From the book Schlopping: Developing Relationships, Self-Image & Memories comes another unique mother-daughter menarche story as follow up to Monday’s post by A daughter raised with body literacy. Though completely different in many respects, both these stories convey the love and good intentions two mothers had for their daughters upon the occasion of their first menstrual period.
Sheryl Menlinger and Yael Magen are the authors of Schlopping explained as: (noun) schlep + love + shopping, a ritual of schlepping with someone you love while shopping. What’s it about? “Two completely different people,” the book’s back cover states, “who happen to be mother and daughter, find answers to life’s challenges through their invented world of schlopping.”
This duo’s differences are apparent in the tale they tell together of Yael’s first period. It unfolds in the second chapter of the book, but on this post you can watch and listen to Sheryl and Yael read this story as they took part in the Menstrual Poetry Open Mic conference-closing event at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference in Boston, on June 6th, 2015.
Sheryl and Yael read from Schlopping:
Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor at Slate, says about the book:
“Schlopping is a beautiful dialogue that is only nominally about families and shopping. What it truly captures is all the spaces in between: the love, the pressure, the body image, questions, illness, money, terrorism, parenting, beauty, materialism, and womanhood.”
A portion of sales of Schlopping will go to research and wellness for endometriosis and breast cancer. The book includes stories of Yael’s and Sheryl’s experiences with both.
Sheryl E. Mendlinger, PhD, is an author, advocate for women’s health, daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother. Sheryl’s expertise is inter-generational transmission of knowledge and health behaviors in mother-daughter dyads from multicultural populations with a focus on menstruation.
Yael Magen, Esq., is a lawyer, author, public speaker, entrepreneur and mother of two young children. Yael worked in government and non-profit, and was a mayoral candidate at the beginning of her career. Today she focuses on her general law practice Multigenerational Family Law and Taxes LP where she helps families who have financial, physical, and emotional obligations to two or more generations with their finances and estate planning.
I loved how this story caught me off guard when I heard Sheryl and Yael read at the Open Mic event. Wow, to think Yael that you had never told your mother this story until you sat down and wrote it out for the book.