Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there
Speaker 1: to oversee this one in particular. Yeah, and uh, this
Speaker 1: is stuffy should know. Yeah, I'm glad Jerry's here for
Speaker 1: this one because if it was guest producer Noel, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like, I don't know. Yeah, this is on
Speaker 1: female puberty. Jerry went through female puberty. No did not.
Speaker 1: He did not, although Noel has a daughter, so he
Speaker 1: might listen to this. So this one's for Nola exactly,
Speaker 1: and for all you families out there, all you kids,
Speaker 1: all your parents. Just like with the male puberty episode,
Speaker 1: we hope that this serves as a springboard to conversation
Speaker 1: because from what I found in research, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you did as well, that one of the big big
Speaker 1: things that you need to try to maintain, which is
Speaker 1: exceedingly difficult, is open lines of communication with your pubescent daughter.
Speaker 1: And if you're the pubescent kid turning into a woman,
Speaker 1: you need to try to share your feelings and talk
Speaker 1: to your rents if at all possible. Yeah, that's tough.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is very similar to male puberty.
Speaker 1: I found not completely but well, I mean obviously physiologically
Speaker 1: it's different, but going through a lot of the same stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Um, and and you're right, there will be
Speaker 1: that point as a parent where you and I've heard
Speaker 1: this from friends where they finally look at their teenage
Speaker 1: daughter who was you were once their hero and now
Speaker 1: you're just a big lam Oh you're a zero, You're
Speaker 1: not funny, you're not cool. Uh And why should I
Speaker 1: listen to you about anything, because you're also a big
Speaker 1: fat hypocrite, right exactly. Just get ready, folks, Yeah, get
Speaker 1: ready to you. And then well yeah, true, yeah, but
Speaker 1: then after the age of thirteen, you're gonna be friends
Speaker 1: again when they're like in their mid twenties, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna think you're great again after the age of thirteen.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the way it works at all.
Speaker 1: Between thirteen and like three, oh yeah, they're probably gonna
Speaker 1: think you're super lame. That's called the waste land years.
Speaker 1: And then they think you're cool again. Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: was talking to give me about this. Then you feel
Speaker 1: bad about you treated them from thirteen twenty you realize, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're not so bad after all. That. So female
Speaker 1: puberty and um, the girls, if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: and you are going through puberty, you're about to go
Speaker 1: through puberty. Um, let us just be the the just
Speaker 1: one thing that you turn to to find out more
Speaker 1: about talk to people. Like I said, there's also a
Speaker 1: ton a ton of stuff on the internet that has
Speaker 1: some really great advice suggestions just basically type female puberty.
Speaker 1: And anything that looks like it was compiled by a
Speaker 1: doctor or reviewed by a doctor, it's probably fairly trustworthy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And um, here's a piece of advice. Uh, go to
Speaker 1: iTunes and subscribe to stuff mom never told you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good that's a good advice from our colleagues,
Speaker 1: Caroline Kristen, because it is great and especially at that age,
Speaker 1: they will help you through a whole host of issues
Speaker 1: hormonal and emotional and physical and empower you. And it's
Speaker 1: a great show. And they even have covered this probably
Speaker 1: better than we will. But at least let us get
Speaker 1: you going in the right direction, you know, Like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm tittering nervously over here. I think you can imagine,
Speaker 1: but I'm strangely calmer with this one than I was
Speaker 1: with the male puberty one. I don't understand why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could tell you since uh, since that you were
Speaker 1: more nervous than the other one. So it's great, you
Speaker 1: know what it is because I got to come to
Speaker 1: this one from the same research perspective, Like I'm researching.
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, I'm an outsider researching it. And
Speaker 1: here's what I came up with with male pubers, like
Speaker 1: I went through there. So I think it was just
Speaker 1: more personal. Maybe I hear you. Okay, so let's get
Speaker 1: this started, right, okay, Chuck. Yes, Let's say you're a
Speaker 1: little girl, okay, run about age eight, loving it. Things
Speaker 1: are great and long. Maybe you got like, uh, your
Speaker 1: nie skinned last week and that's bumming you out still,
Speaker 1: But for the most part, you're pretty happy with everything,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, things just start to
Speaker 1: get a little weird. You can't quite put your finger
Speaker 1: on it. But what just happened was the g p
Speaker 1: R fifty four gene. Since that you have reached the
Speaker 1: minimum amount of fat in your body. Lepton is what
Speaker 1: it monitors, and it caused the hypothalmus, which is a
Speaker 1: cute little playing in your brain to distribute a chemical
Speaker 1: that it's just been holding in reserve basically since you
Speaker 1: were born, called ganadotropin releasing hormon or g n r H.
