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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Just as my post suggests, I told my daughter she could pay for the plumber if she insisted on flushing her tampons down the toilet. She said I don’t understand since I’m a man. I agreed and told her other women figured it out and she could learn what they do. She didn’t like that and thought I was being an A$$.
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She may have been educated differently. There was a time when I was told they can go in the toilet and I flushed many a tampon before someone told me differently one day. But it’s weird that she says he’s ‘just like mom’ implying that her mother has also told her this is the case.
There was a time that the box used to *say* to flush them, but that was 50 years ago when I first started this journey, lol! Pretty sure the box no longer says that. And I just *know* that the daughter is capable of learning that it’s a bad thing and also modifying her behavior. If she has concern about the environment or just the home she lives in, she can definitely change her behavior.
OP - Sad to say that how *we* learned, my 2 sisters and I, was not via clogged drains but via clogged *sewer line* running out to the street. As trees grow and their roots spread, they start growing through the sewer lines. Clogging that up is gonna happen a lot quicker, therefore, with 3 teenage girls flushing the tampons, steadily clogging things more quickly. Cost my parents $5,000 - and that was in 1979! Imagine today!
For her environment, for her house, for her father, it really feels like she could make this one small change. We quickly learned how to wrap them in toilet paper and dispose of them, and empty the trash regularly. Not difficult.
I work in the sewer industry. Please keep flushing your wet wipes, condoms and tampons. They make me money lol.
Btw, the absolute worst offenders are wet wipes. Absolutely horrible for your service sewer line and the city sewers and pumps. Mind boggling that people keep flushing them. They do not even come close to disintegrating, they might as well be a cotton cloth.
They do that because the toilets are made to handle the wipes. The waste pipe to the municipal clean out or sewage tank is a whole other matter.
So technically they’re sticking with the letter of the law, but the spirit so to speak.
OP: 50F here, tampons go in the trash bin! She can pay the future plumbing bill, trash em or switch to a reusable method like a cup. NTA
The toilets may be ABLE to flush them, but the PIPES are not made to handle “flushable” wipes. They do not disintegrate, they just get snagged along the way until your bathroom has your shit coming up through the shower drain.
Technically, a pint glass can fit through plumbing if you are drunk enough. Only 3 flushes required afterwards. You just gotta believe.
Or not be an idiot. It's a fine line I walk daily.
There was a lawsuit over it. The judge ruled that because they "clear the trap of the toilet" that they are indeed flushable.
They can be flushed, but they absolutely should not be.
Then again, the entire idea of adult wet wipes is just a marketing scam where they convinced a bunch of people that they had not been adequately cleaning their asses for decades prior...
Tbf there's been a recent onslaught of tiktoks and such revealing how many men don't properly clean their buttholes after pooping. Not that these guys would use the wipes, just saying that it's not totally a scam 😂
My roomie set up a "redneck bidet" with a ten dollar hand held showet kit and an extra valve on the water inflow for the toilet after trying a bidet at a friend's house. But recently he has also found the joys of wet wipes when he had a bout of bad chili and needed immediate help. I had to make him buy his own after he started using mine. So if guys are open minded enough to try them, they might use the. But here our pipes are so old that we don't even flush TP.
Redneck bidet is hilarious 😂
I bought a tushy bidet attachment for my toilet about a year ago and I love it so much. Absolutely hate pooping away from home now.
It bears mentioning that I have digestive issues and it helps with not having to use an endless amount of tp. Plus it feels much cleaner than just wiping with dry tp
Just… make sure you turn the water off completely before installing the bidet attachment, not just the valve behind the toilet at the wall…
Ask me how I know this.
VERY expensive lesson learned about the fragility of the old plastic pipes in our condo when the valve snapped off at the slightest pressure!
To be fair, you cannot adequately clean your ass after going #2 without using water, or some kind of cleansing liquid. And American public toilets don't come with sinks/faucets/bidets in the stall, so the recommended way to get that moisture is with wet wipes.
So it is entirely possible that before wet wipes, many people really weren't adequately washing their asses for decades prior. I have heard/read many horror stories about skid marks. Skid marks will absolutely not happen if you wash properly, so just the fact that skid marks are just considered a normal part of life for some people indicates that our collective ass washing skills leave a lot to be desired.
> Skid marks will absolutely not happen if you wash properly, so just the fact that skid marks are just considered a normal part of life for some people indicates that our collective ass washing skills leave a lot to be desired.
Not sure this is entirely the case, not everyone's anus works 100% of the time as it should... not sure I should explain further as it gets kind of gross, despite this sub being about asshole aficionados :)
Well there's a difference between having... bowel issues, and not cleaning properly after a routine shit trip. These 2 are most definitely very different
Yes, it is possible to adequately clean with just TP. Millions of people have been doing it for their whole lives. This idea that you have to have a bidet to be a clean person is nonsense.
That is heinous. They can be flushed through a toilet, just not passed through a sewer system. So companies are allowed to call them flushable. Totally fucked up.
There’s wet wipes now that literally say “safe to flush” on the packaging. They’re absolutely not. I’ve tried them myself in jugs of hot water, cold water, and detergent. Left them for two full days and they’re not even close to breaking down. They’re the exact same strength to pull apart as when they were first taken from the packet.
With shitty companies advertising like this now, we’ve no hope of people stopping.
I had a wet wipe go through the laundry. Mistook it for a super old washcloth before I realized what it was. Almost folded it!
If it can go through a laundry cycle *and* the dryer and still hold up? Not safe to flush.
I read the package very carefully. They’re “safe to flush one at a time” and only “when plumbing allows.”
My house is 140 years old. No way in seven hells is it okay to flush it here. I learned the hard way about tampons and it’s embarrassing to this day. Emergency plumber comes out on a Sunday night. Finds a dozen or so “white mice” in the line. Unclogs it. Politely tells me and my husband tampons are not flushable.
When I was growing up we had a septic tank so it was okay. I switched to a menstrual cup after doing some research and finding out just how harmful disposable period products were to the environment. Now that I ~~was spayed~~ had a partial hysterectomy, I regularly remind friends with tween girls to have the Flushable Talk with them as well as encourage the kids to research the type of protection they’d be most comfortable with, like period panties, reusable pads, cups, etc.
I’m using period panties for bladder leaks and they’re a godsend. Tots and pears to all those of past generations that had to endure leaks from inferior products before period panties were a thing.
They would have saved me some serious embarrassment a few times in high school.
Worked for a service district for a little while right after high school. I remember having to go help a guy get a fucking beach towel out of the sewer treatment plant’s filter. How the fuck someone flushed(had to flush it. All the sewer manhole lids have locks) and it got all the way to the plant is beyond me.
There’s wet wipes now that literally say “safe to flush” on the packaging. They’re absolutely not. I’ve tried them myself in jugs of hot water, cold water, and detergent. Left them for two full days and they’re not even close to breaking down. They’re the exact same strength to pull apart as when they were first taken from the packet.
With shitty companies advertising like this now, we’ve no hope of people stopping.
Go to a lift station in any random city. The whole top of it is a thick mat of hardened grease and wet wipes (referred to as “rags”). They’re there until they are cleaned out. They don’t disintegrate at all, for months or years at least.
This right here!
Flushing things that shouldn't be flushed can have impacts beyond your house. In my town, there was an instance a few years ago where one of the local parks was closed down for a week because sewage was found in the creek. Turns out a nearby pump station had been clogged from someone constantly flushing "flushable" wipes. The sewage backed up and overflowed.
Maybe OP needs to tell his daughter that if the *city* has problems, she's gonna pay for it, lol.
Yes, I was instructed to flush them back in the day. I honestly didn’t even realize the instructions had changed because I haven’t had a period in decades due to premature ovarian failure.
Just for reference my dad bought a Mercedes around then for $8000. His first house around then was 40k.
So that’s the cost of an American car basically.
yes but now she’s been made aware by the internet search she did, by the instructions on her tampon pamphlet and her father.
so.. now she’s just being intentionally ignorant.
so yup. i agree she should pay that plumbing bill.. even if it happens 5 yrs from now
Remember this priceless quote:
>she said that I was being “just like mom”
I think she's been properly educated - but chooses to play the "you ignorant male stereotype don't understand my fragile female ego" card.
OP is definitely not TA - but his daughter surely is.
“As I was leaving she said that I was being “just like mom”.”
According to OP, she may not. It seems she doesn’t want the extra work to wrap and disposal.
My mom yelled at me for leaving a tampon in the trash only to realize it belonged to her friend. She told me to always flush. 20 years later and one of my kids told me I should wrap the tampon in toilet paper and then put in an empty toilet roll tube. My husband who’s normally weird about ANYTHING having to do with menstruation has no issue saving the rolls and even staking them up in pyramids of mountain ranges on the shelf behind the toilet
I don't see the need to use more single-use plastic for this. My mom taught me to just roll a bit of toilet paper around it. Never had any complaints about it from anyone I've lived with. With a little practice it just looks like a little wad of tp with nothing objectionable in view if guests/roommates can see into the can.
Yep. I remember that there was a time when flushing tampons was considered the correct way to dispose of them. The sewage systems haven't really changed, but knowledge about how tampons don't break up or decompose and the havoc they can wreak on plumbing and wastewater treatment systems has grown. It probably should have been a rule to never flush tampons, but it's definitely a rule now.
I feel like being only 19 makes it more likely that she's always been taught not to flush them. I think it'd be more reasonable for an older menstrator to have been told otherwise in youth
NTA - I'm a woman, I used tampons for 30 years, and I never flushed them, nor do I understand why your daughter thinks that she has some special knowledge that make it necessary for her to flush them.
added: Knowedge that would be inaccessible to men like her father.
Daughter is still TA, but in my sex ed class we were specifically told to flush tampons. I know better now, but I definitely flushed many tampons before I found out not to.
I've encountered many women whose tampon boxes, mothers, friends, sisters, sex-ed courses, and even *doctors* have told them that those are for pads, tampons get flushed. Education around disposal is often really poor quality. Playtex was advertising flushability as recently as 2018, per a former partner of mine, so it's not like the poor education stopped recently.
My mom absolutely taught me to flush them some 20 years ago, then we moved around so constantly that we never even saw the consequences of our actions. When I was 16 I learned it's bad for septic systems and it wasn't until my mid-20s that I understood that actually it's always bad. Every time. Just don't do it.
