Dad Takes Away Daughter's Ibuprofen Because Menstrual Cramps Are 'Natural' & 'Shouldn't Be Artificially Reduced'
He believes that she “shouldn't be using her period to paint herself as a victim" and that men go through their own pain as well.
CGN098 / Shutterstock After a father noticed his teen daughter taking pain medication to manage her menstrual cramps, he began to grow concerned about how the medicine would take a toll on her body.
He advised her to stop taking it, as menstruation was a “natural process” that was meant to be painful, and that she should stick it out.
A father took away his daughter’s ibuprofen while she was on her period since he believed that menstrual cramps should not be ‘artificially reduced.’
In a Reddit post, the 40-year-old man revealed that he and his ex-wife share custody of their 14-year-old daughter and that she stays with him every two weeks.
During her most recent stay with her dad, she was on her period and taking ibuprofen to manage the painful cramps — much to his dismay.
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“I generally tend to avoid allopathy medicines unless it's seriously necessary, like conditions that have you hospitalized,” the man wrote. “I mean, for things like a cold or a fever, I think it's best to sleep it off instead of burdening your body with unnecessary pills.”
When he noticed his daughter “popping pills” while on her period, the man claimed that he was concerned that she would grow too “dependent” on them, adding that since menstruation is a “natural” process, she should stick it out without medication.
“I asked my ex-wife about this, and she told me our daughter has an irregular cycle, so she has very painful cramps and needs the pills for the first 3 days,” the man wrote.
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However, the dad decided to sit his daughter down and preach his ideas about how taking ibuprofen while menstruating was “unnecessary” and that “they will ruin her body when she's older and needs to be having a child.”
“Menstrual cramps hurt, yes, but they're normal, and they shouldn't be artificially reduced,” he wrote.
The father attempted to compromise with his daughter by giving her the rest of the week off from doing chores; however, she believed that her dad was being ridiculous.
“She started crying and telling me that she goes through ‘excruciating’ amounts of pain, and she needs the tablets to be able to even move around,” the man shared. “She also went on about how I won't understand her pain because I'm a man, and I won't even have to deal with these things.”
The man said that the argument escalated after he pointed out that boys and men endure painful struggles as well, and that she “shouldn't be using her period to paint herself as a victim.”
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“I just don't want my child to grow up weak-willed and soft,” the man wrote. “Millions of women before her have gone through life with their period and haven't dropped dead because they had to deal with some pain.”
While his daughter was asleep, the man took matters into his own hands and threw away her ibuprofen so that she wouldn’t be able to take it.
“She woke up and went ballistic and started throwing a tantrum,” the man wrote. “She told me she hated me and called me a misogynist because I apparently ‘hate women.’”
When the teen asked to go back to her mom’s, the man did not hesitate. He called his ex to come pick her up since he “couldn’t reason with her.”
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However, when the man’s ex-wife came to pick up their daughter and learned what happened, she argued that her husband had no right to toss her medication.
Still, the man believes that his daughter needs to grow “thicker skin.”
“When she was younger, she used to play all kinds of sports with me, and we used to have so much fun together. And now she doesn't even want to play catch with me,” he added.
As expected, most people were horrified by the man’s actions and did not hesitate to call him out on his revolting behavior.
“Here we go with another man trying to tell a woman what to do with HER body. You don’t know what kind of pain she is in. And you don’t have the right (even as her parent) to tell her that the pain isn’t that bad and she doesn’t need Advil,” one Redditor commented.
“You don't know what these other ‘millions’ of women were on for cramps. You are minimizing your daughter’s feelings... You're her dad and supposed to protect her, not watch her suffer,” another user wrote.
“Your daughter is going to grow up not wanting anything to do with you if you don't do some [expletive] research on women's bodies and how periods work, especially irregular ones. You need to learn to start respecting your daughter and the choices she makes for herself that aren't inherently harmful,” another user noted.
Many women chimed in to share that their period pains had them bedridden or violently ill without ibuprofen, and they needed it just to be able to function while menstruating.
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Experiencing cramps during a period is not uncommon, with 80% of women claiming that they have had a painful period at least once in their lifetime.
However, every woman experiences different menstrual cycles depending on their pain tolerance and underlying conditions, such as endometriosis or PCOS, that may exacerbate period pains.
Some research has suggested that period pains can be as painful as a heart attack, yet most women are not taken seriously enough, and still expected to function normally while on their periods.
Instead of minimizing their pain and telling them that they need to “toughen up,” we should be offering them support and compassion. Rather than tossing away her pain medicine, the father could have allowed her to take it as needed without judgment and even could have run her a hot bath and run to the store to buy her favorite sweets.
And frankly, the father — who does not have a uterus and has never experienced a period in his life — is not in a position to determine whether or not his daughter needs ibuprofen.
We can almost guarantee that if he ever had to deal with cramps, his stances on “natural” processes would go out the window, and he would be begging for ibuprofen.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.