I learned about periods from an older cousin who handed me a pamphlet on menstruation that was part of the late elementary sexuality curriculum, back in the day when they still segregated boys from girls for body talk. She handed it to me and said, “Read this because no one else is going to tell you and you need to know.” Before going to her room to listen to some albums she threw me a look that pretty much said, Good luck, kid. We’re all on our own in this.
Shortly after that, when I was 8 years old, I asked my mother how babies were born. I can’t remember whether I asked her in Greek or English since we mostly spoke Greek at home, but her response was definitely in Greek – nervous, high-pitched, fast, hard-consonant, angry-sounding Greek.
“You don’t need to know that yet!”
Followed by, “Just don’t ever let a boy kiss you lying down!” She went back to stirring the pot on the stove, a little more vigorously than before.
End. Of. Discussion.
So, off to grade 3 I went with this notion that if you kiss a boy lying down, you will get pregnant. Which didn’t really make sense to me because people kissed each other lying down all the time on Another World, my mom’s favourite soap opera that was on every afternoon when I’d come home from school, and they didn’t always end up having babies. But it’s all I had to go on.
This was back in the day when boys chasing girls on the elementary school playground, knocking them to the ground and kissing them was still seen as a legitimate way to spend recesses. I’m pretty sure the teachers were busy smoking at the time, possibly taking a nip of something strong to get through the rest of the day with us. It was a simpler time.
And so one afternoon, the game began and Scott Perkins, a deceptively fast child for his big-boned size, caught me near the tether-ball stand, knocked me down to the ground, held my wrists as he planted one on me, jumped up, and gave his friends the thumbs up. I made it to the bathroom, where I proceeded to break down into tears. I was going to have a baby! At eight years old! Even though I didn’t really get it, I got it enough to know that my parents were going to kill me.
In my hysterics, I didn’t notice the sophisticated grade 6 girl blowing smoke rings above my head. I had seen this girl. She wore super tight Calvin Klein jeans like Brooke Shields and her fringed leather purse was studded with heavy metal band buttons when everyone else was into Michael Jackson. She had feathered hair. And she smoked. In the grade school bathroom! I had heard she’d been held back a year. She was cool, far too cool to bother with me. But to my surprise, she engaged.
“Why are you crying, Hon?”she asked me lazily, smoking the whole time, jaded as only a 12-year-old cool girl with a pack of Virgina Slims can be.
I remember being kind of afraid of her, but I also figured if anyone could help me, it would be her. She seemed to know things I didn’t.
“We were playing boys chase the girls and Scott Perkins knocked me down and kissed me and now I’m going to have a baby!” The snot leaked out of me. I remember the sliminess of it on my upper lip.
She blew her last smoke ring and threw the cigarette in the toilet. She laughed at me, a tinkling laugh that belied her tough-girl look. “Oh, Hon. You can’t have a baby from kissing someone. You need to fuck to have a baby.”
I gasped.
“You said the f-word!” was my first response. She laughed again and reapplied some fuchsia lipstick in the mirror. And after a beat, embarrassedly, I asked, “What does the f-word mean?”
She put the lipstick top back on with a satisfying click and turned towards me, all worldly wisdom, and replied, “It’s when a guy puts his thing in your thing,” gesturing towards my thing. “So, you’re not going to have a baby. You probably don’t even have your period yet.” And with a final wink she left the bathroom. I made a mental note to thank my cousin for the pamphlet. At least I knew what that was. Kind of. I didn’t really understand how it related to the thing thing.
I remember feeling grateful to this strange girl for her honesty and kindness – because she was kind within the social mores of school culture back then. I remember being grossed out by the idea of anyone’s thing in anyone else’s thing, but mostly I was livid at my mother for lying to me, for putting me through the emotional wringer and just not telling me the truth. I remember being confused – if that’s how babies were made, what’s the big secret? Why the shame? Because you didn’t have to be a cool grade 6 smoker to understand that the only reason to lie would be because of shame. I was embarrassed and full of the kind of righteous anger you have when you’ve done what you were supposed to do (in this case ask a question) and you get shit on anyway (in this case, receive intentional misinformation).
I never talked to my mother about anything regarding sex again. Likely, she was relieved.
And I made a vow that I would always be honest with my own kids when the time came.
Of course, now in hindsight, I can understand why she answered the way she did. She was an immigrant from a patriarchal culture in which women’s honour was at that time still synonymous with family honour. Her job was to ensure that I would be a good girl and marry a good Greek man with my virtue intact. Her job was to prepare me for marriage, but not necessarily for agency. It’s not like anyone, I’m sure, had “the talk” with her. Plus, I was young. Maybe she would have been more forthcoming if I was older, a more appropriate age. Probably not though, seeing as when I got my period the first words out of her mouth were, “Oh shit. Well, now you really have to be careful.” No wistful tears at my growing up, no celebration of the beauty of womanhood, no words of wisdom. Just a stern warning implicit in her words – watch yourself. Don’t bring shame on us. It’s all on you.
You can see how given the right set of circumstances this kind of thinking could be disastrous. I’ve been lucky.
And I do not mean to be ungenerous. My mother was and is a good mother and we’re quite close, but there was tension between her world and mine, and that experience influenced my own approach to talking about sex with my kids. I’ll get into that in my next blog post.
But first I want to thank you, Grade 6 head-banger. You taught me the facts of life and the meaning of the f-word in one shot, despite the fact that I’d surely ruined your well-deserved smoke break. You taught me the difference a stranger can make; how one seemingly chance and meaningless interaction can make you a protagonist in someone’s story decades later; how important it is to be kind and generous with your wisdom where you can be.
I hope life treated you well, girlfriend. I hope you stayed golden.
Is anyone out there? If so, tell me, how did you learn about the final two-step in the dance towards procreation?
