Belinda Hankins has been laughing out loud over her daughter’s texts for the past few years. Her now 13-year-old seems to have a flare for comedy.
So when she text her mum from the local supermarket on the hunt for tampons, the following ensued!
As you will see from the texts below, the 13-year-old’s shopping trip wasn’t exactly going well. She searched the store, and couldn’t find what many of us would consider the ‘feminine product’ aisle. After telling her mum that they (the products) were not there, Hankins responded, “Yes I promise they are. Look near condoms and sex lube.” If only all of our mums could have such as a good sense of humour!
Eventually the teen found what she was looking for – “tucked away” and “unlabeled.” That’s where the text conversation gets really interesting – or, at the very least, even funnier. We think the 13-year-old’s words speak for themselves:
Hankins asked her daughter (keep this statement in mind – she ASKED her daughter) if she could post it for friends and family to see. And, what was her daughter’s reply? “Sure. But only if you’re DARING enough to publicly acknowledge the existence of …it.”
What’s it?
Well, a vagina.
Okay, so clearly this mum and daughter text exchange is hilarious. And, that’s why Hankins posted it on Facebook (again, with her daughter’s permission – so don’t start saying, “Well, that’s a violation of the poor kid’s privacy,” because it’s not). Hankins thought that her friends would get a laugh. Maybe the post might even get a few shares. But, she didn’t expect that it would get more than 60,000 shares. She also didn’t expect the downward turn it would take online. After getting picked up by several websites, a slightly less flattering narrative was spun (and that’s putting it politely).
People began questioning the mum’s parenting ability, wanting to know why she’d do this to her daughter. Do this to her daughter? Helping her daughter build a sense of independence and commending her teen’s smart sense of humour – is that what this mum has done? Yes! And, that’s okay with us. But, apparently it’s not with the morality police out there.
The mum noted, on her Facebook page, that the top critique she’s been getting is that her 13-year-old child shouldn’t have been out at night shopping for tampons by herself. Sure, the girl was in the store without mum. Was she really alone? No way. Mum was in the car, in the car park – just metres away from the store.
Not only was nearby, but she also knows that her daughter is mature, capable and (as she notes) “extremely precocious.” Hankins goes on to write, “My kid went into a 24-hour market in a nice neighborhood by herself, walking all of ten feet from my car on her way in and back out. In and out in minutes. Found what she needed, despite the lack of signage, and provided me with hilarious texting material.” Bravo for her.
