My Guyanese Mom Taught Me Period Protocol at a Young Age-What That Means to Me Now
My grandmother is one of the greatest women I know, but even she fell into the harmful pitfalls of traditionalism. When my mother first got her period, she was chastised and yelled at for having blossomed at such a young age. Eleven was not old enough to be a woman. In Guyana, it was normal to wear rags of cloth stuffed into underwear as pads. So this my mother did, without any guidance, and became accident-prone to spillage at school.
She would never let me have this experience.
My mother first demonstrates the use of a pad when I am eight years old. She takes it slowly out of the package, showing how to open it without tearing the packaging or the pad. You first pull the sheet off that covers the adhesive flaps and you place it gently on the centre of your underwear so there is coverage for both the back and front of your flowage. Wrap the flaps around the underwear and press it gently to smooth it down so that’s comfortable against your skin when sitting or crossing your legs.
As soon as I started developing breasts, this instruction would occur each week before I visited my dad, so in case it came without her or at school, I would know what to do.