Speaker 1: And you know that game mouse Trap, which no one
Speaker 1: on the history of Earth ever actually finished before they
Speaker 1: just set it off and made the whole thing go.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a game attached to it, right, right,
Speaker 1: pretty much, that's pretty much what it evolves too. This
Speaker 1: is basically like mouse Trap for your body. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: that um, that fat that you were talking about in
Speaker 1: the lefton that resides there, that is a little bit
Speaker 1: of a newer finding. Uh. Previously, uh, they thought it
Speaker 1: was a critical weight theory of puberty basically just once
Speaker 1: you reach a certain mass. But now they're thinking it
Speaker 1: actually has to do with the fat itself. So that's why, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you're a little girl that's overweight, you might go
Speaker 1: through puberty a little bit earlier. Yeah, they think that
Speaker 1: that's one reason why early onset puberty becoming more common,
Speaker 1: that's right, which we'll talk about also later, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is not the same thing as precocious puberty. That's
Speaker 1: an actual medical condition that you should see a doctor
Speaker 1: about but between precocious puberty and hey, I'm just a
Speaker 1: little bit on the early side, there's a very fuzzy
Speaker 1: period now where there did not used to be. That
Speaker 1: is not fully inderstood. No, they're still figuring it out.
Speaker 1: So don't feel bad if you don't feel like you
Speaker 1: have anything figured out either right now? Okay? Agreed? So um,
Speaker 1: the g n r H hormone, the ganeto ganado trope
Speaker 1: and releasing hormone, comes out of your hypothalamus and it
Speaker 1: slides its way down to your pituitary gland and it
Speaker 1: sets off in your pituitary gland the release of two
Speaker 1: really really important hormones that are going to be important
Speaker 1: for the rest of your I guess productive life. Reproductive life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: LH the lutenizing hormone and f s H the follicle
Speaker 1: stimulating hormone. And so these things start coursing through the body,
Speaker 1: entering your bloodstream. And what just happened to you, my
Speaker 1: young friend, is the you hit puberty. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: just started. And at this point you could be somewhere
Speaker 1: around age eight, nine ten. This is the first stage
Speaker 1: of puberty. Basically anywhere between ages eight and eleven. I
Speaker 1: think it's considered in the normal range. But like Chuck said, right,
Speaker 1: there's you can go earlier, you can go later. Slapping
Speaker 1: the term normal onto that is a really like touchy thing,
Speaker 1: and for good reason, because you know, this is a
Speaker 1: very self conscious time in people's lives. So the idea
Speaker 1: that you're outside of the norm on top of this
Speaker 1: process of being abnormal or feeling abnormals, that's rough. But
Speaker 1: say on average that you're between eight and eleven when
Speaker 1: this first happens. Yeah, there was sent me that New
Speaker 1: York Times article is really good about the onset of
Speaker 1: female puberty and um since there was a landmark study
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty from the UK where they basically said
Speaker 1: the average ages eleven, and that was always sort of
Speaker 1: the common thinking. But there was a woman in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties at the time, she was a physicians associate
Speaker 1: at Duke named Marcia Herman Giddons, and she said, I'm
Speaker 1: noticing a lot of eight and nine year old girls
Speaker 1: in my clinic that are like getting pubic hare, that
Speaker 1: are have their breast or butting, Like what's going on here? Uh?
Speaker 1: And she started writing about that, and a lot of
Speaker 1: endochronologists were saying no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And for a couple of uh, about twenty five years,
Speaker 1: there was a big debate about it until finally, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten, three major institutions Cincinnati Children's Hospital,
Speaker 1: Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, and Mount Sinai School of
Speaker 1: Medicine and New York UH published a study in Pediatric
Speaker 1: saying that by age seven of white girls, of black girls,
Speaker 1: of Hispanic girls, and two percent of Asian girls, we're
Speaker 1: developing breasts, uh seven seven And that's that's budding breast.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily puberty. But no, but that's that was
Speaker 1: the marker for the onset of puberty. So basically they're
Speaker 1: saying and now that they don't know quite why this
Speaker 1: is happening, but they do think that, um, if you're overweight,
Speaker 1: that that can set it off, like we said, and
Speaker 1: really interesting that family stress they think can kick off
Speaker 1: puberty earlier. H. They've done studies where they found if
Speaker 1: you're from a broken home or if you were without
Speaker 1: your biological father, you were more than twice as likely
Speaker 1: to go into puberty early. The same with childhood depression
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, or if your mother is suffering from depression,
Speaker 1: it might kick that off. So I think just all
Speaker 1: these family stresses can can just kick puberty in at
Speaker 1: an earlier age. That's one of the theories at least.
