I sat in the gymnasium with all the other sixth-grade girls. I was looking longingly at the rope attached to the vaulted ceiling. Today this rope would go unclimbed, as my teacher silently started the projector meant to usher us into adulthood.
“Mom,” the outdated teen in the video said to her outdated mother, “Would it be okay if I took a shower? I have that ‘not so fresh’ feeling.…” As if it were carefully scripted, this actress mother had the perfect response full of compassion and instruction as she ushered her daughter into this new stage of womanhood.
I remember the horror I felt at learning of the inevitable betrayal my athletic body was about to inflict upon me. I took the “Soon you will be a woman” pamphlet home and crumpled it up, defying the change.
My mother was not at all like the woman in the video. She must have forgotten all her lines. She never said a word about “the change.” Whether this was because she knew her tomboy daughter would not welcome this news or because of some generational taboo, these topics were somehow just not discussed.
But change I did, and as the years flew by, I began to have kids of my own with whom I speak more openly. I knew what it was like to be left to my own devices—an overactive imagination and a committee of my prepubescent peers—to learn about the facts of life. I was determined to arm my children with knowledge. Nothing is taboo or shrouded in secrecy. In other words, I made the opposite “mistake” with my teens and OVERshared.
This is how it came to pass that while taking care of my 87-year-old mother, I had no qualms about asking my 13-year-old son to go to the store and exchange the size-4 urinary incontinence pads (“grandma diapers”) for the size-5 long pads. I was puzzled that despite my insistence, my good-natured son absolutely refused to do this task.
As I reflected later, it occurred to me that I never would have asked him to get my tampons, but somehow this seemed so natural. I theorized why this difference existed; unlike the mysterious world of monthly menses, I did not feel the slightest bit modest about urinary incontinence. I had often spoken with friends about “the curse,” but when it came to the topic of urinary incontinence, this was frequently mentioned in the context of laughing too hard to hold it or discussed in a circle of new moms, all of whom were cradling the evidence that whatever inconvenience came along with childbirth was more than worth it. But I suspect there was another reason this topic was easier for me to accept openly.
By the time I experienced urge incontinence in my forties, my mother had gotten pretty good at the mothering gig. In fact, one day out of the blue, she looked me in the eyes and told me about UI.
“Women of a certain age, especially if they have had babies, leak sometimes. But it’s okay because they make special pads of varying sizes to use so that you don’t have to worry about being uncomfortable or smelly.” The earnestness of her mommy talk touched me deeply. She is, despite her reticence in my teens, a very nurturing mother, and our communication has only deepened with the passage of time. As I am now someone who relies on incontinence pads daily, it feels more like a fact of life with a practical solution and less like an unwelcome change. Having the gift of a mother who is still actively parenting me well into my mid-life is one of my greatest blessings. I can always count on her to gently guide me through the changes of menopause and soften the blow when life throws me a curveball.
That is why her behavior shocked me one night as my son and I watched Golden Girls with her as she reclined in her bed, dozing off. I had absentmindedly set a cup of hot tea on the arm of my La-Z-Boy and it spilled in my lap.
I jumped up and yelled. This startled her from her sleepy state so she scolded me for the outcry. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed the ice tray and banged it on the counter, praying for relief. Again she scolded me.
“MOM! I got tea on my lap! Hot tea all over my lap!”
I was astonished to hear her GIGGLE, and like any self-respecting mature woman with burns on her thighs, I stomped off to my bedroom and sulked. (But not before exchanging a “WHAT THE HECK?! Can you believe how insensitive she is?” look with my well-trained, supportive teen!)
Moments later my son burst into my room laughing so hard he could not catch his breath.
“MOM!!! Grandma just said, ‘You see, women of a certain age cannot always control their bladder and sometimes they just let go RIGHT NOW!’ Mom, she thought you said you had PEE in your lap!”
I love that, just as it was for me, the topic of urinary incontinence has been introduced to my son with laughter! I love imagining that this is the memory my son will have as he unashamedly goes to the store for his future wife who is carrying my grandchild. And if that little one is a girl, I know just what I am going to say when she becomes a “woman of a certain age.”
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