Dad Handles His Daughter's First Period Like An Absolute Champ

This dad canceled his work meeting and was immediately there for his daughter when she got her first period

A Texas dad recently went viral on Facebook for sharing how he and his daughter handled her first period — and dads of tween and teen daughters, take notes. Because this guy was a total champ about it.

“So today I got ‘The Call’,” Maverick Austin writes in his post, which he titled “Diary of a father and a daughter.” His daughter, Ava, called him from school with news of her first period. Except neither dad nor daughter immediately realized that’s what it was — a common mistake when dealing with the onset of menstruation for girls everywhere, to be sure.

Ava told her father she thought she “pooped” her pants (OMG, my heart — I had the same thought when I got my first period at 13). Austin immediately headed to her school to help her with her accident.

“So I rush to school take her a change of undies, put the old ones in a bag and rush back to my conference call and threw the bag in the kitchen trash,” he explains. “A few hours later, she calls and I had to put a very important work meeting I’m hosting on hold which I never do. She says, ‘Dad it happened again.’ I’m confused and very annoyed because I’m super busy. I yell ‘just wipe your butt better then stuff toilet paper in the back of your pants and I’ll have to call you back in an hour!'”

He says a few minutes later, a dawning realization hit him — it probably wasn’t poop after all. He says he dug out his daughter’s underwear from earlier and verified it wasn’t poop, it was period blood. He told his colleagues he had to skidaddle and went back to the school to have the school nurse find his daughter while he was “speeding and having a panic attack because my child called me for help and I just left her to die on the battlefield!”

When Ava and her dad reunited, he realized the truth of The Period had dawned on her as well. “I already know Avi,” he told her. “It hit me a few minutes after I hung up on you.”

Austin chalks the whole experience up to “the stress of raising a daughter.” But he wouldn’t have it any other way. He even told her the “Period Fairy” brought her the flowers, junk food, and card he gave her to celebrate. Someone give this dad ALL THE AWARDS, because he genuinely went above and beyond to make his young daughter feel comfortable during such a huge moment in her life.

He says the entire incident has led to lots of kind messages and even a few interviews. “She keeps me on my toes,” Austin tells Scary mommy. “It feels like I’m raising three kids in one!”