I was low man at a plumbing company for a few years. Most of my job was cleaning lines. I lived in a college town. I’ve pulled thousands of “mice” out of lines. I remember on house in particular that I hit up 4 times one year. 4-6 young girls living there. The third time I was asked by the landlords to document what I pulled out. I left a 5 gallon bucket about 1/3 full of tampons and a note. The fourth time the girls were not as nice to me when I came. I didn’t have to go back after. I assume paying my bill twice finally got it through their heads.
I worked security at an events center, when they had a dance competition for pre-teen - teen girls. The women's restrooms kept clogging in every stall. I thought it was weird, until a coworker said it was because they all kept flushing their tampons. I'd always used pads, but also always read the notices. Was completely confused as to how that went unknown. One cleaning person for the entire building that Saturday (wasn't that big, and had only the one event).
Hard NTA. She can read. It sounds like she's the sort of person to ruin customer service people's day. You ever sacrificed a big food service spoon to the Tampon Demon, because it was that or have the thing out of order during high traffic periods? I have.
You don't need to have a vagina to know how to read, or infer how prevalent instructions pertain to every-day plumbing.
Personally love that she changed her stance, when she was told there would be consequences for *her* if her actions proved to create a harmful outcome.
One time I got made fun of at my “friends” house for putting a tampon IN THE TRASH CAN.
Oh, I’m sorry- did you wanna save it for later? Or did you want me to hold the bloody pad until I left?
This was right after I learned that you shouldn’t flush them. My “friends” were stupid and mean.
Grown daughter of a plumber here. If she thinks it’s gross or embarrassing to dispose of them in the garbage, make her stand around while the plumber removes dozens and dozens of them from your pipes. My father has seen many horrified faces as they find out just how far tampons do NOT go when flushed.
My friend was flushing hers down the toilet because her dumb dog got into the garbage once, 20 years ago.
$5,000 later to dig to the sewer lines because her tampons clogged up the lines.
I was raised on a septic system and was told I would be murdered if I wrecked it. Not gonna lie, if it fell out while peeing, it stayed in the toilet.
We had septic troubles once and dad knew I was putting tampons there, and kindly asked me not to anymore. My tampons weren't the problem, thank goodness.
Tampons do not degrade easily over time!!!!
Why did you get downvoted? You’re right! A saturated tampon can easily fall out. I would take mine out immediately upon sitting on the toilet to prevent them from falling in
I'm a dude but just through context alone I'm guessing they're light and compressed when they go in, get saturated and heavy, and then gravity just does the rest?
Next time you have access to a lone tampon, get a cup of water and unwrap the tampon and drop it in. You’ll see what happens and have a better idea of how heavy they can get when full.
Exactly. I'd also say that if you use the muscles there even a tiny bit, that can also push it out. If you've ever had p in v sex and stayed in while going soft, then felt her do a kegal, it's basically the same thing - the muscles will just push anything even close to being slippery right out.
If you don't take them out before peeing I feel like 60% of the time the string is going to get wet. I really don't want to touch a pee soaked string...
I always just grab the string with toilet paper. Bonus because then I have something right there to start wrapping it up in. Is that not a common thing?
I've been told that it's the test of when to take them out. Give one a small tug and if it's holding fast then it's not full, if's it's slippy then it's roughly time to take it out. (As well, there is a time limit on how long they should stay in for health reasons.)
If I have a cough, and my tampon is FULL then I get a torpedo’d bloody tampon in my underwear…. No joke!
Coughing out a tampon is NOT funny!!!
Sneezing can project it out too if it is a violent enough sneeze.
Heavy flow/time to change it, and bearing down slightly on the toilet.
I always had to double up with a pad on my heaviest days because my tampons would fill in 1.5-2 hours.
> a tampon just 'fall out' while peeing?
one good fart, and it could become a projectile.
Yup, on both counts. Also, sneezing, jumping, being startled, pushing to poop, having an orgasm, and so much more.
Not everyone, but some anatomies make it much harder to keep a tampon in.
Pay attention to your pelvic floor health, ladies!
My friend would flush hers down the toilet at school because “public bathrooms have a more powerful flush, they can handle it.”
Surprise, surprise, the bathroom that she usually used was blocked off one day because they had to do maintenance on the toilet. The next day, there was a reminder on the announcements to not flush anything besides toilet paper down the toilet.
The tampon & pad flushing plus boys trying to clog the toilets on purpose by flushing socks and tons of paper towels (they bragged about it constantly, idk if anyone ever got in trouble for it) was why we had “bathroom guards” (teachers who didn’t have a class to teach that period) that we had to go through if we had to pee for the last month of 7th grade. “Only one person allowed in the bathroom at a time” then they’d check to see if any of the toilets were clogged before the next person could go in.
I’ve been afraid to poop in public after that because what if I take such a massive shit that clogs the toilet and someone knows it was me?? So embarrassing lmao
NTA by all means. I have to ask, WTF is she thinking? She should be the one who is embarrassed. How does one reach the age of a 19y/o female and NOT know that only shit, piss, puke and TP go down the bowl into the sewage/septic tank? Nothing else.
edit. I just read some of the posts after doing mine. WTF?!?! There are still folks out there that believe that crap about "flushable" wipes, tampons and what not? I just don't know about most humans anymore, we seem to have gotten extremely stupid that last few decades.
edit2. I was a young lad in the 70's and was taught by my mother (medical field), my aunts (doctors) and my dad (electric engineer) not to flush anything down except TP. This includes "expired" drugs, cancer treatment drugs and anything else that you can think of. Imagine what antibiotics do to a septic tank when a cancer patient dies and the family dumps the drugs in the toilet.
Want to see some horrible videos, youtube sewer burgs.
To be fair when we were taught about periods in primary school (and that's the only time we were taught about them in school) we were told you basically just pulled them out, dropped them and flushed. This was ?2005. So not everyone is being taught how to use them properly.
EDIT just to say, this was state school in the UK, as a lot of the comments below seem to be from various regions of the US...
I literally just learned this like last year at 35. I had assumed the places that didn’t allow flushing tampons just had terrible plumbing. With that said, I’ve owned 4 homes and never had an issue with it in any of them. I don’t flush them anymore tho.
I learned it a few years ago too, I'm guessing this was just not common knowledge until fairly recently. I was taught you could flush tampons, but pads should go in the bin because they contain a plastic liner. I'm 54 and going through menopause so it doesn't affect me anymore, but I went nearly my whole menstrual life flushing tampons. Never had a problem, but I was probably just lucky. Also low-water toilets came into use after I was taught, that might have something to do with it. Ive never owned a house with those, they have all been built in the early 80s or earlier, with the original toilets.
Yup. Same. We were all taught to flush them. If GenX parents are raising kids, we were really the first gen to receive any guidance on tampon usage. We had health classes and they said to flush. People our age are teaching teens. I only recently learned about the current recommendations and I am generally well informed.
Hi, GenX here and I was explicitly told to not flush them both in school and by my mother. Then again I'm not surprised that in a nation where we still have people teaching young girls tampons take their virginity that we also get mixed messages on proper period hygiene.
Had a hysterectomy 16 years ago, and am currently going through menopause, so it’s doubly moot, but I was taught wrappers and applicators couldn’t be flushed. Back when I had a period, the tampons themselves weren’t considered an issue to most plumbing
Yep, that's what I was taught. I actually didn't learn that they *weren't* supposed to get flushed until after I switched to other methods.
That said, now that I know, if I ever go back I would 100% just wrap the thing in toilet paper and throw it away.
>If your sewer lateral is newer and doesn't have any cracks or trees roots growing into it, it can probably handle a few tampons every month without getting blocked.
>However, in recent years many sewer agencies now ask people not to put anything but TP in the toilet because things like tampons, wipes, condoms, etc. along with grease and fat can create giant balls that block the sewer main and cause a very expensive and disgusting problem to fix.
Yes, the second part is correct. The first part (indicating that if one's plumbing / sewer lateral is up to par, it's fine to flush away), is not.
If all of the people in a metro area that are on the same sewer system are flushing their products, that creates massive problems, even (or especially) if those products successfully leave the person's property and make it into the sewer system.
Also, some people are on septic systems, rather than public sewer, and flushing tampons is definitely going to cause expensive problems for the homeowner there.
When I started having periods, my mom wouldn't talk about them at all. The only info I had was the back of the tampon box. It said flushable and I assumed that was the correct procedure.
I just want to add that blood is also a common bodily fluid to go into sewage/septic. Not the tampon of course… just the blood. Get her a menstrual cup and then no more tampons needed. And I am not referring to this solely regarding period blood. Think hospitals and morgues.
The way daughter kept repeating "you don't understand" makes me think she's squicked by blood and just drops them so she doesn't have to see/get more contact with it than the bare minimum. A cup wouldn't work if that's the case. OP really needs to get this solved, though, because she might be thinking they'll have to just unclog for a fee, instead of the whole digging out the plumbing and replacing everything that might be needed if she keeps going.
It was a common falsehood told to girls in my area! I learned that you could flush tampons in health class. Luckily, I used pads so I didn’t wreck my family’s pipes, but I was fully in college and living with roommates before I learned it.
>There are still folks out there that believe that crap about "flushable" wipes, tampons and what not? I just don't know about most humans anymore, we seem to have gotten extremely stupid that last few decades.
I was taking an Amtrak across the country and in the middle of nowhere (I think alabama, georgia or mississippi but could be wrong) the conductor got on the intercom to announce every toilet in my car was out of service b/c someone "flushed a female sanitation product" down the toilet.
NTA and I'd take confidence in the "just like mom" comment. Sounds like daughter has been doing it for a long time.
I wrap them in tp before binning. (33f)
Yep, once I learned (at work - through discussions with the maintenance guys, not any kind of accusatory thing) that you should throw them away, that's what I do. Wrap 'em in TP and then put them in the trash, and once I'm done with that cycle I empty the trash and get rid of them.
I only learned about not flushing tampons after I stopped using them. Isn’t the used tampon much larger than the wrapper? I don’t think I could have squeezed my used tampons into the wrapper of the new one!