Speaker 1: Well that makes sense too, because the what seems to
Speaker 1: be the increase seemingly prevalent attitude toward what constitutes the
Speaker 1: onset of puberty is that once once you're getantotropin hormone
Speaker 1: is released, then you're in puberty. Everything else is just
Speaker 1: kind of symptomatic or markers of puberty. Right, So if
Speaker 1: you are undergoing a lot of stress, well that can
Speaker 1: lead to hormonal release, right. Well. Yeah, Plus, the last
Speaker 1: little point they make in this article was that makes
Speaker 1: sense in an evolutionary sense as far as the theory goes.
Speaker 1: They think that if you have a stressful childhood, you're
Speaker 1: inclined to earlier reproduction so you can survive bodies, Like,
Speaker 1: we better get this underway. Yeah, Like, my family is stressed,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna survive, so I need
Speaker 1: to have a baby at like a ten. That is
Speaker 1: hardcore natural selection thinking, right, Yeah, pretty interesting, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the the pubescent markers, right, the milestones that you
Speaker 1: go through typically go hormone release, breastbuds, the pubic hare right,
Speaker 1: and then those are the three things that that happened
Speaker 1: in that order. Typically it can happen out of order.
Speaker 1: But with with that hormone release, the first thing that
Speaker 1: starts it out, which is first stage of puberty. What's
Speaker 1: what's happening is um, your the uterus, the womb right,
Speaker 1: which includes the uterus, the cervix, the fallopian tubes, ovaries,
Speaker 1: all this stuff are starting to develop. Um, you were born.
Speaker 1: I keep saying you, I'm not talking to you, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Well I was. I'm the little girl in this experiment, right, girls, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you you are. I'll just stay the little girl
Speaker 1: that you have your skin knee I forgotten. Um you have.
Speaker 1: You were born with about two million to five million
Speaker 1: UM undeveloped eggs, which are called follicles. And remember one
Speaker 1: of those hormones that gets released as follicle stimulating hormones.
Speaker 1: So um, when your follicle hormones stimulating, When your follicle
Speaker 1: stimulating hormones get at least, it goes down to your
Speaker 1: ovaries and all of a sudden, you start to your
Speaker 1: engine starts revving as far as your reproductive ability goes
Speaker 1: that your body and you know, let's get you ready
Speaker 1: to have a kid at some point, right, at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this is a year's long process. But the point
Speaker 1: is the first part of the whole thing is that
Speaker 1: the cervix, the the ovaries, the Filippian tubes, the uterus
Speaker 1: um all start to change internally and grow and develop. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so typically in the past, the beginning of puberty is
Speaker 1: said to start with monarchy, which is weird because that
Speaker 1: that word, that term, it has a long history with stuff.
Speaker 1: You should know, Yeah, because I remember on the Totem
Speaker 1: Poles episode, it was that with the first appearance of it.
Speaker 1: I think so because they would often build monarchy totems
Speaker 1: as a celebratory uh thing when a when a young
Speaker 1: girl has her first period, that's called the monarchy, right,
Speaker 1: So typically that was always thought of as the first
Speaker 1: sign of puberty or the first step. But as we know,
Speaker 1: by the time monarchy comes on, you have already been
Speaker 1: undergoing puberty inside your body for a little while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of stupid to mark the onset of puberty
Speaker 1: with monarchy, because monarchy actually represents the end of your
Speaker 1: first reproductive cycle, even though you probably wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to conceive in that first attempt at it. It's
Speaker 1: your body like kind of going through a few dry runs.
Speaker 1: But that's a that doesn't make any sense to say, well,
Speaker 1: you had your first period, so now you're in puberty.
Speaker 1: You've been in puberty for probably a couple of years
Speaker 1: by then. That's uh, And that monarchy can very wildly. Um.
