One evening when I was in third grade, tucked in bed, my mom and grandma sat in my room and told me about periods. The details of the conversation were immediately forgotten—I’m sure it covered the basics about monthly bleeding and pads—and were replaced with growing panic that I could begin bleeding at any moment.
At no point did my mom and grandmother explain when I might expect to begin menstruating, and I worried it was imminent. As soon as they left the room, I rushed to the bathroom to check my underwear for signs of blood.
I got my period two years later, in fifth grade—a life event that overshadowed my class field trip to Space Center Houston with the shame of being the first of my peers to face this new adult reality.
Now, as a mom of two children born with female reproductive anatomy, I am navigating conversations about menstruation with the next generation. I answer their questions, and I offer additional information, even when they cringe. I would have recoiled at my mom telling me more too, but I know it’s important for parents to talk about puberty and provide this information openly.
I thought I was prepared to offer my children something less traumatic and more informed than I had when I was younger. To destigmatize the period. To step away from the purity culture that pervaded my adolescence. My husband and I reared our kids on Robie H. Harris’ books about bodies, sex, puberty, and sexuality .
However, I am raising kids in Houston, Texas, and the oppressive anti-abortion and anti-trans laws in the post-Roe landscape means going beyond the traditional period talk. Forget the nuances of tampons versus pads, or normalizing the humiliation of bleeding through your pants during seventh period.
Our children need robust conversations that directly address how to navigate an ever-evolving reproductive health landscape.
Teaching caution without fear
I try to give my teen and tween daughters age-appropriate context. I tell them to track what’s going on in their bodies, to share any concerns with us (their parents), and that we will share those concerns with their doctor. I know how important it is to be honest and open with your doctor.
When our pediatrician asked if my eldest daughter had any questions about puberty at her 11-year well-child visit, I flagged that we were having conversations at home not just about the science of the menstrual cycle, but the sociopolitical implications of who gets to know about her menstrual history.
Since 2009, Texas has required female student athletes to answer five questions about their menstrual cycle, including first menstrual cycle, most recent cycle, and timing of their cycles. The parent can check a box to opt out, but still.
Our pediatrician smiled and nodded in agreement, assuring us she was a safe place that would always prioritize health care. I know how fortunate we are to have medical providers we trust. I also know these providers are working in a system where they are asked to choose between their medical oath and potentially life in prison. It’s a tightrope.
And as much as I adore our pediatrician, knowing Houston’s hospital policies are worse than those in many other parts of Texas, I hold a healthy dose of skepticism about how much the medical establishment will protect us.
Giving my kids a realistic view
Policies that impede reproductive freedom often originate in Texas. The Lone Star State has some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, which eclipse incremental improvements attempted by laws like SB 31.
“I can’t really celebrate what is like an arsonist bringing a cup of water to a fire,” Shellie Hayes-McMahon, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes’ executive director, told the Texas Tribune in June 2025, when the bill was passed.
I agree.
The state also brought a flurry of anti-trans laws in 2025—such as SB 1188, which, as the Texas Tribune summarized, “creates a new section on all state medical records listing patients’ assigned sex at birth and any physical sexual development disorders.”
The Texas Legislature has effectively built out overlapping legislation, creating a “widening net” capable of catching a broad swath of their targets.
These are important things to understand and teach our children. I try to give my kids a realistic view of the current landscape without being alarmist. Regardless of whether they do or do not menstruate. Regardless of whether they will need or want to terminate a pregnancy. Regardless of whether they identify as cis, trans, or nonbinary. I think it is important they be aware, for themselves, for their friends, and for their communities.
Some of the most organic ways I’ve found to talk with them have simply been to share what is happening in the news, or to invite them to join my own advocacy, as I’ve shared in my newsletter.
When I brought my daughters to a pro-choice event, I used it as an opportunity to explain abortion: “Sometimes when people have sex, they want to get pregnant. Sometimes they don’t want to get pregnant. If a woman gets pregnant when she doesn’t want to get pregnant, she might decide to terminate her pregnancy. Some people don’t want women to be able to terminate pregnancies and have made it illegal.”
My oldest asked, “Why would they do that?” She got it. It’s easy to project my own discomfort, or assume something is complicated, but our kids do not carry the same baggage we have. At least, that’s my goal.
Systems of oppression can be weaponized against anyone
For those of us living in one of the 41 states with abortion bans (13 of which, including Texas, have a total ban), the risks of expanded criminalization against reproductive health decisions are no longer hypothetical. It’s a longstanding tool in maintaining control that has always been weaponized against marginalized folks—especially those who are Black or Indigenous, and who may be low-income, disabled, or queer.
We can see how criminalization of abortion is killing women. As economist Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman recently summarized on the Vibe Check podcast, “a lot of the policing was being perfected on the most marginalized amongst us. And once they perfected it, they just scaled it to white people that they didn’t like.”
I see my discussions with my kids as an opportunity to help them understand from an early age how the system of oppression used against one person can effectively be used against anyone, including them.
One of the simplest illustrations I use is to explain how we—their parents—don’t punish them when they are hungry or thirsty or tired. We meet their needs. We don’t spank them when they act out, we help them emotionally regulate.
“Do you think we should do the same for grownups?” I ask. “Yes,” they respond. Again, they get it. Public safety is a product of meeting needs, not policing and prisons.
Navigating digital surveillance
More than emphasizing the importance of always buying pads with wings (essential), I want my kids to understand how every search on a school computer is being monitored. In our house, we don’t track our periods on an app, and we don’t acquiesce to answering the state’s questions on female athlete forms. That is resisting micro surveillance, but it is also important to understand macro surveillance.
A 2025 study of 14 surveillance companies that monitor students’ online activity found “that most of these companies facilitate school administrators’ access to students’ digital behavior, well beyond monitoring during school hours and on school-provided devices.”
Multiple studies, including those by the ACLU, STOP, and Center for Democracy and Technology, have reported outlining the harms of various surveillance technologies.
I did not need a report to see what was coming. Last May, the Dallas Observer reported that cameras used to track license plates, from the surveillance company Flock, were used to hunt down a woman accused of self-administering an abortion. A Houston Chronicle investigation published last summer showed that Flock camera searches by Houston police doubled to almost 15,000 a week.
Digital surveillance is not a post-apocalyptic nightmare. It is a current reality.
As Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of Periods Gone Public, told Romper, “Most technology and privacy experts agree that period tracking apps pose security risks for users. In part, this is because many rely on a business model that entails selling or sharing aggregated data with marketing and analytics companies and advertisers.”
I want to give my kids a magical shield against the misogyny codified with each legislative session. But I can’t. What I can do is try to provide them with adequate tools, and be honest about the limitations of the information I can share.
I often repeat the phrase, “I don’t know.” I hope that honesty engenders trust that their parents, though not omniscient, are a safe landing spot to ask questions and figure it out together.
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