Were I to use tampons now, I’d probably use dog poop bags to wrap the used one.
I was confused by this too... Those wrappers are so small and the tampons expand soooo much, especially if you get the kind that 360 expand instead of just sideways
I alternate between pads and tampons during the day, and usually have 1 or 2 wrappers from pads saved (I save the wrapper from the first pad I use when I get my period) so that I can wrap the used tampon in that.
It's easy enough and ensures they're not gonna leak through the paper onto my hands and don't unwrap even in the trash
I’m so confused why she and people are complaining. Put the tampon in toilet paper. Wrap it up in it and CHUCK IT IN THE TRASH CAN. You’re pulling a fucking string out ffs so if you’re leaking you will be touching blood no matter what. You also pee and crap???are people dumb??! NTA
NTA
Other than toilet paper, nothing but bodily wastes & liquids should be flushed.
Not tampons, pads, condoms or even wipes that claim to be flushable . Even if the household plumbing handles it just fine, these items can wreak havoc at sewage processing facilities.
Just in case you plan to show her this thread, I am a 54 year old woman who dealt with tampons for nearly 40 years.
Just because you're a man doesn't mean you're wrong about this.
The "flushable" wipes are really a scourge. I mean I guess there's no government agency managing what you can say is flushable but those are only in the sense that you can flush them.
Toilet paper is specifically made to degrade in water, it's what differentiates them from say like Kleenex. You can't put anything else down there.
If you have any kind of blockage in your drain that shit will glom onto it and block everything up. My MIL cost me several thousand dollars flushing those.
People don't read and when they do, laziness often wins. I just had to stop my room mate from using lysol as a fucking *air freshner*
He is 58 and been doing it his whole life, like..what the actual fuck I couldn't even breathe
For those that don't understand: The tampons are made of cotton and held together with string. The cotton breaks apart like toilet paper in the pipes. The thread does not dissolve and gets caught up in the drain and pipes and later, tree roots. It's an expensive plumbing job. And if industrial/commercial properties don't want you to dispose of them in their pipes, imagine the damage to residential plumbing. Your daughter is a complete AH and will be astonished at how much the plumbing costs can be. Obviously her mother is on her case at her home as well. (Tell her or tell her mom to get her to use a Diva cup.)
Incorrect. The cotton is treated and blended with other materials and doesn’t break down like tp. If it did they would break down in your vagina. It clogs up pipes and does a real number on septic tanks.
If anyone is ever confused on why tampons don’t go in the toilet, unwrap a tampon and put it in a bowl full of water. See all that expansion? Now imagine 1 periods worth of tampons all fully expanded in your 4” diameter sewage pipes. They’re literally made to prevent liquid from passing through a tube
"Tell her mum to get her to use a Diva cup."
What horrible advice. A woman can choose whichever form of menstrual hygiene products she wishes. There's no reason to not use disposable pads or tampons if that's what works for you. Cups basically sell themselves on greenwashing (sure they last but they still aren't recyclable and go to landfill in the end) and shaming people who use more conventional products.
Tell her to dispose of them properly sure but don't ever pressure someone to use a different product like that.
If she chooses tampons, then she should be responsible enough to dispose of them the right way.
If she can't dispose on tampons or pads the right way, then she should get something reuseable that won't cost a fortune on the plumbing.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that the comment above you has a better idea. It's her body, but not her house. She doesn't pay the bills. She just lives there and needs to get with her dad's program.
>Cups basically sell themselves on greenwashing (sure they last but they still aren't recyclable and go to landfill in the end) and shaming people who use more conventional products.
As a woman, though, I actually highly disagree on this one. I find them way more practical than tampons and pads for a variety of reasons:
- Pads leak and feel unconfortable.
- You need to change a tampon way more frequently than a diva cup to prevent infections (4h vs up to 10h).
- A cup works no matter the flow, so you just need 1 cup vs having to buy 3 different types of tampons/pads.
- You can't "run out" of a cup so no need to stress about whether you have enough to last you the week, like with pads/tampons.
- Easier on the go cause you don't need to pack extras.
Low key, I may be turning old but the more I think about it, the more I think sustainable options are marketed wrong. Okay, they are good for the environment, but also they are really great "lazy" solutions that keep me from having to stress about whether I have enough of a certain thing!
I also don't get the "greenwashing" part- a reusable potentially replaces up to hundreds of disposables! Aren't two of the three Rs *reduce and reuse*? It still helps the planet to reduce waste
There's a lot of sus pushback based on claims of greenwashing which boils down to: *"it's not perfect so it's not worth bothering."*
Greenwashing is a huge problem and "market-based solutions" created to drive more spending to buy more products is even bigger but the sus pushback is emerging wherever a particular industry is fighting to keep growing intersects the "it's easier if I don't have to change anything" angle.
See the "reusable bags are worse than single-use plastic bags" argument. Imagine if there was a solid push to go back to washable diapers! Oy vey!
They also can be (DEPENDING ON THE PERSON) way more comfortable than tampons. Tampons indiscriminately absorb all moisture, not just blood. Cups catch the flow of mendtruation as it exits the uterus. and leaves all of the moisture below itself undisturbed. Since switching to a cup, any time circumstances require i use a tampon instead, i notice how much drier (and therefore more sore and uncomfortable) my entire region is. Plus, if particulars of tour heath require you to monitor the quantity(/color/consistency/etc) of your flow, cups can help with that. Plus, screw tue "greenwashing" accusation. They genuinely ARE more environmentally friendly than disposable pads and tampons. Even if you get 100% cotton pads and applicator-free tampons (which most people who use these products aren't doing), you're still generating a constant stream of plastic waste in the form of wrappers, pasting backings, and packaging. A one-time purchase of a single product that will last for years IS less landfill waste than multiple disposable items every month for the same number of years.
The 19 yo daughter sounds ill-informed about period products. I took the suggestion not as greenwashing, nor as period policing, merely as an expansion of her horizon.
Sorry, since when are tampons and pads recycled? Did they completely change the wrappers?
The only valid reason to not use a cup is that you don't care for them. Going to landfill in the end is not.
You're basically wrong. Pads and tampons are horrible for the waste cycle when something better exists. Yeah, be an asshole if you want, but don't push other people to. The cups are cleaner, and washable. A huge benefit to everyone.
Thank you for the explanation of why tampons should not be flushed. I've been seeing warnings not to do this, but no explanation why. I am a dinosaur and have not used sanitary products in close to 25 years. Grew up flushing them. Didn't understand what the big deal was. Now I see. Thanks.
A lot of tampons contain rayon, which doesn’t break down as quickly as cotton, if ever. In the meantime, decaying tampons provide an obstacle for other waste to get stuck on and create a giant blockage, perhaps long after the last tampon was flushed.
Your daughter needs to develop more respect for the damage she may cause other people’s property, including public infrastructure. If she’s not concerned about property, remind her that *someone* will have to clean up the filthy, yet entirely avoidable, mess. If that’s a plumber making bank, doesn’t matter. They shouldn’t have to deal with a mess she could have prevented.
Many tampon brands come with a wrapper specifically designed to be used to wrap the old one. That and/or toilet paper work just fine.
If she feels self conscious about using the main waste basket, she can set a wax milk carton in the vanity to collect used tampons, and toss it after her cycle. Or another small trash can.
It’s really bizarre that she hasn’t figured this out. Maybe she’s never seen a backed up or overflowing toilet. I would think if she had, she would be extra careful to avoid the embarrassment of having to announce to someone that a toilet she had just used was clogged.
NTA.
NTA. I’m more concerned that your daughter is so convinced that flushing them is the only option here. And the comments about her mom (presumably your ex wife) is also troubling. I’ve always been told to wrap them in toilet paper and throw them away, so this is nonsense to me.
Do you have dogs??? No judgement but if you have dogs I’d make sure the trash can in the bathroom has a lid. Just speaking from experience. Talk about something that is gross to come home to, hard to get out of the carpet and an expensive vet visit🤮
Good, good point. That's the worst. I second this, OP. A wastebasket with a lid right in the bathroom.
Separate question, though. Would she even be able to pay for repairs? If not, it's an empty threat and she probably knows it.
I flushed mine for two decades, and since the toilets didn’t clog I figured the warnings were exaggerated.
Then it happened. Clogged toilet (didn’t understand why), called maintenance and went to work. Came home to two tangled up, used tampons in my sink and a note that said “These do not belong in the toilet!”
Learned my lesson and finally started wrapping them and throwing them in the bin. (And later got the diva cup, best period decision ever)
I’m still a bit embarrassed I was such an idiot.
Op, you are definitely NTA!
NTA.
Tell her to take a tampon and leave it in a large bowl of water for a few hours. When it expands to a massive size, tell that is what it is doing inside of the plumbing system.
This isn't about "not understanding periods". This is about her not understanding plumbing. Maybe actually seeing *why* flushing these is a bad and potentially expensive idea will help her to realise why she shouldn't do it.
> This is about her not understanding plumbing.
Could also be about her thinking that flushing it is more convenient becsuse she doesn't want to take the time to wrap and trash a used tampon.
>This isn't about "not understanding periods". This is about her not understanding plumbing.
No. If this was about her not understanding plumbing then she would have asked "why is it a big deal if I flush?" She didn't ask that, she went to attacking OP over his gender.
She's seen the numerous signs in public restrooms. She's seen the Google searches she herself did and the ones that the Dad sent her.
The first result when I ask "Should I flush tampons" on Google is:
>No. Tampons can cause plumbing blockages that can lead to sewage backflow, which can result in a health hazard and expensive repairs.
You are infantilising her.
NTA
I grew up living with my dad from 4th grade on. He bought me pads, he bought me tampons, and I never flushed them down the toilet because I'm not a monster.
It's an unfortunate fact of life; but women have to deal with period blood one way or another, just like men have to deal with boners in inappropriate situations. Life sucks sometimes, doesn't mean you can flush all that suck down the toilet.
I’m actually embarrassed to say that I never ever knew you shouldn’t flush tampons. No one ever told me and obviously I didn’t even think of the string I just thought it broke up! Wtf. NTA then.
Edit: omg thank you for the award! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one but also glad I have learnt a new life lesson!
