is going to know every damn bloody thing.
Tyra: All my friends were getting their periods. But me, I didn’t get mine until I was fifteen; even in my “mature” state, though, it was still friggin’ awful. I started to freak out as soon as I realized I was bleeding. Why? Because I was at my daddy’s house and desperately did not want him to know.
I called Ma and told her that she needed to come get me—now!—and told her that under no circumstances was she to tell my dad why.
“Please, Ma, please. Don’t tell Daddy!”
Carolyn: I told him. I didn’t want to look like the crazy ex-wife, showing up to drag our daughter off with no explanation.
Tyra: Oh my God! She told him behind my back. I was devastated. “You’re probably just spotting,” he said on the phone to me an hour later. I wanted to die. Die. For one, spotting? How the hell did he even know what that was? And two, he wasn’t supposed to know!
Damn you, Mama!
To this day, my dad still talks to me like I’m a little girl—“Buster, Daddy loves you,” and he does it so singsongy, like he’s some character on Sesame Street—so at the time, it mortified me to think I’d become a real woman under his roof when I knew he still felt and treated me like I still watched Big Bird. I’d even lied for four years and said I believed in Santa Claus after knowing it was my parents leaving Barbie camper vans and Holly Hobbie ovens under the Christmas tree. It wasn’t that I wanted the extra presents. It was because I saw how much my dad enjoyed it, and I didn’t want to take that joy away from him. (And the extra ColecoVision video game cartridges like Frogger, Donkey Kong Jr., and BurgerTime from “Santa” didn’t hurt.) So when I started my period, I think I freaked out because part of me wanted to stay a little girl—his little girl—forever.
Then, of course, Mama threw me this odd, strange, weird, wacky but kinda-beautiful-in-its-own-way celebration.
Carolyn: I had always loved anthropology (the study of humans, not the store) and learning about different cultures and traditions all over the world. One day, I was watching a National Geographic special and saw that in almost every primitive culture, there was a rite of passage ceremony where the women would come together to honor a girl who had started her period and teach her all about it. It was a celebration of womanhood, and an acknowledgment of passing into another realm.
That got me thinking—what did we do for our women, American women? There was no ceremony, and there certainly was no celebration. All we got was a box of Kotex! That was when it hit me: I’d throw Tyra a period party.
And let me tell you, there ain’t no period party like a Mama Carolyn period party. Right after I had the idea, I started planning, and when I told Tyra about it, she started giggling and couldn’t stop. We invited all the teenage girls she was close to. I told them they didn’t have to, but if they wanted, they could bring a gift. After all, this was a celebration, right?
Soon, I got a call from the mom of one of the girls. “What’s this my daughter’s talking about?” she asked. “She said she’s going to a period party at Tyra’s house?”
I explained the premise, and she laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe. She said I was nuts. “You’re invited, too,” I told her.
“No, no, that’s OK,” she said. “You’ve got some wacky parenting techniques, but I trust you cuz Tyra is a good and healthy-minded girl. So you know what? You go right ahead. Is it a potluck? I can send over a dish.”
Tyra: Why did I get my period so late? Because I was so thin. At least that’s what my doctor said. Something about me not having enough body fat that stimulates the production of estrogen or something. Anyway, I’d already had my first kiss, which is probably a little backward for most girls. Still, the period party was very special, and from the time I first heard my mama’s crazy idea, I couldn’t stop laughing. None of my friends could believe Ma was doing this. Once again, they thought I had the craziest, coolest mom in the world.
Because I did.
Carolyn: Tyra’s favorite color is yellow, so I decorated the house with yellow crepe paper garlands and balloons, and set out refreshments. I even had a cake made, with yellow frosting and flowers, and the exact words my mama had said to me when I got my period: “You’re a Woman Now.”
When I went to pick up the cake, the lady at the bakery asked what occasion the “Woman Now” cake was for. “It’s for my daughter’s period party,” I said.
“Huh? What does that mean?”
I broke down the whole idea, and her jaw dropped.
“A what for what?” she asked, shocked. “Why would anyone want to celebrate something so horrible?”
Now I knew I was on the right track. I didn’t want my daughter thinking that this thing that was happening to her, which was perfectly natural and happened to every woman, was horrible like this lady thought it was. So to rub it in the baker’s face I said, “Hmmmm. Maybe I should have ordered red velvet with ruby-colored cream cheese frosting!”
The whole point of the period party was to illustrate that becoming a woman is wonderful, not shameful. The female reproductive system has given all of us life, but so many people scrunch their faces up and treat it like a horror curse. This isn’t the prom scene in Carrie—there’s nothing to be afraid of. The only pig in sight at the party was the bacon in my famous baked beans.
Tyra: I do think Ma was overcompensating a wee bit with the whole period party, but who the heck can blame her? Her own mother, my dear Grandmama, was so backward with the whole menstruation thing, my mama vowed that my experience would be the complete opposite. But I can’t blame my granny for what she told my mama. I bet it was more than her mama told her. Also, seeing me freak out when I got mine at my dad’s house, my mama saw firsthand that I already had so much shame connected to becoming a woman and said to herself, “I have to do something before my child goes crazy!”
