Girls 'too Poor' To Buy Sanitary Protection Missing School

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39266056

This seems terrible to me...what does everybody else think ?

[New Judge]

This question and the BBC report is entitled “girls ‘too poor’ to buy sanitary protection. It mentions lack of education as a side issue. Both titles were designed to project an image of children in this country being suffocated by grinding poverty. I’m glad “too poor” was placed in quotes because it’s patently absurd. “Parents (usually mother) too lazy or too self-absorbed with TwitFace to attend to her children’s basic requirements or too busy spending their cash getting their nails and highlights done” maybe. But too poor? Nah. I didn’t come down in the latest shower. If the mother of the girl I quoted cannot find a few pounds each month out of the £300 she receives in Child Benefit she is not poor, she is negligent.

[Islay]

Do you think she has nothing to buy with that child benefit New Judge?
She will have gas, electric, food and what the other children need to live. She may have to top her rent up if it is outside the top amount allowed. So sorry NJ it is feasible.

[Samjenko]

No it ain't.

[Tilly2]

My mum told me all about it and was ready and prepared for when I started my periods. I had also learned about it in my Biology lessons at school.


Tambo, I always had a pack of sanitary pads, in my desk drawer, at school. For me and the for the girls.

[B00]

Maybe the girls knowing full well their parents can ill afford to buy sanitary products for them, don't even tell them? therefore you have some young girl going through this awful experience each month (it aint no picnic WITH sanitary products, never mind without) and her mum unaware it's happening at all.

[tamborine]

Some young girls are often too shy. I have 4 siblings & my mum had to cope alone on army income while dad was abroad. Poor mum had enough to cope with and income was stretched. I never had money to spend on myself, nor did I have sex education in my convent.

[youngmafbog]

looks to me like left wing much stirring. It just doesnt ring true and is either ignorance or negligence on the part of the parents if they wont buy them. Morrisons are peddling them at 70p for £16 (first place I looked) so I bet Lidl are even cheaper. Still I suppose booze fags and mobile credit takes precedence.

[youngmafbog]

I was talking about the kids' expenditure DB!

[pastafreak]

There's an awful lot of negative comments on this thread...and it's all coming from the males of AB. I wonder why...
Are they so well informed that they know better than the experience of the women on here??

[Mamyalynne]

Listen if the blokes say it's useless drivel etc etc - who are we to argue.

[Samjenko]

Some of us aren't as astonishingly gullible as others.

[237SJ]

Why should girls be too poor to buy sanitary protection? I agree that VAT should not apply to sanitary products but really, if you have kids you have to be able to pay for them and affording sanitary protection is one of the basics along with food, water, loo roll etc.

[pastafreak]

Nothing like an overload of testosterone...where it's not needed. But hey...that's pretty standard on AB at the moment.

[youngmafbog]

Mammy, some of us have bothered to look up the cost. It is not much.

Of course if Mickey meant the girls not being able to talk about menstruation "seems terrible to me" then yes perhaps we have been a bit blaze, but I somehow suspect he as trying to have a pop at 'Tory cuts' so our comments are sound.

BTW, i have 3 daughters so I am not that ignorant of the problems.

[New Judge]

"Do you think she has nothing to buy with that child benefit New Judge?"

That is not all she will be receiving, Islay. I mentioned that (and the amount) because that is specifically paid to a parent/guardian for the support of children (that's why it increases with each extra child churned out - with no upper limit).

Parents have a duty to support their children and meet their basic needs. The items in question here are not expensive and it is ludicrous to expect people to believe that they cannot be afforded by people receiving the benefits that this country bestows on its "poor".

[youngmafbog]

Bog rolls have VAT on them too, apparently they are a luxury too, wrong but it has been that way for many many years.

It's nothing to do with testosterone, I'm sorry but that is a ridiculous argument.

[Samjenko]

Wasn't it the beloved EU that made us 'tax' tampons?

[jourdain2]

My mum panicked when I started my 1st period one Sunday evening and she had to run across to a neighbour with an older daughter. My total sex education from her then comprised 'All the boys will be after you now, be careful'. Fortunately I had seen a crackly film at school.

You can use rags and home-made, washable pads, but I agree that these girls were left in dire straits.

I regularly used to lose 2 or 3 days a month being sent home from school - Mum didn't believe me and played Hell - until one month she saw me - white-faced and shaking with pain and was alarmed enough to take me to the doctor's. I was 14 and he put me on the brand-new pill (I didn't know it was a contraceptive) and that changed my life. I was on it until age 50 - with breaks for kids. Then I had a horrific menopause.

But, back to subject... The mums should be making arrangements, but I understand that it can be expensive. I'll be putting a box of towels into our food box in Church from now on. However, it is not beyond the wit of woman to tear-up some old clothing and use that as a pad. Perhaps they should be told that.