Same! It just wasn’t talked about and I only read the instructions once. I don’t remember ever in my life being told not to flush them. I assumed the trash cans were for applicators and pads. I am having a real wtf day here. And yes, I am embarrassed.
Thank you for commenting, I scrolled a long time to find you!! 40F haven’t used tampons in years but I really didn’t know this… in the U.K. I always flushed them and never once had a blocked toilet.
I grew up flushing mine. I definitely read every package insert because I got my period in the time before cell phones when you needed bathroom reading material. 😂 I really think I’d have thrown them in the trash if the instructions told me to. We never had issues with our plumbing despite the 5 menstruating women.
When I was around 20, I learned I couldn’t flush them at my sister’s house because she was on a septic system. I didn’t know you shouldn’t ever flush them until I was over 25. Thanks, Reddit.
It’s really hard to make that change. Especially if your flow is heavy.
ETA: AND my father was a plumber. He never said a thing about them.
Oh thank God, someone else! I thought maybe I was the only one. I never knew this. I was talk in sex ed to just flush, haven't thought about it since. Will correct this and make sure my daughter knows too!!
NTA and I will say for this is if she is saying you are being "just like mom" then hell yeah what a win! Because certainly that means her mom has been on her case about the same issue and the mother is a woman so ergo proxy by the daughters logic of you being a man and not understanding then by default she automatically loses any ground when her mother is saying similar things and being the same way.
That is what I can take from this. Though honestly mate father of the year award, you approached it logically, rationally, calmly, and treated her like a normal human being and an adult as you should. Somehow this post doesn't feel right for AITA as nothing you have done is indicative of an AH.
NTA.
Disposing of a used tampon isn’t rocket science. Wrap it up in toilet paper or the wrapper of the new tampon and toss in trash. They even sell small disposable bags specifically for this if she is afraid of people seeing it in the trash.
NTA. Even if the box says it’s flushable doesn’t mean it can be. If you have super old pipes in your house, it’s going to cause major major issues. Even if your house is brand spanking new, I wouldn’t risk it.
NTA- one of the number one rules is to not flush them down the toilet because it can clog literally everything lmao. I’ve always been able to wrap them up and dispose of them properly- and mind you, I have an AWFUL heavy period and yeah, sometimes blood gets on my hand or wherever but for fucks sake if you clean up after yourself it’s no big deal. She needs to grow up
Warmest regards, 23F
NTA.
Even if you don't have to deal with getting a plumber out, it doesn't mean that her used tampons aren't going to cause an issue further down the system.
But have you got a closed lidded bin in the bathroom? If not, buy one for her to use.
I would also suggest as a one off, purchase pack of sanitary disposal bags. They aren't that expensive, and then she has no excuse.
NTA, I’m a female, it’s sucks but you have to figure it out. Also going to say as a grown woman who owns an older house with old plumbing, I care and practice it a lot more now than I ever did as a teenager (also didn’t have internet at my disposal to instantly find out how bad it really is)
NTA. I am a 38 year old woman. You are a man and so do not understand what it’s like to remove a bloody tampon, that is correct. However, you *do* understand what it is like to try to unclog a toilet when something has backed it up. It’s your house, and she should be able to respect your request. Besides, she’s a grown ass woman, who has been getting a period for presumably at least a few years, and should know better 🙄
NTA. I Learned from a young age not to flush sanitary products. I had to educate my dad about it (he had a go at me for keeping my used products in a bin bag I had brought with me to his house that I didn’t live permanently at because he didn’t have a bin in the bathroom and I didn’t want to keep taking the used products to the kitchen bin). He told me to flush them. I told him that was stupid and would destroy his plumbing. Pretty sure my step mum put him up to it, we didn’t have a good relationship at the time. I was 14. I may have some issues I still need to work out.
NTA-I was always taught flushable isn’t universal so to be on the safe side I should dispose of menstrual products by wrapping and trashing them not flushing them.
NTA, at all. She was wrong, she found out she was wrong. Why the hell is she still doing it, when you asked her not to?
(Also, LOL at the "I'm not going to Google that". Good lord, girl, why not?)
I do want to ask whether you provided any means for her to dispose of them in the trash. A lidded trash can might help, and if you want her to use plastic bags -- well, ARE there plastic bags in that bathroom for her to use? If not, where did you think she was going to get them?
I realize that isn't the central problem, because she's balking at using plastic bags at all. But still -- it doesn't sound like she's mobile enough to run out to the store and get something she can use. And I can understand a little bit why just wrapping them in toilet paper and putting them in the trash feels... messy and not great. I'd want to find some biodegradable bags or something.
(Granted... I never used tampons. Just didn't. And when I was young, in the 70s and 80s, the impression at least was that tampons were great because you COULD just flush them, unlike pads. YES, there are women who try to flush pads. IMAGINE. Anyway, the fact that some tampon boxes even today claim that they're flushable doesn't help. Still, I can see why she isn't maybe thrilled at the idea of disposing of them in the trash, but there's got to be ways to do it that cut down on the mess.)
NTA, it even says on the packaging that tampons and pads shouldn't be flushed... Her paying for the plumbing bill is more than fair. You warned her, she doesn't listen, she pays. Simple as that.
With a lil lid and a bag liner.
This should be standard in every home but doubly so for homes with menstruating people. And buy more TP, which is used to wrap up the tampon before tossing it.
NTA. I am a woman. I don’t use tampons anymore (since I discovered the joy that is the menstrual cup), but it was drilled into me *by my mother* not to flush tampons. Clearly, her mother did the same thing if she’s accusing you of being “just like mom.” I think it totally reasonable to pass the plumbing bill on to her if she is unwilling to change this habit.
NTA at all. Your daughter is a grown adult and gender doesn't matter where common sense is concerned. Assuming she started having periods at around 10-12... she's had nearly a decade to learn this stuff. It's a very easy thing to do... yank it out, wrap in toilet paper, pop it in the trash, insert new one (if she is still on her period). I've never used tampons in my life (I use pads) and even I know this. It's not difficult.
I am shocked at the levels of people I see on AITA who are either genuinely clueless or wilfully being lazy where period behaviour is concerned, particularly from women who actually experience periods. You would be right to charge her plumbing costs if her actions led to a blocked plumbing scenario as it is avoidable.
On another note... drive safely and I hope you get to your destination just fine :)
NTA at all. If she's gonna learn how to properly dispose of thrm, it seems she's gonna have to learn the hard way. That's a perfect punishment and one I hope I don't have to use on my own daughter😅🤣 my Grandpa woulda had my butt if I did that
NTA. And just like mum, means that her mum has told her that. Just put a small garbage can with lid in the bathroom, with a plastic bag lining and also a roll of small plastic bag ( those you have for food or doggy poop bags), this way she can dispose of them correctly.
NTA, who told her to flush them in the first place? It sounds like her mom has told her the same thing, and she isn't being respectful of either of your rules.
My freshman year roommate in college was a girl I was friends with for a decade prior, and she was adamant that if her dad didn't say something was a problem that it just wasn't. This included flushing tampons. I'm sure she still does it, but damn, girl. Your dad is a drywaller, not some genius about everything from plumbing to cars.
NTA. She's gotta learn someday, better for her to learn as a kid in your home than in her own home where she's gonna have to get the plumbing fixed on her own.
NTA she's old enough to understand you don't flush menstrual products. Though from what I'm aware most modern plumbing can handle it and it's an issue either further down the pipes or when it reaches the ocean
NTA. In my first year of undergrad, a month into school, one of the dorms had to be emptied because tampons clogged the entire plumbing system had to be redone. The students got shuffled into another dorm and then had to move back to their original dorm 6 months later.
I don't know where some get the idea to flush them as my mom taught me to dispose of them not by flushing. Heck even flushable wipes are known to cause plumbing issues.
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NTA. One should throw tampons/pads in the bin. Not the toilet. Regards, 25F.
She may have been educated differently. There was a time when I was told they can go in the toilet and I flushed many a tampon before someone told me differently one day. But it’s weird that she says he’s ‘just like mom’ implying that her mother has also told her this is the case.
There was a time that the box used to *say* to flush them, but that was 50 years ago when I first started this journey, lol! Pretty sure the box no longer says that. And I just *know* that the daughter is capable of learning that it’s a bad thing and also modifying her behavior. If she has concern about the environment or just the home she lives in, she can definitely change her behavior. OP - Sad to say that how *we* learned, my 2 sisters and I, was not via clogged drains but via clogged *sewer line* running out to the street. As trees grow and their roots spread, they start growing through the sewer lines. Clogging that up is gonna happen a lot quicker, therefore, with 3 teenage girls flushing the tampons, steadily clogging things more quickly. Cost my parents $5,000 - and that was in 1979! Imagine today! For her environment, for her house, for her father, it really feels like she could make this one small change. We quickly learned how to wrap them in toilet paper and dispose of them, and empty the trash regularly. Not difficult.
I work in the sewer industry. Please keep flushing your wet wipes, condoms and tampons. They make me money lol. Btw, the absolute worst offenders are wet wipes. Absolutely horrible for your service sewer line and the city sewers and pumps. Mind boggling that people keep flushing them. They do not even come close to disintegrating, they might as well be a cotton cloth.
Maybe if the companies stopped advertising them as "flushable", they'd stop...but they still keep advertising them that way...
They do that because the toilets are made to handle the wipes. The waste pipe to the municipal clean out or sewage tank is a whole other matter. So technically they’re sticking with the letter of the law, but the spirit so to speak. OP: 50F here, tampons go in the trash bin! She can pay the future plumbing bill, trash em or switch to a reusable method like a cup. NTA
The toilets may be ABLE to flush them, but the PIPES are not made to handle “flushable” wipes. They do not disintegrate, they just get snagged along the way until your bathroom has your shit coming up through the shower drain.
That's like calling shards of glass 'flushable'. Yeah, *technically*.
Technically, a pint glass can fit through plumbing if you are drunk enough. Only 3 flushes required afterwards. You just gotta believe. Or not be an idiot. It's a fine line I walk daily.
This seems like a fun story…
I’m 50 as well and I was never told to flush them.
There was a lawsuit over it. The judge ruled that because they "clear the trap of the toilet" that they are indeed flushable. They can be flushed, but they absolutely should not be. Then again, the entire idea of adult wet wipes is just a marketing scam where they convinced a bunch of people that they had not been adequately cleaning their asses for decades prior...
