Just about every woman has a “my first period” story that seems mildly embarrassing, yet ultimately results in an innocent blush and a cluster of giggles. But for every woman, the experience comes at a different time.

Most Americans have the understanding that girls will get their first period around 12-13 years old, so most of the time, sex education is taught at about 11 years of age to provide a year of preparation. However, girls can get theirs as young as 8 or as old as 18. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) conducted a survey from 1966-1970 assessing when menarcheoccurred for women in the United States. According to the C.D.C. 1.2% of girls have reached menarche by 10 years old, 12.8% by 11 years old, 43.3% by 12 years old, 73.2% by 13 years old, and 91.7% by 14 years old. The biggest gap is between 11 and 12, so this data backs the assumption that most girls get their period at 12 years old.

But the 1970s was a long time ago. Something as universal as menarche cannot evolve that much over fifty years, but data shows that, generally, girls are getting their periods younger and younger. Even in this same survey by the C.D.C., the data shows a shift. According to the study, the mean age at menarche for women surveyed between 35 and 54 was 13.06, and the average age for women 18 to 34 was 12.78. Even if only slightly, the general trend shows that the average age for a girl’s first period has descended over time, not to mention that this particular set of data does not include girls under 18.  

A more recent study from the CDC further proves this trend. In a 2013-2017 survey of women showed that the average age of menarche was 12.6 for women aged 15-44 years old. It’s important to note that this sample shows an intergenerational change, because it does not separate teenagers from middle aged women. The shift from 13.53 years old to 12.6 years old over about fifty years is pretty significant, yet it does not really change our assertion that most girls can expect their period to come when they reach 12 years old. 

But how many girls are not ‘most girls?’ Referring back to the first survey, 12.8% of girls had gotten their first period before 12. In the United States alone, that’s 21.3 million girls. So the real question is, how do we prepare all girls, instead of just most girls?

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I was exactly 10 years and 5 months old when I got my first period. It was Christmas Eve and I wore a white dress, and I was having dinner at my grandparent’s large, grand home located in a country club neighborhood.

Besides the unfortunate occasion, and the insufferable jokes my parents made about getting my ‘womanhood’ for Christmas, nothing else severely embarrassing happened. My uncle’s girlfriend at the time had a pad. I didn’t bleed through my white dress. I didn’t even cry. 

The worst part for me was how uneducated and unprepared I was moving forward. Everyone told me that periods lasted one week at the most, so after one week, I expected that mine would end. With this information in mind, I started to only wear panty-liners as thin as a cotton round at eleven days in. But my body had already proven that it did not behave normally. At another family Christmas party on that eleventh day, I snuck around the house digging for my mom’s purse, looking for another pad. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my temples, and I started to cold sweat whenever I heard footsteps, because I was so incredibly afraid of anyone knowing I had my period at only 10 years old. 

Even after all the ways my body had not conformed to the ‘normal’ first period conditions (in a completely natural way), I still tried to convince myself that I would have experiences similar to everyone else’s. My mother told me that my older sister hadn’t gotten her next period until a year later, so of course, I assumed that would also happen to me. But, again, I was mistaken.

My second period came three months later. I was a fifth grader. The desks in my classroom still had a hollowed out space for me to place all of my school supplies. My mother had prepared for me a small pencil case filled with pads, which I had stuffed into the very back of my desk so that no one would see it. One day after visiting the library, my class had walked single file to the bathroom for our scheduled bathroom break. When I reached the stall, my underwear was stained with blood. I panicked - it came nine months early! I wiped what I could off my underwear with toilet paper and cleaned myself up. 

When I returned to class, I squeezed my legs together as hard as I could, thinking it would prevent any additional leaks. I waited exactly fifteen minutes before I shoved my hands into my desk, pushed a pad into the sleeve of my shirt, and approached my teacher.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” 

He looked up at me from his desk, with a furrow in his brow. I was a very obedient, disciplined kid, so creating an inconvenience was unusual for me. He said exactly what I feared he would say:

“Why didn’t you go during our bathroom break?”  

I became paralyzed, and too terrified of another denial to ask again. For a moment I looked desperately into his eyes, hoping that he could see that something more was wrong - something that I didn’t even understand. But then I started to tear up, and I didn’t want anyone to see my cry. I turned back to my desk, and sat in my blood for three hours before I finally relieved myself when I got home. I felt absolutely defeated. He had so much control over how I would perceive my body for years to come, and he didn’t even know it.

The next morning was worse. When I arrived in class, a brownish-red hue stained my seat. One of my friends immediately started the banter.

