Why I Am Teaching My Young Sons That This 'Private' Bathroom Topic Is 'No Big Deal'

I am kissing my younger brother on the cheek; I am about 7 and he is 4. These are the wiggly fingers under the bathroom door that tormented my poor privacy-starved mother.“I just wanted one second to myself on the toilet,” my mother says, laughing and remembering. “And then I’d see these little fingers wiggling underneath the door, tiny voices asking me if I was going Number One or Number Two.”Motherhood is indeed glamorous. Those were mine and my brother’s fingers that my mother recounted – fingers desperately needing her at all moments of the day, needing to know what she was doing when she wasn’t with us, needing to know why she was away from us for just one single second of the whole day. Just needing in general.I remember hearing my mother repeatedly tell this story of wanting to use the bathroom alone. She told it good-naturedly; she would roll her eyes and sigh and shake her head, smiling. She knew that this kind of neediness is a universal motherhood experience – the lack of privacy, the lack of autonomy over one’s own body.And one day I woke up and suddenly found myself on the toilet with my newborn in my arms at 5am, the house quiet. The door to the bathroom wasn’t closed, but I had this vision of my newborn’s someday-toddler fingers wiggling through the gap under the door, asking where I was. Asking if I was going Number One or Number Two. I couldn’t imagine a future where I’d be able to use the bathroom without my child; after all, he had accompanied me during every toilet trip for the last nine months and then, once he was air-side, he came with me 90% of the time anyway. I just kind of accepted it, that I couldn’t even use the toilet alone, and I relished the downy hairs on my newborn’s forehead as he lay cradled in my lap. There’s a certain suctioning nature of motherhood, toilet times included.Two years later, I had two boys and they were both in the bathroom with me all the time. At this point in my parenting, I was begging for alone time in the bathroom, like my mother’s story of my wiggling fingers. But as a mother, I was almost never afforded that bathroom privacy luxury, so I’d set up the baby bouncer next to the tub for the infant, and the toddler would wander in and out of the open door, talking to me and the baby as I sat on the toilet.Somewhere along the line, I made the decision that if there was to be no fantasy about what happened in the bathroom because I wasn’t allowed any privacy, then I’d stick to it. No continuity errors. I’d adhere to toilet transparency because this is real life, kids. So when my preschooler asked, “What’s that red stuff in the toilet, mama?”, I told him.“That’s blood,” I said. “I’m OK, though.” (OK, I lied a little bit.) “It’s called a period. Lots of people get them once a month. It’s no big deal.”“A period,” my 3-year-old boy said. “It’s no big deal.”The open communication between me and my two boys continued. They asked me what maxi pads were for. They wanted to know how tampons worked and were utterly delighted when I showed them how they push out of their applicators. They ambled in and out of the bathroom, pulling trails of toilet paper, chatting nonchalantly with me. No privacy, but no fantasy.“Oops, mama,” they said. “You got some period blood on your underwear.” “It’s no big deal,” I said and they nodded.Me with my baby boy, who would grow to hang out in the bathroom with me all the time.As my second boy grew into a toddler, soon he was offering me pads from the closet every time I sat on the toilet. Toddlers can be so helpful, if you let them. “I see blood in the toilet, mama,” he said, knowingly. “That’s called a period.”In my sixth grade health class, the boys and girls were separated one day and it was all a big secret for some reason. The girls learned about menstruation and the boys learned about wet dreams or something. Afterward, many boys snickered and made fun of us girls, telling us horror stories of their older sisters who made messes with their periods or allegedly got tampons stuck inside of them for the rest of their lives, ewww. I felt so much shame and anger. It was just blood. What was the big deal? Why were these dumb boys making fun of something we couldn’t control? Why were they acting like we were dirty when periods literally occur to, you know, preserve the species? Why were periods depicted as blue liquid on TV commercials?So indignant was I as an adolescent about boys’ disgust over very basic human biology, and then I woke up one day, looked around, and realised I was a 30-something woman living in a house with three males. I was sure as hell not going to be quiet or shameful about the fundamental monthly inner workings of my body in my own damn house.I remember how my mother taught me to roll up my used maxi pads and then wrap them roughly 55 times in toilet paper before I threw them in the trash. A wad of shame. If I was in public or at someone else’s house, however, the pad needed to be wrapped 95 times, leaving no trace. In my house with my boys, the used pad or tampon went right in the trash. No wasting toilet paper on hiding the evidence. I’m just being an environmentalist. I’m saving the earth by not wasting toilet paper. And also, my boys didn’t blink twice when they saw blood in the tiny trash can next to the toilet, just as they could easily name the blood they saw in the toilet water. Because it was no big deal.I have spoken to other moms – both my age and older – about my transparency with my young sons about menstruation, and it’s a mixed reaction. Some moms are shocked I have done that and some moms are shocked it can be done at all. It’s the moms who nod along with me who become my people, of course. I always tell them about my mom’s story, though. I tell the story of little fingers under the door’s gap. I tell the story of how the shattered fantasy of privacy during motherhood should extend to all facets of the bathroom, regardless of the genders of your children. That way we raise boys who don’t make fun of girls in sixth grade. That way we raise men who aren’t squeamish in relationships about basic human biology. That way we start to ease the cyclical generational trauma of shame around periods. Because it’s no big deal; it’s just blood. It’s not even Number One or Number Two.Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at [email protected] Need To Talk To Your Autistic Child About Periods – But When?4 Ways to Tell Your Children About Periods Without Being AwkwardLocked Loos And Leaks At School: Students Are Facing Too Many Barriers On Their Periods

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