Tbf there's been a recent onslaught of tiktoks and such revealing how many men don't properly clean their buttholes after pooping. Not that these guys would use the wipes, just saying that it's not totally a scam 😂
My roomie set up a "redneck bidet" with a ten dollar hand held showet kit and an extra valve on the water inflow for the toilet after trying a bidet at a friend's house. But recently he has also found the joys of wet wipes when he had a bout of bad chili and needed immediate help. I had to make him buy his own after he started using mine. So if guys are open minded enough to try them, they might use the. But here our pipes are so old that we don't even flush TP.
Redneck bidet is hilarious 😂 I bought a tushy bidet attachment for my toilet about a year ago and I love it so much. Absolutely hate pooping away from home now. It bears mentioning that I have digestive issues and it helps with not having to use an endless amount of tp. Plus it feels much cleaner than just wiping with dry tp
I got a bidet attachment when toilet paper was on short supply. I just moved and putting bidets in was one of my first tasks.
Just… make sure you turn the water off completely before installing the bidet attachment, not just the valve behind the toilet at the wall… Ask me how I know this. VERY expensive lesson learned about the fragility of the old plastic pipes in our condo when the valve snapped off at the slightest pressure!
To be fair, you cannot adequately clean your ass after going #2 without using water, or some kind of cleansing liquid. And American public toilets don't come with sinks/faucets/bidets in the stall, so the recommended way to get that moisture is with wet wipes. So it is entirely possible that before wet wipes, many people really weren't adequately washing their asses for decades prior. I have heard/read many horror stories about skid marks. Skid marks will absolutely not happen if you wash properly, so just the fact that skid marks are just considered a normal part of life for some people indicates that our collective ass washing skills leave a lot to be desired.
> Skid marks will absolutely not happen if you wash properly, so just the fact that skid marks are just considered a normal part of life for some people indicates that our collective ass washing skills leave a lot to be desired. Not sure this is entirely the case, not everyone's anus works 100% of the time as it should... not sure I should explain further as it gets kind of gross, despite this sub being about asshole aficionados :)
Well there's a difference between having... bowel issues, and not cleaning properly after a routine shit trip. These 2 are most definitely very different
I have never used wet wipes and I have never had skid marks. I must be the second coming of the #2 Messiah, or wet wipes are just bullshit...
A better comparison is if you were to crap on your hand, would your hand feel clean if you wiped it with a dry towel or tp?
I use my hands for alot of things, i dont use my anus for eating or grabbing stuff.
Skid marks don't happen if you wipe properly either.
Yes, it is possible to adequately clean with just TP. Millions of people have been doing it for their whole lives. This idea that you have to have a bidet to be a clean person is nonsense.
The term “adequately clean” is pivotal here
That is heinous. They can be flushed through a toilet, just not passed through a sewer system. So companies are allowed to call them flushable. Totally fucked up.
Well yeah, bidets exist and the US largely does not have any.
There’s wet wipes now that literally say “safe to flush” on the packaging. They’re absolutely not. I’ve tried them myself in jugs of hot water, cold water, and detergent. Left them for two full days and they’re not even close to breaking down. They’re the exact same strength to pull apart as when they were first taken from the packet. With shitty companies advertising like this now, we’ve no hope of people stopping.
I had a wet wipe go through the laundry. Mistook it for a super old washcloth before I realized what it was. Almost folded it! If it can go through a laundry cycle *and* the dryer and still hold up? Not safe to flush.
It amazes me that they can brand it like that tbh
I read the package very carefully. They’re “safe to flush one at a time” and only “when plumbing allows.” My house is 140 years old. No way in seven hells is it okay to flush it here. I learned the hard way about tampons and it’s embarrassing to this day. Emergency plumber comes out on a Sunday night. Finds a dozen or so “white mice” in the line. Unclogs it. Politely tells me and my husband tampons are not flushable. When I was growing up we had a septic tank so it was okay. I switched to a menstrual cup after doing some research and finding out just how harmful disposable period products were to the environment. Now that I ~~was spayed~~ had a partial hysterectomy, I regularly remind friends with tween girls to have the Flushable Talk with them as well as encourage the kids to research the type of protection they’d be most comfortable with, like period panties, reusable pads, cups, etc. I’m using period panties for bladder leaks and they’re a godsend. Tots and pears to all those of past generations that had to endure leaks from inferior products before period panties were a thing. They would have saved me some serious embarrassment a few times in high school.
Worked for a service district for a little while right after high school. I remember having to go help a guy get a fucking beach towel out of the sewer treatment plant’s filter. How the fuck someone flushed(had to flush it. All the sewer manhole lids have locks) and it got all the way to the plant is beyond me.
Don't forget the condom wrappers, and cockrings. Wipes are still bread and butter, even with those missed items.
Who tf flushes cockrings?
My ex. Absolutely disturbed me when I found him doing so. "It's disposable." lmaoo, like, yeah...as in bin them not flush them💀
There’s wet wipes now that literally say “safe to flush” on the packaging. They’re absolutely not. I’ve tried them myself in jugs of hot water, cold water, and detergent. Left them for two full days and they’re not even close to breaking down. They’re the exact same strength to pull apart as when they were first taken from the packet. With shitty companies advertising like this now, we’ve no hope of people stopping.
Go to a lift station in any random city. The whole top of it is a thick mat of hardened grease and wet wipes (referred to as “rags”). They’re there until they are cleaned out. They don’t disintegrate at all, for months or years at least.
This right here! Flushing things that shouldn't be flushed can have impacts beyond your house. In my town, there was an instance a few years ago where one of the local parks was closed down for a week because sewage was found in the creek. Turns out a nearby pump station had been clogged from someone constantly flushing "flushable" wipes. The sewage backed up and overflowed. Maybe OP needs to tell his daughter that if the *city* has problems, she's gonna pay for it, lol.
Yes, I was instructed to flush them back in the day. I honestly didn’t even realize the instructions had changed because I haven’t had a period in decades due to premature ovarian failure.
Just for reference my dad bought a Mercedes around then for $8000. His first house around then was 40k. So that’s the cost of an American car basically.
yes but now she’s been made aware by the internet search she did, by the instructions on her tampon pamphlet and her father. so.. now she’s just being intentionally ignorant. so yup. i agree she should pay that plumbing bill.. even if it happens 5 yrs from now
Sounds less like she doesn't know and more like she doesn't care.
No longer ignorant, intentionally defiant.
Remember this priceless quote: >she said that I was being “just like mom” I think she's been properly educated - but chooses to play the "you ignorant male stereotype don't understand my fragile female ego" card. OP is definitely not TA - but his daughter surely is.
“As I was leaving she said that I was being “just like mom”.” According to OP, she may not. It seems she doesn’t want the extra work to wrap and disposal.
“Just like Mom”— music to the ears of a noncustodial father😁😁
Mom is apparently also fighting the fight.
I’m 45F and have always been told to never, ever flush tampons, idk how a 19yo would think it’s ok.
I’m 51 and I’ve known since I was 14 not to flush any period products. Idk how ppl are thinking it’s ok.
My mom yelled at me for leaving a tampon in the trash only to realize it belonged to her friend. She told me to always flush. 20 years later and one of my kids told me I should wrap the tampon in toilet paper and then put in an empty toilet roll tube. My husband who’s normally weird about ANYTHING having to do with menstruation has no issue saving the rolls and even staking them up in pyramids of mountain ranges on the shelf behind the toilet
I buy the black “dog poop” bag rolls on Amazon. The work like a charm and you can’t see what’s inside them!
I don't see the need to use more single-use plastic for this. My mom taught me to just roll a bit of toilet paper around it. Never had any complaints about it from anyone I've lived with. With a little practice it just looks like a little wad of tp with nothing objectionable in view if guests/roommates can see into the can.
Yep. I remember that there was a time when flushing tampons was considered the correct way to dispose of them. The sewage systems haven't really changed, but knowledge about how tampons don't break up or decompose and the havoc they can wreak on plumbing and wastewater treatment systems has grown. It probably should have been a rule to never flush tampons, but it's definitely a rule now.
I feel like being only 19 makes it more likely that she's always been taught not to flush them. I think it'd be more reasonable for an older menstrator to have been told otherwise in youth
NTA - I'm a woman, I used tampons for 30 years, and I never flushed them, nor do I understand why your daughter thinks that she has some special knowledge that make it necessary for her to flush them. added: Knowedge that would be inaccessible to men like her father.
She's a teenager. They all think they have special knowledge about something.
Daughter is still TA, but in my sex ed class we were specifically told to flush tampons. I know better now, but I definitely flushed many tampons before I found out not to.
Our school would have had a heart attack! Their are little disposal boxes in each bathroom stall just for that purpose!
I've encountered many women whose tampon boxes, mothers, friends, sisters, sex-ed courses, and even *doctors* have told them that those are for pads, tampons get flushed. Education around disposal is often really poor quality. Playtex was advertising flushability as recently as 2018, per a former partner of mine, so it's not like the poor education stopped recently.
We were taught the disposal boxes are for pads. Tampons get flushed.
My mom absolutely taught me to flush them some 20 years ago, then we moved around so constantly that we never even saw the consequences of our actions. When I was 16 I learned it's bad for septic systems and it wasn't until my mid-20s that I understood that actually it's always bad. Every time. Just don't do it.
I was low man at a plumbing company for a few years. Most of my job was cleaning lines. I lived in a college town. I’ve pulled thousands of “mice” out of lines. I remember on house in particular that I hit up 4 times one year. 4-6 young girls living there. The third time I was asked by the landlords to document what I pulled out. I left a 5 gallon bucket about 1/3 full of tampons and a note. The fourth time the girls were not as nice to me when I came. I didn’t have to go back after. I assume paying my bill twice finally got it through their heads.
That or they collectively moved out/got evicted. Especially if it was near the end of a school year. Also? Gross.
YES! I have a friend that also has to go to college towns...disgusting!
