Anyone who menstruates knows how embarrassing it can be to start bleeding unexpectedly or worry about leaks. However, one male teacher clearly didn’t understand this, or perhaps just didn’t care. When a teen asked her teacher if she could use the bathroom to change her pad during her period, he had a pretty dismissive response: just “hold it in.” Yikes!
While the teen didn’t seem too bothered by this, her mom was. She took to Mumsnet to vent about the situation, explaining that her 15-year-old daughter suddenly felt like she really needed to change her pad because “she was getting quite worried about it leaking.” After worrying about it for some time, the teen eventually asked her male teacher if she could use the bathroom during class.
The mom was “pretty shocked” by the teacher’s response. After the teacher initially told her that she couldn’t use the bathroom, the teen told him that she was dealing with “a girl problem.” When he still didn’t seem to understand, she said, “I’m on my period.” In response, the teacher told her, “Break is only in half an hour, hold it in until then.”
The mom acknowledged the school has rules about this.
To be fair, the school the teen goes to has some rules when it comes to bathroom breaks. Per the mom’s post, students aren’t allowed to use the bathroom while class is in session unless they have a doctor’s note. The mom said she understands “how disruptive it can be if people are constantly in and out.”
However, she was still baffled by the teacher’s response to her daughter’s request. Did he seriously believe that she could just “hold it?” “Surely even men have some basic idea that it doesn’t work like that?” the mom questioned.
Yes, it really seems like some people might be that ignorant, other moms told her.
While some moms were disgusted by the teacher’s comment, they weren’t exactly surprised. One parent who admitted they were being “generous” said, “I would guess that he thought she just needed a wee and had then volunteered the period info as an extra maybe? Being a man he may simply not have realized quite what she was getting at??”
Another woman said they’ve experienced something similar before. “I went out with some in his early 20’s who had no idea how periods worked and asked if it just spits out every so often,” she wrote. She urged the mom to “write a letter saying he needs to brush up on his biology and it’s not something you can hold in.”
Others defended the teacher.
Some people agreed with the teacher to some extent. Because they’ve never experienced unpredictable bleeding or sudden gushing during their periods, they believe that the teen should be able to wait.
“She must have some idea of how long she needs to go between pad changes,” one person commented. “So she really should have gone before the lesson. (Surely your lessons aren’t longer than an hour … so she went from fine to almost leaking in 30 minutes?)”
Some parents could understand why a teacher might see the teen’s request as an excuse to get out of class. A second person commented: “It’s true – girls do use ‘it’s my period’ to get out (of class). I’ve never had a period myself that would cause instant drowning in a half hour, I must admit.”
“Sadly, some girls do use having their period as some sort of get out of jail free card,” a third person responded. “I agree with him saying just wait half an hour. I think his phrasing was clumsy though.”
But some women pointed out that everyone’s period is different.
Sure, some people might experience pretty regular menstrual cycles and predictable menstrual bleeding. That is definitely not the case for everyone though, and the teen truly could’ve felt like the situation was urgent.
“I get huge gushes of blood that go through whatever I’m wearing,” one person pointed out in defense of the teen. “If I’m lucky enough to be near a bathroom I can usually salvage my outfit – if not I need a full change. Your poor daughter – he needs having a word with so that this doesn’t happen again.”
Several parents said they would complain about the teacher. “What an idiot teacher,” one wrote. “I’d complain. And yes one can soak a pad in the time between breaks.”
A third person commented, “What if she’d leaked everywhere? I bet he’d have let her go to the toilet pretty sharpish.”
Another person who understood the sense of urgency the teen experienced wrote: “As a kid I was prone to flooding from time to time and worried about it so much so I wore cycling shorts sometimes?! Ridiculous now I know.”
