Here is a conversation that just took place in my sister's kitchen between myself and my five year old niece. She was sitting at the table, her pencil crayons and colouring sheets spread out in front of her and a day old Tin Roof Brownie Blizzard melting quickly in her hand.
"Do you know what a menstrual cycle is?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Do you want to know?"
Nod. Ice cream running freely down her chin, brownie in its wake.
"It happens to girls. Well, women really. Once a month they feel kind of sick and blood comes out of them." I waited for a reaction.
She looked up from her icecream. "Ew."
Perturbed that she was taking it so lightly, I said, "How do you feel about that?"
She shrugged and rooted around for chocolaty chunks with her plastic spoon.
"Do you feel like that's weird or interesting?"
Shrug. Another bite.
"Gross? Cool? Awful? Wonderful?"
She shrugged four times.
I suppose empathy for the monthly plight of women will come later when she realizes how inexorably uncomfortable it is.