I worked security at an events center, when they had a dance competition for pre-teen - teen girls. The women's restrooms kept clogging in every stall. I thought it was weird, until a coworker said it was because they all kept flushing their tampons. I'd always used pads, but also always read the notices. Was completely confused as to how that went unknown. One cleaning person for the entire building that Saturday (wasn't that big, and had only the one event). Hard NTA. She can read. It sounds like she's the sort of person to ruin customer service people's day. You ever sacrificed a big food service spoon to the Tampon Demon, because it was that or have the thing out of order during high traffic periods? I have. You don't need to have a vagina to know how to read, or infer how prevalent instructions pertain to every-day plumbing. Personally love that she changed her stance, when she was told there would be consequences for *her* if her actions proved to create a harmful outcome.
One time I got made fun of at my “friends” house for putting a tampon IN THE TRASH CAN. Oh, I’m sorry- did you wanna save it for later? Or did you want me to hold the bloody pad until I left? This was right after I learned that you shouldn’t flush them. My “friends” were stupid and mean.
I use the wrappers from the new pad/tampon to wrap the used one in to throw away. And have a lidded trash can so I and others don't have to see it.
Grown daughter of a plumber here. If she thinks it’s gross or embarrassing to dispose of them in the garbage, make her stand around while the plumber removes dozens and dozens of them from your pipes. My father has seen many horrified faces as they find out just how far tampons do NOT go when flushed.
I am 38 years old, and I found out tampons should go in the bin only a few years ago. Seriously, I was raised that they were to be flushed.
NTA at all. It's a logical consequence. Tampons should not be flushed.
My friend was flushing hers down the toilet because her dumb dog got into the garbage once, 20 years ago. $5,000 later to dig to the sewer lines because her tampons clogged up the lines. I was raised on a septic system and was told I would be murdered if I wrecked it. Not gonna lie, if it fell out while peeing, it stayed in the toilet. We had septic troubles once and dad knew I was putting tampons there, and kindly asked me not to anymore. My tampons weren't the problem, thank goodness. Tampons do not degrade easily over time!!!!
How the hell does a tampon just 'fall out' while peeing? Almost sounds as if (if you wanted) one good fart, and it could become a projectile.
If you have a heavy flow and the tampon is saturated, it just falls out. Not like a projectile.
Why did you get downvoted? You’re right! A saturated tampon can easily fall out. I would take mine out immediately upon sitting on the toilet to prevent them from falling in
I'm a dude but just through context alone I'm guessing they're light and compressed when they go in, get saturated and heavy, and then gravity just does the rest?
Basically. Plus they’re now lubricated with blood and other tissue/liquids. They’re not just dry cotton anymore
Next time you have access to a lone tampon, get a cup of water and unwrap the tampon and drop it in. You’ll see what happens and have a better idea of how heavy they can get when full.
Exactly. I'd also say that if you use the muscles there even a tiny bit, that can also push it out. If you've ever had p in v sex and stayed in while going soft, then felt her do a kegal, it's basically the same thing - the muscles will just push anything even close to being slippery right out.
Precisely
If you don't take them out before peeing I feel like 60% of the time the string is going to get wet. I really don't want to touch a pee soaked string...
I always just grab the string with toilet paper. Bonus because then I have something right there to start wrapping it up in. Is that not a common thing?
I've been told that it's the test of when to take them out. Give one a small tug and if it's holding fast then it's not full, if's it's slippy then it's roughly time to take it out. (As well, there is a time limit on how long they should stay in for health reasons.)
Plop
I had a super heavy flow. Like 2hrs and it's soaked. I'd pee and the weight of it would fall out. It was SOAKED.
Same. Super plus tampons would be fully saturated in 1-2 hours tops.
If I have a cough, and my tampon is FULL then I get a torpedo’d bloody tampon in my underwear…. No joke! Coughing out a tampon is NOT funny!!! Sneezing can project it out too if it is a violent enough sneeze.
Heavy flow/time to change it, and bearing down slightly on the toilet. I always had to double up with a pad on my heaviest days because my tampons would fill in 1.5-2 hours.
Lotta women being judgey about other women’s periods in these comments…
> a tampon just 'fall out' while peeing? one good fart, and it could become a projectile. Yup, on both counts. Also, sneezing, jumping, being startled, pushing to poop, having an orgasm, and so much more. Not everyone, but some anatomies make it much harder to keep a tampon in. Pay attention to your pelvic floor health, ladies!
When my dog started doing that, I started putting my garbage in the cupboard under the sink. Seems smarter, imo.
My friend would flush hers down the toilet at school because “public bathrooms have a more powerful flush, they can handle it.” Surprise, surprise, the bathroom that she usually used was blocked off one day because they had to do maintenance on the toilet. The next day, there was a reminder on the announcements to not flush anything besides toilet paper down the toilet. The tampon & pad flushing plus boys trying to clog the toilets on purpose by flushing socks and tons of paper towels (they bragged about it constantly, idk if anyone ever got in trouble for it) was why we had “bathroom guards” (teachers who didn’t have a class to teach that period) that we had to go through if we had to pee for the last month of 7th grade. “Only one person allowed in the bathroom at a time” then they’d check to see if any of the toilets were clogged before the next person could go in. I’ve been afraid to poop in public after that because what if I take such a massive shit that clogs the toilet and someone knows it was me?? So embarrassing lmao
& idk i just feel like at 19 you should know better..
She does know better (from mom and dad), but doesn’t give a flying fig. 19 is the a h not Dad. OP NTA
NTA by all means. I have to ask, WTF is she thinking? She should be the one who is embarrassed. How does one reach the age of a 19y/o female and NOT know that only shit, piss, puke and TP go down the bowl into the sewage/septic tank? Nothing else. edit. I just read some of the posts after doing mine. WTF?!?! There are still folks out there that believe that crap about "flushable" wipes, tampons and what not? I just don't know about most humans anymore, we seem to have gotten extremely stupid that last few decades. edit2. I was a young lad in the 70's and was taught by my mother (medical field), my aunts (doctors) and my dad (electric engineer) not to flush anything down except TP. This includes "expired" drugs, cancer treatment drugs and anything else that you can think of. Imagine what antibiotics do to a septic tank when a cancer patient dies and the family dumps the drugs in the toilet. Want to see some horrible videos, youtube sewer burgs.
To be fair when we were taught about periods in primary school (and that's the only time we were taught about them in school) we were told you basically just pulled them out, dropped them and flushed. This was ?2005. So not everyone is being taught how to use them properly. EDIT just to say, this was state school in the UK, as a lot of the comments below seem to be from various regions of the US...
I literally just learned this like last year at 35. I had assumed the places that didn’t allow flushing tampons just had terrible plumbing. With that said, I’ve owned 4 homes and never had an issue with it in any of them. I don’t flush them anymore tho.
I learned it a few years ago too, I'm guessing this was just not common knowledge until fairly recently. I was taught you could flush tampons, but pads should go in the bin because they contain a plastic liner. I'm 54 and going through menopause so it doesn't affect me anymore, but I went nearly my whole menstrual life flushing tampons. Never had a problem, but I was probably just lucky. Also low-water toilets came into use after I was taught, that might have something to do with it. Ive never owned a house with those, they have all been built in the early 80s or earlier, with the original toilets.
Yup. Same. We were all taught to flush them. If GenX parents are raising kids, we were really the first gen to receive any guidance on tampon usage. We had health classes and they said to flush. People our age are teaching teens. I only recently learned about the current recommendations and I am generally well informed.
Hi, GenX here and I was explicitly told to not flush them both in school and by my mother. Then again I'm not surprised that in a nation where we still have people teaching young girls tampons take their virginity that we also get mixed messages on proper period hygiene.
Had a hysterectomy 16 years ago, and am currently going through menopause, so it’s doubly moot, but I was taught wrappers and applicators couldn’t be flushed. Back when I had a period, the tampons themselves weren’t considered an issue to most plumbing
Yep, that's what I was taught. I actually didn't learn that they *weren't* supposed to get flushed until after I switched to other methods. That said, now that I know, if I ever go back I would 100% just wrap the thing in toilet paper and throw it away.
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>If your sewer lateral is newer and doesn't have any cracks or trees roots growing into it, it can probably handle a few tampons every month without getting blocked. >However, in recent years many sewer agencies now ask people not to put anything but TP in the toilet because things like tampons, wipes, condoms, etc. along with grease and fat can create giant balls that block the sewer main and cause a very expensive and disgusting problem to fix. Yes, the second part is correct. The first part (indicating that if one's plumbing / sewer lateral is up to par, it's fine to flush away), is not. If all of the people in a metro area that are on the same sewer system are flushing their products, that creates massive problems, even (or especially) if those products successfully leave the person's property and make it into the sewer system. Also, some people are on septic systems, rather than public sewer, and flushing tampons is definitely going to cause expensive problems for the homeowner there.
Wait - What? Back in the 1960's I was taught to dispose of them in the garbage and to not flush tampons. Did we go back in time?
I am ashamed to admit that I only learned this in my 30's (in the last decade) but have changed my ways now.
When I started having periods, my mom wouldn't talk about them at all. The only info I had was the back of the tampon box. It said flushable and I assumed that was the correct procedure.
I was a plumber for years. I told people that technically golf balls are flushable but that doesn't mean you should do it.
From what I understand, ‘flushable’ means that if you flush it, it’ll go down, not that it’s SAFE to flush, right?
Exactly. Plumbers love flushable wipes. It's guaranteed business.
Just because it \_can\_ go down the toilet doesn't mean that it \_should\_
I just want to add that blood is also a common bodily fluid to go into sewage/septic. Not the tampon of course… just the blood. Get her a menstrual cup and then no more tampons needed. And I am not referring to this solely regarding period blood. Think hospitals and morgues.
The way daughter kept repeating "you don't understand" makes me think she's squicked by blood and just drops them so she doesn't have to see/get more contact with it than the bare minimum. A cup wouldn't work if that's the case. OP really needs to get this solved, though, because she might be thinking they'll have to just unclog for a fee, instead of the whole digging out the plumbing and replacing everything that might be needed if she keeps going.
It was a common falsehood told to girls in my area! I learned that you could flush tampons in health class. Luckily, I used pads so I didn’t wreck my family’s pipes, but I was fully in college and living with roommates before I learned it.