I appreciate that she never wanted me to be ashamed of anything, or to think that there was something bad or dirty about my body. And to prove that, the period party had all kinds of bells and whistles and, of course, tons of TMI.
Carolyn: Most of the girls at Tyra’s period party had started theirs, but I still gave them all the complete breakdown. I wanted them to understand everything, from what the blood means to why it happens once a month and where a tampon goes. I had charts of the female anatomy, and I pointed out every part by its actual name. We all had vulvas and labia, so why should we be too embarrassed to say the real words? Majoras, minoras, and clitorises, oh my!
The highlight of the party was when I brought out the menstruation gift basket, which was better than anything you could ever order from 1-800-Flowers. I had gone to the store and gotten one pack of practically everything: tampons with the applicator, tampons that you insert manually, panty liners, pads, feminine deodorant spray—even though I didn’t use it, it was in the aisle, so I threw it in. I arranged it all with some bright yellow tissue paper and included some day-of-the-week panties, which completed the ultimate period goody bag.
I took the girls through each and every thing in that basket and explained what the items were for and how to use them. I opened up the boxes of tampons and pads so that the girls could touch them and see what they looked like outside the packaging.
I talked about how often you need to change tampons (to keep toxic shock away) and pads (to keep all kinda mess away), and talked about how they’d have to try out different types and brands to decide which was the most comfortable for them. When I was at the store, I’d specifically looked for the biggest Kotex I could find. “If you’re worried about having accidents at night,” I said as I held it up, “this will be your best friend, because it goes all the way up to your navel in the front, and all the way up your butt crack in the back.” This was pre-“wings.”
The girls’ reactions to it all were pretty mixed. Confused. Excited. Downright disgusted.
“It’s like a diaper!” they screamed while passing around the massive pad. “I couldn’t even walk two feet in that!”
In between some of that disgust and embarrassment was a lot of excitement. Most of them had never talked about their periods so openly before, and in between the “yucks” and giggles, they asked questions about everything from whether using tampons takes away your virginity to wanting to know if other people can tell when you’re on your period.
The highlight of the party, though, was when I brought out the ancient period belt I’d had to wear when I was a teenager. To their young eyes, I’m sure it looked like a torture device. I guess back in the day, it kind of was. Thank God (or whoever invented them) for pads with adhesive!
Tyra: My friends did a love circle for me, where they all held hands and danced around me, and shouted out beautiful or funny stuff about me.
“You’re so goofy and fun, Tyra.”
“Bloody Tyra. Bloody Tyra,” to the tune of Bloody Mary.
“Last to flow and bleed but first to help in our times of need.”
My fave color, which was forced upon me by my paternal grandmom (long story) was on full blast on my cake, so it appeared it was made for Big Bird. We ate every drop of that sunshine bright cake, and I opened the gifts from my buddies, and Ma brought out a basket of “feminine products” that I was used to just passing by and ignoring in the supermarket aisle.
In addition to all the blood collectors, there were feminine douches and all this kind of stuff, and later my mom apologized big-time.
Carolyn: The vagina is a self-cleaning oven. You don’t need to flush anything up it unless your doctor says so. I learned that information after the party and regret telling Ty and her friends otherwise. Meanwhile, I caught her staring at the tampons like they were monsters.
Tyra: Tampons are mysterious demons. At least that’s what I thought touching one for the first time. How the heck was I supposed to get that rough thing up my you-know-what? Sorry, Ma. I know you want me to use the real V-word but “you-know-what” just seems a bit easier right now. Anyway, I vowed to never use them. Tampons, that is. Ever. But I’ll never forget my future BFF—maxi pads. Yep, they were in there. Those pads were superthick, like an In-N-Out Double-Double hamburger. Mama was all excited, going on and on about the innovative, futuristic technology of the sticky stuff on the underside of the pads that miraculously adheres to one’s underwear.
Carolyn: And then, we danced! All the girls formed a circle, and Tyra got in the middle and shook her booty (even though there wasn’t much of it at the time) while we all clapped and sang around her. It was her moment, her day. She was a woman now, and she felt good about it. All the girls left wanting a period party, even if they’d already started, and I started throwing them for all my nieces. Before we even knew what popularity on the Internet was (heck, there was no Internet back then), my period parties went viral (within our ten-block radius).
Tyra: I stayed true to my word, and for about a year after I started my period, I said, “Oh, hell no!” to tampons. When I was on my period, my purse was like a diaper bag, half-full of cottony, superthick maxi pads. But one day, I was at school in class when I ran out of them.
Damn.
None of my friends used pads, so no one had any.
Damn again.
One girl slipped a tampon in my hand, and I immediately dropped it and was like—you guessed it—“Oh, hell no!”
