“I wrote a book about menstruation”: Jessica Biel tells children about her period

“I would like to tell you about something that is rarely talked about, and it is absurd because it happens every month to half the population, and yet in 2024 we still have difficulty de-stigmatizing it: the menstrual cycle”: this is how Jessica Biel introduces in an Instagram reel a topic that is particularly close to her heart since she became a mother, that of menstruation. The 42-year-old actress explains that she is tired of thataura of shame, embarrassment and misinformation that hovers around the topic of reproductive health, and precisely to facilitate a calm and truthful conversation on the subject between parents and children he decided to write a children’s book. “Now that I’m a parent I asked myself how to talk to my children about these things that sooner or later they will discover. I then wrote a children’s book about menstruation. It is a simple and direct text, which talks about our bodies, how they work. I hope it can help future generations normalize menstruation.”

A kids book about periods (A children’s book about menstruation) was created in collaboration with Period.org, a non-profit organization that deals with menstrual health and period poverty, and will be on sale starting May 7, for now only in English. The text is also aimed at the little ones: “Menstruation comes earlier and earlier, even at 7 or 8 years old. So this book is meant for anyone over the age of 5 who has questions about how the human body works,” she says. “I think we don’t give enough trust to our children, who instead are interested in finding out, they are curious. The sooner we give them accurate information, the better”.

“The first time I had my period I was terrified, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried, I thought something was wrong, I wasn’t prepared at all.” Jessica Biel admits that she also wrote this book a little for herself, because when she decided to have children at 30, she realized that she didn’t really know everything about her menstrual cycle. Furthermore, she adds, her research helped her to be able to dialogue with her children, because despite being the mother of two boys9-year-old Silas Randall, and 4-year-old Phineas (born from Justin Timberlake) wants to find an appropriate way to tell them what happens to her every month.

“How do I talk to my children about menstruation? Simply I tell them the truth, I tell them what’s happening to me, how I feel, and I try to give them correct information that is based on biology, but that is not too complicated to understand. I take it easy, but I don’t hide the truth, I use real words and definitions that concern reproductive health”.

Even though it was born as a personal research, “I hope that the book will also be useful to other families.” Not surprisingly, the title mentions a generic and neutral kids rather than just referring to girlslittle girls, why the target is both males and females. This detail turns up the noses of some of her followers who in her social comments accuse her of playing the game of the ‘woke’ world, whose intention would be to erase female experience in favor of vaunted gender theories. But in truth, as many other users and herself point out in a delicate and indirect way in the answers she provides via Instagram, addressing this book to both boys and girls is a way to really make everyone participate in the conversation. So that, when an adult male is called to legislate on women’s bodies, at least he knows what he’s talking aboutwhich still doesn’t happen today.