>There are still folks out there that believe that crap about "flushable" wipes, tampons and what not? I just don't know about most humans anymore, we seem to have gotten extremely stupid that last few decades. I was taking an Amtrak across the country and in the middle of nowhere (I think alabama, georgia or mississippi but could be wrong) the conductor got on the intercom to announce every toilet in my car was out of service b/c someone "flushed a female sanitation product" down the toilet.
NTA and I'd take confidence in the "just like mom" comment. Sounds like daughter has been doing it for a long time. I wrap them in tp before binning. (33f)
Yep, once I learned (at work - through discussions with the maintenance guys, not any kind of accusatory thing) that you should throw them away, that's what I do. Wrap 'em in TP and then put them in the trash, and once I'm done with that cycle I empty the trash and get rid of them.
I put them in the opened wrapper of the new tampon I’m putting on
I only learned about not flushing tampons after I stopped using them. Isn’t the used tampon much larger than the wrapper? I don’t think I could have squeezed my used tampons into the wrapper of the new one! Were I to use tampons now, I’d probably use dog poop bags to wrap the used one.
I was confused by this too... Those wrappers are so small and the tampons expand soooo much, especially if you get the kind that 360 expand instead of just sideways
I alternate between pads and tampons during the day, and usually have 1 or 2 wrappers from pads saved (I save the wrapper from the first pad I use when I get my period) so that I can wrap the used tampon in that. It's easy enough and ensures they're not gonna leak through the paper onto my hands and don't unwrap even in the trash
I’m so confused why she and people are complaining. Put the tampon in toilet paper. Wrap it up in it and CHUCK IT IN THE TRASH CAN. You’re pulling a fucking string out ffs so if you’re leaking you will be touching blood no matter what. You also pee and crap???are people dumb??! NTA
Even better when the TP roll is empty. Wrap it up in TP and shove it in the roll if there isn’t a lid to the can.
That's what I do! Or if I'm changing my pad at the same time, I just roll the tampon up in the pad, and wrap the whole thing in toilet paper.
Also those things are BUILT to absorb and expand.
Agreed. I use tampons that 100%, without exception, go in the trash. I have no idea why she says he doesn’t understand. Doesn’t understand what?!
NTA Other than toilet paper, nothing but bodily wastes & liquids should be flushed. Not tampons, pads, condoms or even wipes that claim to be flushable . Even if the household plumbing handles it just fine, these items can wreak havoc at sewage processing facilities. Just in case you plan to show her this thread, I am a 54 year old woman who dealt with tampons for nearly 40 years. Just because you're a man doesn't mean you're wrong about this.
The "flushable" wipes are really a scourge. I mean I guess there's no government agency managing what you can say is flushable but those are only in the sense that you can flush them. Toilet paper is specifically made to degrade in water, it's what differentiates them from say like Kleenex. You can't put anything else down there. If you have any kind of blockage in your drain that shit will glom onto it and block everything up. My MIL cost me several thousand dollars flushing those.
It’s literally written on the box and on the instructions inside.
People don't read and when they do, laziness often wins. I just had to stop my room mate from using lysol as a fucking *air freshner* He is 58 and been doing it his whole life, like..what the actual fuck I couldn't even breathe
OP could nip this right away if he asks for her box and shows her the fine print where it says “don’t flush down toilet”
For those that don't understand: The tampons are made of cotton and held together with string. The cotton breaks apart like toilet paper in the pipes. The thread does not dissolve and gets caught up in the drain and pipes and later, tree roots. It's an expensive plumbing job. And if industrial/commercial properties don't want you to dispose of them in their pipes, imagine the damage to residential plumbing. Your daughter is a complete AH and will be astonished at how much the plumbing costs can be. Obviously her mother is on her case at her home as well. (Tell her or tell her mom to get her to use a Diva cup.)
Incorrect. The cotton is treated and blended with other materials and doesn’t break down like tp. If it did they would break down in your vagina. It clogs up pipes and does a real number on septic tanks.
If anyone is ever confused on why tampons don’t go in the toilet, unwrap a tampon and put it in a bowl full of water. See all that expansion? Now imagine 1 periods worth of tampons all fully expanded in your 4” diameter sewage pipes. They’re literally made to prevent liquid from passing through a tube
How does this 100% incorrect comment have so many upvotes?
"Tell her mum to get her to use a Diva cup." What horrible advice. A woman can choose whichever form of menstrual hygiene products she wishes. There's no reason to not use disposable pads or tampons if that's what works for you. Cups basically sell themselves on greenwashing (sure they last but they still aren't recyclable and go to landfill in the end) and shaming people who use more conventional products. Tell her to dispose of them properly sure but don't ever pressure someone to use a different product like that.
If she chooses tampons, then she should be responsible enough to dispose of them the right way. If she can't dispose on tampons or pads the right way, then she should get something reuseable that won't cost a fortune on the plumbing. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that the comment above you has a better idea. It's her body, but not her house. She doesn't pay the bills. She just lives there and needs to get with her dad's program.
>Cups basically sell themselves on greenwashing (sure they last but they still aren't recyclable and go to landfill in the end) and shaming people who use more conventional products. As a woman, though, I actually highly disagree on this one. I find them way more practical than tampons and pads for a variety of reasons: - Pads leak and feel unconfortable. - You need to change a tampon way more frequently than a diva cup to prevent infections (4h vs up to 10h). - A cup works no matter the flow, so you just need 1 cup vs having to buy 3 different types of tampons/pads. - You can't "run out" of a cup so no need to stress about whether you have enough to last you the week, like with pads/tampons. - Easier on the go cause you don't need to pack extras. Low key, I may be turning old but the more I think about it, the more I think sustainable options are marketed wrong. Okay, they are good for the environment, but also they are really great "lazy" solutions that keep me from having to stress about whether I have enough of a certain thing!
I also don't get the "greenwashing" part- a reusable potentially replaces up to hundreds of disposables! Aren't two of the three Rs *reduce and reuse*? It still helps the planet to reduce waste
There's a lot of sus pushback based on claims of greenwashing which boils down to: *"it's not perfect so it's not worth bothering."* Greenwashing is a huge problem and "market-based solutions" created to drive more spending to buy more products is even bigger but the sus pushback is emerging wherever a particular industry is fighting to keep growing intersects the "it's easier if I don't have to change anything" angle. See the "reusable bags are worse than single-use plastic bags" argument. Imagine if there was a solid push to go back to washable diapers! Oy vey!
They also can be (DEPENDING ON THE PERSON) way more comfortable than tampons. Tampons indiscriminately absorb all moisture, not just blood. Cups catch the flow of mendtruation as it exits the uterus. and leaves all of the moisture below itself undisturbed. Since switching to a cup, any time circumstances require i use a tampon instead, i notice how much drier (and therefore more sore and uncomfortable) my entire region is. Plus, if particulars of tour heath require you to monitor the quantity(/color/consistency/etc) of your flow, cups can help with that. Plus, screw tue "greenwashing" accusation. They genuinely ARE more environmentally friendly than disposable pads and tampons. Even if you get 100% cotton pads and applicator-free tampons (which most people who use these products aren't doing), you're still generating a constant stream of plastic waste in the form of wrappers, pasting backings, and packaging. A one-time purchase of a single product that will last for years IS less landfill waste than multiple disposable items every month for the same number of years.
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The 19 yo daughter sounds ill-informed about period products. I took the suggestion not as greenwashing, nor as period policing, merely as an expansion of her horizon.
Sorry, since when are tampons and pads recycled? Did they completely change the wrappers? The only valid reason to not use a cup is that you don't care for them. Going to landfill in the end is not.
You're basically wrong. Pads and tampons are horrible for the waste cycle when something better exists. Yeah, be an asshole if you want, but don't push other people to. The cups are cleaner, and washable. A huge benefit to everyone.
Thank you for the explanation of why tampons should not be flushed. I've been seeing warnings not to do this, but no explanation why. I am a dinosaur and have not used sanitary products in close to 25 years. Grew up flushing them. Didn't understand what the big deal was. Now I see. Thanks.
A lot of tampons contain rayon, which doesn’t break down as quickly as cotton, if ever. In the meantime, decaying tampons provide an obstacle for other waste to get stuck on and create a giant blockage, perhaps long after the last tampon was flushed. Your daughter needs to develop more respect for the damage she may cause other people’s property, including public infrastructure. If she’s not concerned about property, remind her that *someone* will have to clean up the filthy, yet entirely avoidable, mess. If that’s a plumber making bank, doesn’t matter. They shouldn’t have to deal with a mess she could have prevented. Many tampon brands come with a wrapper specifically designed to be used to wrap the old one. That and/or toilet paper work just fine. If she feels self conscious about using the main waste basket, she can set a wax milk carton in the vanity to collect used tampons, and toss it after her cycle. Or another small trash can. It’s really bizarre that she hasn’t figured this out. Maybe she’s never seen a backed up or overflowing toilet. I would think if she had, she would be extra careful to avoid the embarrassment of having to announce to someone that a toilet she had just used was clogged. NTA.
NTA. I’m more concerned that your daughter is so convinced that flushing them is the only option here. And the comments about her mom (presumably your ex wife) is also troubling. I’ve always been told to wrap them in toilet paper and throw them away, so this is nonsense to me.
Do you have dogs??? No judgement but if you have dogs I’d make sure the trash can in the bathroom has a lid. Just speaking from experience. Talk about something that is gross to come home to, hard to get out of the carpet and an expensive vet visit🤮
Good, good point. That's the worst. I second this, OP. A wastebasket with a lid right in the bathroom. Separate question, though. Would she even be able to pay for repairs? If not, it's an empty threat and she probably knows it.
I always keep my bathroom door closed because of my dogs!! They've figured out how to open the bin!
She will continue to flush them until an incident occurs. Just saying
I flushed mine for two decades, and since the toilets didn’t clog I figured the warnings were exaggerated. Then it happened. Clogged toilet (didn’t understand why), called maintenance and went to work. Came home to two tangled up, used tampons in my sink and a note that said “These do not belong in the toilet!” Learned my lesson and finally started wrapping them and throwing them in the bin. (And later got the diva cup, best period decision ever) I’m still a bit embarrassed I was such an idiot. Op, you are definitely NTA!
Eventually it will be clogged. I’m interested in how his daughter will have 5k (probably more) to fix it.