“Jess sharted in her seat!” he said as a mature, eloquent fifth grade boy. Eventually, I convinced him and my other friends that someone must have switched my chair with theirs, so that they wouldn’t have to go through the torment that I endured. But I couldn’t convince myself that that was true. The shame remained.

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In the summer of 2020 at age 16, about to turn 17, I started to see a girl named Ella. Our fling did not last long, but we did have a conversation that I remember really well.

“I got mine when I was nine,” she said. For Ella, getting her period so early manifested differently. “I never learned to control my emotions.” She developed symptoms of depression and anxiety very young, and was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and tourette's syndrome in her early teens. 

For years, I hated my body for everything I went through. Who thought I was ready to be a woman at 10? Why couldn’t I get it when I was old enough to go to the bathroom by my own will? As a young teenager, I could only ever answer that question with me. And the resent only spiraled from there. I hated that my early menarche gave me larger breasts, and that I wore b-cup bras before my female classmates had even put on a training bra. I hated that I had big hips, because none of the fashion choices that my peers made looked good on me. To this day, I haven’t outgrown the unease that comes when first period stories come up in discussion. Among the “I was twelve,” and “I was thirteen,” I internally wince when I have to answer, “I was ten.” My difference made me feel so isolated, and people always responded with pitiful gasps.

 But Ella made me feel not so alone. Meeting her made me feel more human again, and it felt cathartic to share my traumatic experience, and listen to someone else’s. Hearing her story made me less angry at the world for what I perceived it had done to me. After our connection, I finally let go of some of the shame and embarrassment that I had carried with me for so long; and, despite all that I went through, I learned to love my body through my teenage years.

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I still don’t know who to reprehend for what I went through, but I know one thing for sure: our society is going about periods all wrong. I had my first sex education class right before I finished fifth grade, when I already had my period. Again, most girls hit their menarche by 12 years old, but clearly not all girls. The class watched a scratchy 90s video about a girl who got her first period at a sleepover, and the hostess’s mother so kindly taught her how to put on and take off a pad. But nothing about the emotional side effects. Nothing about preparedness. Nothing about how to tell your teacher that you will bleed onto your seat if he doesn’t let you use the bathroom. After the class, we received a small bag of pads and tampons, and some sort of pamphlet. The pads were tiny, and would never have held against my first period. 

In researching the average age of menarche, I found a first period FAQ on the United Kingdom National Health Service (N.H.S.) website. I read this very unnerving response under the heading, ‘What if period blood leaks through my clothes?’ N.H.S. says, “Part of becoming a woman is dealing with embarrassing mishaps. There are ways of covering up stains until you’re able to change your clothes, such as tying a sweatshirt around your waist. Keep a spare pair of pants and tights at school or in your bag, and avoid wearing light-coloured trousers and skirts during a period, just in case.” 

Yes, handling a period comes with a high risk of complication. But these complications are only manageable if a woman has help. What really upsets me about the response from N.H.S. is the first sentence, which might describe my traumatic experience as an “embarrassing mishap.” As I recall, I did wear a jacket around my waist whenever I got up to walk around. And maybe I should have kept an extra pair of pants in my bag. But would that have helped? Wouldn’t I have just bled through those too?  I could only do so much without access to the bathroom. Is there an FAQ on how to handle that? 

 I strongly believe that a large scale change would aid girls in dealing with and understanding their periods, instead of just leaving them to figure it out on their own through trial and traumatic error. When I recall my experience I always think to myself, why didn’t my teacher have a high awareness for periods teaching fifth grade girls? I don’t blame him personally- I know that, he couldn’t read my mind, and that I never asked to go to the bathroom again. He is just a male byproduct of a society that failed to educate him. But anyone can access the statistics I noted - even elementary school principals or school district administrators. With a few Google searches, anyone can see that girls can get their periods at 7 or 8 years old, even if the chances are slim. 

Perhaps it’s the stigma around sex or the female body, but sex education needs to be taught much earlier than it is right now. I believe that introducing the concept to girls in third or fourth grade and continuing to educate them on their bodies as they age would reduce ‘embarrassing mishaps.’  In addition, self-image for girls might improve, because they’ll know that what’s happening to their bodies and their emotions is completely normal.

Though I did not disclose the whole story to her, I was lucky enough to have a mother who reprimanded my teacher over email when I informed her that he had denied me access to the bathroom. But some girls don’t have a mother or guardian willing to openly educate their daughters on periods. More comprehensive sex education is imperative to both public health and improving self-image and mental health for young girls.