SPOILER ALERT: This is a post for the LADIES.
(I also shamelessly promote my friend.)
And I talk about a DIRTY word: PERIODS (not losing my virginity if you thought that is what this post was about). BUT STAY HERE AND KEEP ON READING! PLEASE!
Ladies have you seen this on you tube this week??
How cute is she? And so funny! I watched this and could totally relate to this video.
I was a late bloomer and desperate to get my period.
So naturally my anxiety about it built over time.
Until I was fourteen and a half in fact.
I spent until the time I got my period wishing that I had it and also at the same time totally dreading it.
It was the first time I felt shame and fear over my own body, and sadly was not the last.
This feeling of embarrassment is widespread. Even today.
I am not sure how many people are even still reading this post.
If you have made it all the way down here, congratulations.
It’s time that things were different.
Enter my friend Jac Torres Gomez who I met many moons ago ‘back in Nam’ as we say! She is a Melbourne based author and social entrepreneur, who has recently published a revolutionary new children’s book (the first of its kind- isn’t she clever), titled Cycling to Grandma’s House.
I think it is a must for young girls.
Illustrated beautifully by Erin-Claire Barrow, Cycling to Grandma’s House introduces the reader to a young girl called Luna, who is given the task of finding out ‘what the most incredible characteristic of being a girl’ is for a school assignment.
She discovers something that is universal to all women and girls globally: Menarche (menstruation), described delightfully as ‘the exact moment a girl turns into a woman, like when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly’.
Exploring her village while cycling to her Grandma’s house, we join Luna on her journey. She begins to talk with neighbors and friends about her school assignment. Through these conversations we learn how Menarche is celebrated across the globe in different cultures.
In this narrative you will not find diagrams, eggs, or embarrassment via sanitary products with blue liquid (thank goodness).
Through stunning illustrations and sensitive and engaging language you are drawn into a positive, bubbly, culturally sensitive story which celebrates the journey into women hood and introduces the concept of puberty to young women in a positive, non-embarrassing nor shameful light.
It’s time we all started a positive and non embarrassing conversation with our daughter’s, nieces and students.
Start your conversation and order your copy of Cycling to Grandma’s House here