Speaker 1: They've done studies where they founded age difference of about
Speaker 1: three and a half years, or it could be as
Speaker 1: great as three and a half years, um, and it
Speaker 1: all depends on you know, how fast your body is maturing. Well,
Speaker 1: they found a developmental difference in of up to three
Speaker 1: and a half years and girls the same age, So
Speaker 1: some girls were three and a half years further along
Speaker 1: in puberty even though they were ten years old, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: So they figured out that hormones, probably the release of
Speaker 1: hormones mark the onset of puberty. Um. One of the
Speaker 1: other things that that comes along, like monarchy, can't it's
Speaker 1: you notice it, right, It's very noticeable the thing that happens. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's why for so long they used to say, well,
Speaker 1: now everybody knows, so we know you're in puberty, right,
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't make any sense. As we've said,
Speaker 1: Another thing that happens fairly early on and girls in particular,
Speaker 1: is a growth spurt, but like a cartoon growth spurt,
Speaker 1: like Roger rabbit growth spurt, because the hands and the
Speaker 1: feet grow first. Yeah, well, they can grow about three
Speaker 1: and a half inches in a single year, which is
Speaker 1: a lot, but not your hands and feet. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're your height, but the hands and feet are
Speaker 1: gonna grow such that, um. You you might be a
Speaker 1: little clumsy because you haven't gotten used to these big
Speaker 1: banana boats at the end of your legs, right, but
Speaker 1: fear not, because eventually the rest of your body is
Speaker 1: gonna grow, um, in sync with it. What's weird is that, um,
Speaker 1: girls grow through the growth spurts before boys. To do
Speaker 1: you remember being like a boy and like the girls
Speaker 1: all of a sudden in your class from like fifth
Speaker 1: grade to sixth grade, where it's like, what what happened here?
Speaker 1: What's going on? The giants? Exactly? Yeah? Year, Well, and
Speaker 1: I was I was never like at the head of
Speaker 1: my growth chart, so I was definitely like staring up
Speaker 1: at girls wondering why they were taller than me. Why
Speaker 1: are you mad? Why do I have special feelings about
Speaker 1: this tall girl all of a sudden? Yeah, and why
Speaker 1: are you so angry at me? Um? And we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk to you boys here as well, because I can
Speaker 1: definitely dole out some advice on how to treat your classmates.
Speaker 1: So I'll be sprinkling that in here and there, your
Speaker 1: Uncle Chuck and Mr Clark. That's right. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: have your big hands and your big feet. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be tripping, you're gonna be dropping things, but everything. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: it's gonna even out. Your body's gonna catch up. And
Speaker 1: even though you may be taller than some of the
Speaker 1: boys in your class, um, they're gonna catch up to Um.
Speaker 1: You're just a little bit ahead of the game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing to feel bad about. But you should also not
Speaker 1: feel bad about this break right now. And then we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back and talk about more of this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a chuck. We've kind of touched on it a
Speaker 1: little bit. But let's let's talk about the actual stages
Speaker 1: of puberty. Okay, let's so we've we've mentioned Stage one
Speaker 1: is when the hormones start to get released from the
Speaker 1: pituitary gland, the follicle stimulating hormone, lutenizing hormone, and these
Speaker 1: along with estrogen for the rest of your reproductive life,
Speaker 1: which goes from the time of your first period until
Speaker 1: um menopause. Right, those three hormones are gonna be really
Speaker 1: really important, and they interact with one another, and UM
Speaker 1: one triggers one and and suppresses the other UM and
Speaker 1: all of them cause those follicles, remember those tiny undeveloped
Speaker 1: eggs that you're born with, about two million, with to
Speaker 1: develop into eggs about once a month, right, this is
Speaker 1: your menstrual cycle, that's right. So by the time you
Speaker 1: enter puberty, the two million follicles, those two million eggs
Speaker 1: actually have dwindled down to about four hundred thousand. And
Speaker 1: every time you menstright, starting with that first time, about
Speaker 1: a thousand of those follicles get stimulated and start to
Speaker 1: turn into eggs. But one of them is just like
Speaker 1: the runaway stand out, the head of the class, the
Speaker 1: A plus student, and that one will develop into what's
Speaker 1: called an ovum, which is a matured, unfertilized egg. And
Speaker 1: as your as your estrogen levels grow throughout the month
Speaker 1: and increase and increase they hit this this peak level,
Speaker 1: and when it peaks, it triggers the sudden release of
Speaker 1: lutenizing hormone, and that lutenizing hormone causes that egg to
Speaker 1: pop out of your follicle and you know, the fallopian
Speaker 1: tube and travel down to your uterus, and that is
Speaker 1: called ovulation. This is probably not gonna happen on the
Speaker 1: first period monarchy. Um, but I mean, it's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: But this is the when you have monarchy. It's um,
Speaker 1: it's again. It's usually like a dry run, like you're
Speaker 1: trying to your body is figuring it out. Uh. Second stage?