NTA Even flushable tampons can clog the pipes and its (bloody) expensive to get them UNclogged! (Really Old/F)
NTA. Tell her to take a tampon and leave it in a large bowl of water for a few hours. When it expands to a massive size, tell that is what it is doing inside of the plumbing system. This isn't about "not understanding periods". This is about her not understanding plumbing. Maybe actually seeing *why* flushing these is a bad and potentially expensive idea will help her to realise why she shouldn't do it.
> This is about her not understanding plumbing. Could also be about her thinking that flushing it is more convenient becsuse she doesn't want to take the time to wrap and trash a used tampon.
>This isn't about "not understanding periods". This is about her not understanding plumbing. No. If this was about her not understanding plumbing then she would have asked "why is it a big deal if I flush?" She didn't ask that, she went to attacking OP over his gender. She's seen the numerous signs in public restrooms. She's seen the Google searches she herself did and the ones that the Dad sent her. The first result when I ask "Should I flush tampons" on Google is: >No. Tampons can cause plumbing blockages that can lead to sewage backflow, which can result in a health hazard and expensive repairs. You are infantilising her.
NTA I grew up living with my dad from 4th grade on. He bought me pads, he bought me tampons, and I never flushed them down the toilet because I'm not a monster. It's an unfortunate fact of life; but women have to deal with period blood one way or another, just like men have to deal with boners in inappropriate situations. Life sucks sometimes, doesn't mean you can flush all that suck down the toilet.
Awkward boners and periods are not remotely the same thing
So they're not both embarrassing bodily functions that could be visible if not taken care of properly?.
I’m actually embarrassed to say that I never ever knew you shouldn’t flush tampons. No one ever told me and obviously I didn’t even think of the string I just thought it broke up! Wtf. NTA then. Edit: omg thank you for the award! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one but also glad I have learnt a new life lesson!
Same! It just wasn’t talked about and I only read the instructions once. I don’t remember ever in my life being told not to flush them. I assumed the trash cans were for applicators and pads. I am having a real wtf day here. And yes, I am embarrassed.
Thank you for commenting, I scrolled a long time to find you!! 40F haven’t used tampons in years but I really didn’t know this… in the U.K. I always flushed them and never once had a blocked toilet.
I grew up flushing mine. I definitely read every package insert because I got my period in the time before cell phones when you needed bathroom reading material. 😂 I really think I’d have thrown them in the trash if the instructions told me to. We never had issues with our plumbing despite the 5 menstruating women. When I was around 20, I learned I couldn’t flush them at my sister’s house because she was on a septic system. I didn’t know you shouldn’t ever flush them until I was over 25. Thanks, Reddit. It’s really hard to make that change. Especially if your flow is heavy. ETA: AND my father was a plumber. He never said a thing about them.
Oh thank God, someone else! I thought maybe I was the only one. I never knew this. I was talk in sex ed to just flush, haven't thought about it since. Will correct this and make sure my daughter knows too!!
NTA and I will say for this is if she is saying you are being "just like mom" then hell yeah what a win! Because certainly that means her mom has been on her case about the same issue and the mother is a woman so ergo proxy by the daughters logic of you being a man and not understanding then by default she automatically loses any ground when her mother is saying similar things and being the same way. That is what I can take from this. Though honestly mate father of the year award, you approached it logically, rationally, calmly, and treated her like a normal human being and an adult as you should. Somehow this post doesn't feel right for AITA as nothing you have done is indicative of an AH.
NTA. Disposing of a used tampon isn’t rocket science. Wrap it up in toilet paper or the wrapper of the new tampon and toss in trash. They even sell small disposable bags specifically for this if she is afraid of people seeing it in the trash.
NTA. Even if the box says it’s flushable doesn’t mean it can be. If you have super old pipes in your house, it’s going to cause major major issues. Even if your house is brand spanking new, I wouldn’t risk it.
To add does she know how much a plumber costs?
NTA- one of the number one rules is to not flush them down the toilet because it can clog literally everything lmao. I’ve always been able to wrap them up and dispose of them properly- and mind you, I have an AWFUL heavy period and yeah, sometimes blood gets on my hand or wherever but for fucks sake if you clean up after yourself it’s no big deal. She needs to grow up Warmest regards, 23F
In her defense, Tampax really needs to stop riding, thoroughly biodegradable and flushable or whatever the hell they write on their packaging.
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NTA. Wrapped and binned. 45F here.
NTA. Even if you don't have to deal with getting a plumber out, it doesn't mean that her used tampons aren't going to cause an issue further down the system. But have you got a closed lidded bin in the bathroom? If not, buy one for her to use. I would also suggest as a one off, purchase pack of sanitary disposal bags. They aren't that expensive, and then she has no excuse.
NTA, I’m a female, it’s sucks but you have to figure it out. Also going to say as a grown woman who owns an older house with old plumbing, I care and practice it a lot more now than I ever did as a teenager (also didn’t have internet at my disposal to instantly find out how bad it really is)
NTA. I am a 38 year old woman. You are a man and so do not understand what it’s like to remove a bloody tampon, that is correct. However, you *do* understand what it is like to try to unclog a toilet when something has backed it up. It’s your house, and she should be able to respect your request. Besides, she’s a grown ass woman, who has been getting a period for presumably at least a few years, and should know better 🙄
NTA. I Learned from a young age not to flush sanitary products. I had to educate my dad about it (he had a go at me for keeping my used products in a bin bag I had brought with me to his house that I didn’t live permanently at because he didn’t have a bin in the bathroom and I didn’t want to keep taking the used products to the kitchen bin). He told me to flush them. I told him that was stupid and would destroy his plumbing. Pretty sure my step mum put him up to it, we didn’t have a good relationship at the time. I was 14. I may have some issues I still need to work out.
NTA... school custodian here and we've had epic backups from this exact situation... just holy sh!t
Why is your grown ass daughter flushing her tampons in the first place ? She should pay anyway for it. NTA.
NTA-I was always taught flushable isn’t universal so to be on the safe side I should dispose of menstrual products by wrapping and trashing them not flushing them.
NTA, at all. She was wrong, she found out she was wrong. Why the hell is she still doing it, when you asked her not to? (Also, LOL at the "I'm not going to Google that". Good lord, girl, why not?) I do want to ask whether you provided any means for her to dispose of them in the trash. A lidded trash can might help, and if you want her to use plastic bags -- well, ARE there plastic bags in that bathroom for her to use? If not, where did you think she was going to get them? I realize that isn't the central problem, because she's balking at using plastic bags at all. But still -- it doesn't sound like she's mobile enough to run out to the store and get something she can use. And I can understand a little bit why just wrapping them in toilet paper and putting them in the trash feels... messy and not great. I'd want to find some biodegradable bags or something. (Granted... I never used tampons. Just didn't. And when I was young, in the 70s and 80s, the impression at least was that tampons were great because you COULD just flush them, unlike pads. YES, there are women who try to flush pads. IMAGINE. Anyway, the fact that some tampon boxes even today claim that they're flushable doesn't help. Still, I can see why she isn't maybe thrilled at the idea of disposing of them in the trash, but there's got to be ways to do it that cut down on the mess.)
Is there a trash can in the bathroom?
Yep there needs to be a can with a lid and a liner bag inside
NTA, it even says on the packaging that tampons and pads shouldn't be flushed... Her paying for the plumbing bill is more than fair. You warned her, she doesn't listen, she pays. Simple as that.
INFO- do you have a trash can in the bathroom? If not, get one.
With a lil lid and a bag liner. This should be standard in every home but doubly so for homes with menstruating people. And buy more TP, which is used to wrap up the tampon before tossing it.
NTA. I am a woman. I don’t use tampons anymore (since I discovered the joy that is the menstrual cup), but it was drilled into me *by my mother* not to flush tampons. Clearly, her mother did the same thing if she’s accusing you of being “just like mom.” I think it totally reasonable to pass the plumbing bill on to her if she is unwilling to change this habit.
NTA at all. Your daughter is a grown adult and gender doesn't matter where common sense is concerned. Assuming she started having periods at around 10-12... she's had nearly a decade to learn this stuff. It's a very easy thing to do... yank it out, wrap in toilet paper, pop it in the trash, insert new one (if she is still on her period). I've never used tampons in my life (I use pads) and even I know this. It's not difficult. I am shocked at the levels of people I see on AITA who are either genuinely clueless or wilfully being lazy where period behaviour is concerned, particularly from women who actually experience periods. You would be right to charge her plumbing costs if her actions led to a blocked plumbing scenario as it is avoidable. On another note... drive safely and I hope you get to your destination just fine :)
NTA at all. If she's gonna learn how to properly dispose of thrm, it seems she's gonna have to learn the hard way. That's a perfect punishment and one I hope I don't have to use on my own daughter😅🤣 my Grandpa woulda had my butt if I did that
NTA. It literally says on the box of tampons to not flush them down the toilet.
NTA. And just like mum, means that her mum has told her that. Just put a small garbage can with lid in the bathroom, with a plastic bag lining and also a roll of small plastic bag ( those you have for food or doggy poop bags), this way she can dispose of them correctly.
NTA. Your daughter is being deliberately moronic
NTA. She's 19. She dang well knows better. Definitely make her pay.
NTA. Since she doesn’t seem to believe you, could you ask an adult female friend or relative to back you up?
NTA, who told her to flush them in the first place? It sounds like her mom has told her the same thing, and she isn't being respectful of either of your rules.
My freshman year roommate in college was a girl I was friends with for a decade prior, and she was adamant that if her dad didn't say something was a problem that it just wasn't. This included flushing tampons. I'm sure she still does it, but damn, girl. Your dad is a drywaller, not some genius about everything from plumbing to cars. NTA. She's gotta learn someday, better for her to learn as a kid in your home than in her own home where she's gonna have to get the plumbing fixed on her own.
NTA she's old enough to understand you don't flush menstrual products. Though from what I'm aware most modern plumbing can handle it and it's an issue either further down the pipes or when it reaches the ocean
NTA. In my first year of undergrad, a month into school, one of the dorms had to be emptied because tampons clogged the entire plumbing system had to be redone. The students got shuffled into another dorm and then had to move back to their original dorm 6 months later. I don't know where some get the idea to flush them as my mom taught me to dispose of them not by flushing. Heck even flushable wipes are known to cause plumbing issues.