Hilarie Burton Makes Menopause & Periods Part Of Whole Family Conversations

If you have a uterus then, barring certain medical anomalies, you will at some point deal with puberty, periods, and menopause. Oh! And also perimenopause. Unfortunately, these are subjects not often openly discussed, either in public or in families. Case in point, my spellcheck doesn’t even recognize the word “perimenopause!”

Actress Hilarie Burton hopes to change that and tells People she’s starting with her kids, son Gus, 14 and daughter George, 6, whom she shares with husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

“Being a mother, it is really important,” the One Tree Hill alum told the outlet. “We get to raise a whole new generation of kids that are talking about it from the jump. It's not some secret that they learn decades into their life.”

Burton says she’s tried to connect with Gus on these issues in particular through a kind of life-cycle empathy, highlighting similarities between puberty and perimenopause, symptoms of which took her by surprise in her late-30s, she says. (Because: surprise, so few people really feel comfortable talking about it.)

“I talked to my teenage son about how I'm going through hormone changes while he's going through hormone changes,” she explained, recalling a particularly emotional moment he was having. “I was like, ‘My guy, it's not real. This is your body having a chemical reaction that is making it feel bigger than it is the same way mom sometimes freaks out because my body's having a chemical reaction.’ Being able to have those conversations with your kids is really helpful.”

She hopes openness will help fight the stigma that has long surrounded, and therefore mystified “basic human functions.”

“We have to expose our kids to subject matter that used to be taboo,” she said, before joking. “That's the first test you put a dude through: give a dude tampons. And if you can't do it, we're done.”

Ultimately, Burton hopes that being open about human bodies with her kids will not only foster better compassion and communication in her family but in the wider world.

“I think not only will we receive more care, but we'll receive more support from our communities. ... My job is to make it so common that not only are people anticipating menopause, but they're supporting it in the workplace, in the home, whether it's in your spouse relationship or with your kids.”