Speaker 1: Are we there yet? I think so? Okay, I guess
Speaker 1: you should ask me. I'm the little girl here are
Speaker 1: Are you ready to move on to the second stage? Yes,
Speaker 1: Mr Clark? Okay, uh oh man, weird is getting kind
Speaker 1: of weird. The second stage of puberty. Um. Again, it's
Speaker 1: going to vary in age, but we'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: say like eleven or twelve years old, Um, this is
Speaker 1: when your breasts are gonna begin to grow, or as
Speaker 1: they say and butting, is when the ariola is gonna
Speaker 1: darken and rise some and you're gonna get some of
Speaker 1: that breast tissue. And you you know, it might be
Speaker 1: at that point that your parents say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's time to go to the store and introduce
Speaker 1: you to something called the brazier or which no one
Speaker 1: calls it anymore, it's called a little bra. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, getting fitted for that thing I've heard is
Speaker 1: not a lot of fun because it's like some big
Speaker 1: mystery and it's hard to get it just right. But
Speaker 1: hopefully mom and dad will will take you in or
Speaker 1: a cool older sister. Yeah, and hopefully anyan dad's can
Speaker 1: be involved in this stuff too. But since mom has
Speaker 1: the experience, they can probably lend a little more like insight,
Speaker 1: I would say. Right, and speaking of your mom, if
Speaker 1: you have a wish to know probably what your breaths
Speaker 1: are going to grow too in size. That sounded like
Speaker 1: a joke, like an elementary school joke, speaking of your mom. Yes,
Speaker 1: you your your mom's breast size is probably a decent
Speaker 1: indicator of what yours is gonna grow too. But you're
Speaker 1: made up of your mom and your dad, and your
Speaker 1: dad just he just throws the whole thing off. So really, ultimately,
Speaker 1: the best the best resources to look at your maternal
Speaker 1: and paternal grandmothers and see what their breast sides look like. Right,
Speaker 1: and don't freak out if there's are around their waist
Speaker 1: because breast fall over the years and you don't need
Speaker 1: to sweat that just yet. Maybe you could look at
Speaker 1: pictures of them when they were younger, finally hit on
Speaker 1: that might be horrifying. The third stage, Oh wait, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Second stage, you're gonna start getting some of that pubic hare, right,
Speaker 1: and that's when the growth spurt's going to appear as well.
Speaker 1: And your bones are growing really really fast. Um, but
Speaker 1: they're not as dense as they would be normally. They're
Speaker 1: not calcified fully, so they can break pretty easy. So
Speaker 1: you need to be careful here. Yeah, that's why you
Speaker 1: see a lot of little girls little boys walk around
Speaker 1: arm casts. Although I have never broken a bone. I
Speaker 1: think you better knock on wood. I'm knocking on wood.
Speaker 1: Do you still have that knock on wood? President? I
Speaker 1: got you, I sure do, nice. I do it all
Speaker 1: the time at home. Uh. Third stage pubic care is
Speaker 1: going to continue to grow. The breasts are going to
Speaker 1: continue to grow. Hair actually shows up all over the place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like a little boys. All of a sudden, it
Speaker 1: was like in the armpits. It's around your growing areas
Speaker 1: like a jungle. Yeah, just growing all over the place. Uh.
Speaker 1: Your vagina is gonna grow in size. And this is
Speaker 1: usually about the age of twelve to thirteen. And by
Speaker 1: this time, about seventy of girls, um that have hit
Speaker 1: stage three have already had monarchy. That's right. And you
Speaker 1: might say we should probably pause here for a second, chuck.
Speaker 1: If if you are a girl listening to this, there
Speaker 1: might be a burning question like what is going on? Why?
Speaker 1: What's the teleological reason for all of this? Right? Sure,
Speaker 1: that's what they're saying. Um, what has happened is your
Speaker 1: body has sensed that you you have enough fat to
Speaker 1: sustain a child, a fetus, and your body is undergoing
Speaker 1: the necessary changes to allow you to conceive a child
Speaker 1: and then carry it to full term. That's what's happening
Speaker 1: with your body right now, That's right. Another thing that's
Speaker 1: gonna happen is you're gonna start sweating and becoming a
Speaker 1: stinky little monster. Uh. And that's probably when you're gonna say, Hey,
Speaker 1: while we're at the store getting my first bra, how
Speaker 1: about a stick of Deo durant, right, anti perse print.
Speaker 1: Those days of chasing fireflies all night and not taking
Speaker 1: a bath for eight days with no repercussions, right, and
Speaker 1: not smelling at all, smelling like a daisy the whole time.