In the bathroom, I decided to risk scent, dent, and accident (see below) and just balled up a bunch of toilet paper that resembled a baseball and stuck it in my underwear. Needless to say, it didn’t work and started to slide around and break down into a mess. I went back to my friend and whispered, “OK, gimme that tampon. I’m going to do it.”
She came with me to the bathroom and stood outside the stall, trying to coach me through it. “You got this, Ty.” But, goodness gracious, I couldn’t do it. The tampon just wouldn’t budge. Not a bit. My friend then transformed from coach to cheerleader. “You can do it. I know you can. Relax and think that tampon’s a man.”
Her rhyming was ridiculous. Even more so because I was a virgin.
And to make matters worse, the clock was ticking. This bathroom stall period party was not taking place during lunch—we had snuck out of class, saying we both had to go to the bathroom, and I realized that even if we both had a case of violent food poisoning, we would still be taking too long. So, I finally gave up. More toilet paper was gonna have to do it for the rest of the day, this time folded in layers and not like something Derek Jeter or Jennie Finch would catch in their mitts. Fortunately, I still had my tampon bouquet from Mama, so once I got home, I could practice until I finally got the hang of it.
It took about five years.
And thank God—even it if had had real wings, there was no way a bulky pad would’ve flown on the Victoria’s Secret runway.
SCENT, DENT, AND ACCIDENT: THE THREE WAYS PEOPLE CAN TELL YOU’RE ON YOUR PERIOD (AND THE THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO AVOID)
Scent:
Carolyn: When I was in junior high school, you could always tell some girls were on their periods because you could smell it. In some cultures, girls are not supposed to bathe when they are on their periods—and I respect that, but at the same time, it breaks my heart! It’s hard to describe the smell of a period gone wrong, but you know it! Tyra has a term for it, but I don’t want to say it. I’ll let her crazy butt share it on TV someday. Knowing her, she probably already has. But in short, I told the girls at Tyra’s period party that if they didn’t want the world to know they were on their periods, they had to make sure to change their pads frequently and bathe every single darn day. Skipping showers while menstruating was out of the question. And I don’t care how late you are to school or work. Get your booty in some water or else.
Dent:
Tyra: I’m sure I had this issue all the time with those ginormous pads back in the day. To me, the pads seemed as long and thick as the bread on a foot-long Subway sandwich. So I think you’re kind of understanding what dent means now, right? It means that the pad is kind of sticking out and you can see it through your clothes. Especially when someone is wearing tight pants and the pad is just too long, it can look a hot mess. The situation is not as serious these days because some pads are as thin as those micro-shaved slices of turkey they have at Subway. Don’t know why I keep referring to Subway. They are not paying me. Not that they would pay me to compare their sandwiches to obsolete maxi pads.
Anyway, now I’m hungry.
Accident:
Carolyn: We all know what this one is—you bleed through your pad or tampon and it gets on your clothes. This is a junior high girl’s worst nightmare, so I told the girls to change out whatever fluid catcher they were using before it filled up, and to always make sure they had plenty of pads and tampons on hand. Not every bathroom has vending machines (the lack of them should be a crime), and a lot of times when they do, they don’t work, or the pads are as thick as (see Tyra’s previous sandwich bread references). You should even have enough pads and tampons to share so that when that random, panicked woman on her first date with her future life partner comes running into the restroom exclaiming, “Does anyone have an extra tampon?!” you can save the day and maybe make a new friend. Even if you never see her again, you’ll be her knight in shining tampon, and she’ll tell the story at her anniversary parties forever.
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS: WHY PERIOD PARTIES ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS
Tyra: I’m lucky to have my mom for so many reasons (I know this, and she knows this, and she knows I know this), and the period party was just one of them. When I was younger, I thought of ye olde PP as something silly that she’d done to keep me from being embarrassed about my body and to make me and my friends giggle. It wasn’t until I got older that I fully realized the cultural significance of what she’d done. For so many women around the world, having a period is nothing to giggle about. They’re not even embarrassed about it; they’re downright shamed!
Thanks to my mom’s gift basket, when I started my period, I had a whole smorgasbord of feminine products at my disposal, so if my virgin vagina and I opted for a pads-only lifestyle, that was on us. For many girls in developing countries, though, there’s no choice about it. They’ll use what’s available—leaves, socks, et cetera—if anything’s available at all. Many, especially displaced women living in refugee camps, don’t even have access to private bathrooms where they can manage their periods in peace.
Just like my mom when she started, if girls don’t have the right information about what is happening to them, they might not even know periods exist until they get theirs and—again, just like Mom—they find blood in their underwear and think they’re dying or seriously ill.
Over the past few years, many activists and relief organizations have worked to bring some of these issues out of the girls’ room (or lack thereof) and turned menstruation awareness into a global campaign (once again, my mama was ahead of her time). We can all start making things better for women around the world by breaking the taboo at home. Just talk about your period (or your daughter’s/sister’s/niece’s/granddaughter’s/et al.) like it’s not a big, bad friggin’ deal.
’Cause really, it’s bloody not.