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Mom Furious After Discovering Her Niece Has Been Keeping Her Used Pads In Her Daughter’s Closet

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Louder for the people in the back, PERIODS ARE NORMAL!

A lot of us menstruate once a month, but some still think it’s taboo or something to hide.

Redditor away334414 encountered this very issue with her sister. So she turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.

She asked:

“AITA for kicking my sister and her husband out upon discovering that she was making my niece hide used pads in my daughter’s closet?”

The Original Poster (OP) explained:

“My sister, her husband, her daughter 14 (my niece), and her stepson 17 moved in with us month ago.”

“My husband and I have a 16 year old daughter and we live in a 4 bedroom house. My niece shares a room with my daughter while my step nephew has a room.”

“My daughter didn’t mind sharing because she loves her cousin and they have a ton of stuff in common.”

“It all started after my niece had her period days ago. My daughter was complaining about bad smell coming from her cousin’s side of closet.”

“She came to me to help her address this issue since she said she suspected her cousin hiding something with strong smell inside but said he’d never snoop in her cousin’s side of closet even if it originally belongs to her.”

OP checked it out.

“I decided to look inside my niece’s side of closet myself after my sister brushed it off and didn’t let me search.”

“At the very bottom I found a garbage bag with used pads inside, I’m not sure how many but I was in shock and dismay.”

“I was absolutely disgusted and very very confused I immediately brought this up to my sister.”

“My sister’s initial reaction was to yell that I had no permission to snoop through her teenage daughter’s belongings. I reminded her the entire closet is my daughter’s and told her to stop stalling and explain the deal with those used pads being stored inside the closet.”

“She said she told her daughter to put her used pads in a garbage bag instead of tossing them in the guest bathroom that her stepson was using because her husband complained about his son not having to see this stuff.”

“So, she had her daughter keep the used pads in a bag inside the closet throughout the day to take the bag out later at night.”

“I couldn’t believe it.”

Things escalated quickly.

“I called her horrible to subject my niece AND my daughter to bad smell and lack of hygiene just cause her husband and stepson can’t handle this stuff.”

“I shamed her for her God awful solution and she apologized but I told her to pack and leave after my brother in law said this was a family matter that I shouldn’t get involved in.”

“My sister pleaded to let it go then called me cruel for kicking her family out. I said she should be talking to her husband and putting end to his controlling behavior and that she was doing both her daughter and her stepson a deservice with how blindly she follows her husband’s unreasonable demands.”

“She could’ve told me about this and I would’ve let my niece use the main bathroom. My sister’s excuse was that my husband would’ve said no but couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“He was shocked when I told him but said kicking them out was an overreaction.”

“My mom was upset too saying the kids are innocent in this and have exams so I should’ve waited til they finished.”

Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:

  • NTA – Not The A**hole
  • YTA – You’re The A**hole
  • NAH – No A**holes Here
  • ESH – Everyone Sucks Here

Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.

“NTA – I think you should offer to continue to provide a home for your niece.”

“Possibly your nephew if you feel so inclined, but I’m not sure how entrenched he is in his father’s sexist f*ckery.”

“Usually, I’d say that you should have offered the opportunity to correct and do better, but your sister sort of threw that out the window.”

“She refused to allow her daughter to ask to use any other bathroom in the house. She is the cause of the smell because she told her daughter to do it. She knew what the smell was, but told you to leave it alone. She got mad at you for not wanting every piece of clothing your daughter owns to smell nasty and investigating. She stood next to her husband, silent, as he told you that shaming her 14 year old daughter for having a healthy, functioning body is not your business and to just leave it alone and let them continue to abuse the child.”

“F*ck all that. Your sister doesn’t want a solution, she wants you to turn a blind eye to the sexist abuse of your niece in your home. You have no obligation to allow that abuse to continue under your roof.” ~ Alert-Potato

“Yeah, I would really hate for the niece to get the impression from this incident that her bodily functions were so shameful that she lost her safe home.”

“Because depending on how her mom and stepdad have explained it to her, the sequence of events might very well look like: niece has period, period is so disgusting she needs to hide the evidence far from any men in the family, evidence is discovered (niece didn’t hide it well enough!), niece is so disgusting that they need to leave the home.”

“This might sound absurd because obviously OP’s objection was the exact opposite of that and she’s totally on the side of the two teen girls here, but I don’t trust the stepdad and mom here to not blame the niece for all this.” ~ dragonsnap

“When I was a kid, I remember my older female cousin telling me that her mother, my aunt, used to hide her used tampons between clean towels in the bathroom cabinet. She said her dad found them one time and was disgusted by it. Since I was too young at the time to really understand it, other than being a little grossed out, I didn’t think too much about it at the time.”

“However now, as a middle-aged woman, I realize that my uncle was the type of man who didn’t want to see any evidence of menstruation. So my poor aunt, desperate to hide her “disgusting” period, chose to temporarily hide the used products until they could be safely disposed of.”

“I didn’t come to this conclusion based on that incident alone. I had heard other stories from this cousin that made it obvious my uncle was very uncomfortable with women’s periods.” ~ SoggerBean

Periods are normal, and having a hygienic way to dispose of the pads and tampons is really important.