Tampons, Showers, and A Six-Year-Old Daughter’s Curiosity

I didn’t see it coming.

My daughter is almost 10 years old.

By now, we’ve had several conversations about how her body will change as she grows. She’s pretty okay with the idea aside from the obvious and expected weirdness she feels about it. This little story is not about that talk, well I guess it KIND of is, but this is more about the day my six-year-old daughter made her own decision about “The Talk.”

I know from talking to several other mothers that this moment is a big one in the process of being a mom. We stress out about it, plan it, rehearse it in our heads, mull it over, talk to other parents about their thoughts on it, ask advice from our mentors about how they handled it when their kids were ready to hear it. It’s a big deal. This is about the moment that my daughter threw the curveball at me by telling ME it was time for “the talk.” I didn’t see it coming.

When she was six years old, we hopped in the shower together like we had so many times before. Maybe she was too old for us to be showering together. I don’t really know what the rules are in terms of the decency of that subject and I don’t really care. I figured when it was time to stop showering together, we would naturally stop showering together, and that is what eventually happened. On this day, standing in the shower together, we are going about our natural routine: me in the water, her rotating into the water while I rotate out. Back and forth, back…