PP – Raging Hormones Pt.1

Raging Hormones – The Puberty Woes 1 – The Curse?
By Jodi Lee
~Originally Published September 2000~
(see author/copyright info below)

Personally, I cannot wait for my girls to get close to their first blood.

I think I just heard many of you scream in terror. I sympathise, really I do, but one of the most exceptionally important moments in a young pagan girl’s life is the First Blood ritual. I am happily watching my cousin’s daughter fight her way through the hormones that are demanding attention right now. This has gone on for several months, with tummy pains and headaches, and many, many sorrowful, broken-hearted tears. How can you not feel sorry for someone who is bored, but doesn’t want to do anything, but wants something to do?

Confused yet? My cousin certainly is. I have explained to her that she needs to talk to her daughter, and explain what is going on both physically and psychologically. After all, we all want to raise our children in a more enlightened atmosphere than we were raised in right? Ok, well, at least somewhat better than what we had. I can’t imagine my mother sitting me down for “the talk”, although I know it happened. There has been too many years between now and then for me to remember how exactly she went about it, other than to tell me how to use the personal items waiting in the bathroom.

My girls will be told together as they aren’t that far apart in age. By that time I am hoping we’ll still have the relationship that we have now – they can come to me with anything, anytime.It may not make me happy – whatever they want to tell me, but I won’t love them any less. They know this now, and although that kind of relationship generally goes out the window by age 11, I may be lucky enough to see glimpses of it through the hormones and “Big Girl” attitudes. In the same respect, I want to be able to go to them with almost anything, and not have them feel uncomfortable. Sounding like I am living in a fantasy world now I bet – but this is something both my husband and I are striving for within our life.

We don’t want the girls to grow up as we did, under extremely rigid rules placed simply to make parent’s lives easier. Yes, my girls will have chores, but I won’t expect them to keep the entire house sparkling clean and make sure there is dinner on the table when I get home from work (Well ok, that doesn’t exactly apply – I work at home…). During the Puberty Woes, having restrictions such as that placed on them could seriously damage their outlook on life.

Think about it for a minute. A girl of ten, with cramps in her belly and tears in her eyes for no good reason, won’t talk to her mom because her mom will only yell at her until the floor has been washed, and the furniture in the livingroom dusted. She has no idea why her tummy hurts, no idea why she is crying, is feeling very, terribly emotional and confused – and this happens every day for almost a year – until one day there is blood to clean up too. The mother yells because the girl should have known better than to stain her panties. More work for the mom to do. Getting out the box of detergent, she sits the girl on the floor with a pail, and tells her to scrub the underwear clean. Maybe now she’ll know better. The girl begins to think the pain and the blood are punishment because she hasn’t been good enough to her mom, hasn’t done enough for her. I know this girl. She has grown up over a long period of acting out, suicide attempts and physcial mutilations. At fourteen she was allowed to date, and because her self esteem was at an ultimate low, she worshipped the guy like a God. He beat her, he raped her, he humiliated her in public, but it didn’t matter. She had someone else besides her mom. Both the boyfriend and the mom used this dependancy to their advantages.

Here’s an update. She’s in her twenties now, recovering from the physical damage done to her body and the psychological done to her mind. Her period is no longer a curse or punishment, she can do housework in her own home without becoming hysterical and obsessive about it. The boyfriend only lasted a year, and was the beginning of a long line of boys/men that she needed approval from. Finally, at seventeen she found somone that helped her out of that, and they are still together now.

I won’t have my children go through something like this. The hormonal imbalances in the pre-teen and early teen years are delicate enough who really knows what can happen when an imbalacne occurs?? The girls will have plenty of time to get used to the idea of moon cycles, and I will never make them feel like it’s a punishment. I will be honest with them, tell them it hurts sometimes, and it’s not the greatest thing to spend four or five days doing, but hey, if we didn’t have our cycles, we couldn’t have children. It means you are almost grown up, it means you are becoming a woman.

Please stay in touch with this site – the next article will contain some hints and tips for the First Blood Ritual construction.
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Jodi Lee – is a freelance writer/editor living in southern Manitoba, Canada.
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