Every girl is a Daddy’s girl and I for one, certainly know how special it is. Right from the time when I got my first test score of 10 on 10, filled with joy, till the day when I was officially stepping out of my house upon my marriage, the one person I have always wanted to go to was my father. He is the one I have always wanted to impress and whose affirmation means the whole world to me. His simple pat on my back or a hand on my head is the best gift I could ever ask for. Although I’ve been living away from home for the past 10-12 years, every single time I’m sad/excited/depressed or experience a significant event in my life, the first person I want to talk to, is and always will be my dad and not anyone else.

I always know that he understands all my joys and senses my feelings even before I speak of them. He is my superhero, my magic solution to all sorts of problems and my balm in times of adversity. I have shared each and every important aspect of my life with him, except when I started menstruating.

I remember the time when my menses embarked upon me. I was only twelve. It came early due to my medications for a hair problem I had, resulting in major hormonal imbalances. I was scared and the child in me had no clue why I was bleeding. The first person I wanted to narrate this weird event to, was my Dad. I so badly wanted to be cuddled by him and told that everything would be okay!

Strangely though, I was told by my mom to not discuss this with him. I was so young that I thought that something bizarre was happening to me, and either my mother didn’t understand this ‘thing’ herself, or she just wasn’t taking it seriously enough. I repeatedly told her about the immense pain I was undergoing.I was expecting to see a panic-stricken face or a prompt ride to the doctor’s in response. Instead, she was calm and composed and simply said – “It happens!” What confused me even further in this situation was why my father was not getting involved in this seemingly troubled situation and why he wasn’t even saying anything about it.

I could not resist. I found time when no one was around – just him and me one evening and told him, “Papa, you have no idea what I’m going through. I’m bleeding so much and the pain is unbearable. Why is this happening to me? All my blood is getting wasted every month. What will you do if I die?” And, I burst into tears in front of him. This is when he told me, in that calm reassuring voice of his: “It’s normal dear, it is a biological process that every woman has to go through…it is sad, but every woman needs to go through it.” He was regarding me as another mature person and that gave me all the strength I needed,to happily accept it and infact, acknowledge the fact that I had ‘grown up’ and was on my way to becoming a stronger woman!
Today, all grown up, I wonder why in our families, it is only the mother’s role to sit down with their daughters and help them ease themselves into this experience. If the father is the proverbial superhero of a girl’s life, then why don’t they perform the superhero act? Why don’t they assure them that it is going to be okay and that there is nothing to be afraid of? A father can explain to his daughter about how he saw her mother having it for so many years without too many problems. Over and above that, he should cherish the fact that it even happened, so that he could get a darling daughter – a daughter who would love him unconditionally.

If fathers become open to daughters about menstruation, it would become way less of a hush-hush topic and every girl will be incredibly all the more confident while growing up. Fathers can provide so much of comfort and confidence to a daughter’s life the way nobody else can. If this actually happens, daughters will no more be ashamed or worried about being around male members of the family when they are menstruating, all of which can combat our all social beliefs and myths about menstruation.

I request Menstrupedia to include some illustrations in their upcoming comic with fathers talking to their daughters about it. An initiative to bring fathers to discuss menstruation with their blooming daughters would bring about a positive impact in my opinion. They can either be seen teaching them together with the mother, or better still, directly to their daughters, to show that it is indeed okay to do so.

Garima is a bioinformatics PhD candidate at University of Missouri, USA. Her research is to study all our genomics and epi-genomics affairs. Apart from research, she loves to spend her time at gym, particularly running and dancing. She blogs here.

Editor: Divya Rosaline

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