I have a question for all the female users on this site

Not by much because some girls DID freak out thinking they were dying. And in the novelization, it explains WHY Vada's so freaked out, because she HAS heard of periods, but she thinks she's bleeding too much for it and that her cancer's spread.

Me, I was 9, I never heard word ONE about periods, and I had a mother, she didn't find out for 2 days until she did the laundry, and then she explained it to me, but until she did I didn't have any idea what was going on, and I really didn't pay it any mind either.

you aslo have remeber vada had no mother to tell her about these things. Her Grandma Proably did not tell here either,

Mr. Shue, let me be your Britney

Also, Vada is overly dramatic about a lot of different aspects of her life. So her freaking out in the way she did is very much in character.

I started on Christmas eve when I was 7. I am now 24. My mom told me all about it when I was probably 6 because she also started at 7. I was excited and she freaked. My mom on the other hand started at a family reunion where she had no prior knowledge of a period so she thought she was dying. My aunt had to give her the talk.

Plot hole: For someone who spent so much time going to the doctor and learning about all the possible medical conditions she could have, how could Vada be totally unaware of menstruation?

I'm just a year or so younger than Vada would be, and although my mother never
gave me any kind of "talk," she didn't really have to, since by the early 1970s,
our school was willing and eager to give special health class sessions to the girls (while the boys were sent outside to play kickball) which focused on the wonderful, magical miracle that was about to happen to us. We watched movies in
which teenage girls discussed how much fun it was to menstruate, while their boyfriends hugged them and marveled, almost enviously, at how their girlfriends were experiencing this beautiful event. We 10-year-old girls knew enough to be a little puzzled
by that: "Wait, those girls aren't a little bit embarrassed to tell their boyfriends that they're having their...um...periods?!" one girl wondered out loud. She was quickly shushed by the teacher: "Of course not! It's nothing embarrassing.
It's a BEAUTIFUL THING!!" We were given bright, pastel-colored pamphlets entitled
"Growing Up and Liking It," which consisted of an epistolary story of three pubescent girls who were pen pals and wrote about all the fun things that were
going on in their lives--mostly about getting their first periods and all the fun
sanitary accessories they could now buy, use, and carry around to show off to their friends.

After being sold on this wonderful thing that was going to happen, why would we afraid when it actually happened? We all couldn't wait for it to start. When it finally did for me, when I was 13, I was more impressed than anything else.
I just shyly bragged to my mother about it, and that was it.

It took me about three more months of experiencing this magical event, however, to realize that I'd been had. Currently, I'm only experiencing the
magic about two or three times a year, and I'm anticipating the day when there's
no more magic. I still have the "Growing Up and Liking It" pamphlet, though. I'm
thinking about writing a sequel: "Growing Old and Good Riddance."




I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

At least she had it better than CARRIE. In high school and all the other girls making fun of her because she didn't know what was happening to her :/ ..... "Why didn't you tell me mamma?"

My parents bought me books when I was several years younger to explain all this, also, my mother was still living, so no.