Speaker 1: Those days are gone for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: That's right. And parents, be you know, sensitive to this.
Speaker 1: Don't make fun of your kids. Tell them there're stinky
Speaker 1: monsters like I just did. Well, Yeah, you're talking to
Speaker 1: other people's kids. Yeah, be nicer about it, because some
Speaker 1: kids might laugh and think it's funny. Some kids might
Speaker 1: be very sensitive to that thing. Just the tad you know,
Speaker 1: which is normal. It's normal stage four around the age
Speaker 1: of thirteen or fourteen. Um. The height that you're growing
Speaker 1: is gonna slow down a little bit. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: be growing as tall. Boys are gonna start catching up
Speaker 1: to you in height and your fat levels. Your body
Speaker 1: fat is gonna basically reach your adult level body fat.
Speaker 1: Like in just a couple of years, you could have
Speaker 1: gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of like eight percent
Speaker 1: body fat to twenty six percent body fat. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you do not want to lose this weight. This is
Speaker 1: this is um normal weight gain. That's right, that your
Speaker 1: body needs for to be in reproductive health. That's right,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be Uh. If you've had your first period,
Speaker 1: that means you've had your second and third. By this point,
Speaker 1: your body is probably trying to work out some sort
Speaker 1: of a regular rhythm, although for the first little while
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be fairly irregular. Oh yeah, your cycle
Speaker 1: for many times, and supposedly girls who go through monarchy
Speaker 1: after thirteen tend to have very irregular periods up until
Speaker 1: eighteen yea, and even beyond that, even as an adult,
Speaker 1: you can go out of rhythm for all sorts of
Speaker 1: different things, including like birth control. Yeah. Absolutely uh. And
Speaker 1: then stage five is when you are have fully matured
Speaker 1: UM fourteen to seventeen all the way up to like
Speaker 1: nineteen years old. You are through the stages of puberty.
Speaker 1: You're probably as tall as you're gonna get. Your breasts
Speaker 1: you're probably as big as they're gonna get without any
Speaker 1: kind of surgical help, and um, your pubic hare is
Speaker 1: hopefully as fully developed as it's gonna get. And then finally,
Speaker 1: your your skeleton and your muscles and your cardiovascular system,
Speaker 1: everything you're you're basically a young woman. You can vote,
Speaker 1: you can't drink, and you can't rent a car. Right,
Speaker 1: that's where you're at in life pretty much. So. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the the again, one of the long time
Speaker 1: markers of um pubescence in girls has been breast development,
Speaker 1: starting with breast buds, right, And what's going on there
Speaker 1: is your um. Again, your body's developing so that it
Speaker 1: can support a kid internally. And UM, one of the
Speaker 1: things that you will have to do once you have
Speaker 1: a kid, or be able to do is the nurse. Right,
Speaker 1: So your breast development is changing. There's more tissue, they're
Speaker 1: they're getting bigger, and the one of the reasons they're
Speaker 1: getting bigger is because there's they're actually structurally changing, so
Speaker 1: you're forming milk ducks in there and new layers of
Speaker 1: fatty tissue so that you can nurse. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And actually I read a really really interesting article on
Speaker 1: UM mother's milk and the Stranger the other day. UM,
Speaker 1: it's amazing stuff. Get this, dude. So apparently mother's milk
Speaker 1: can change day to day and produce new antibodies based
Speaker 1: on what the infant needs. So, like, if the infant
Speaker 1: is battling like a little bit of a bug. The
Speaker 1: mom's body can produce anybodies that are transferred through the milk.
Speaker 1: They're like, how does the mom know this? And they
Speaker 1: have figured out that the baby saliva communicates what what
Speaker 1: what anybody's here she needs through the nipple, and then
Speaker 1: the mother's body analyzes that stuff and goes, oh, we
Speaker 1: need these humanibodies, produces it and gives it to the
Speaker 1: kid in the form of milk. This is what you
Speaker 1: will be able to do in just a few years. Girls,
Speaker 1: that's pretty phenomenal stuff, that's right. Uh. So, as your
Speaker 1: breast are getting larger, uh, they may be sore, they
Speaker 1: may be itchy. Uh. If you have rapid growth, they
Speaker 1: may have some stretch marks. Don't need to worry about
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. They may be uh not the
Speaker 1: same size. One breast might grow quicker than the other.
Speaker 1: That's okay too. And Chuck, like you said, also, depending
Speaker 1: on your race, um, you may develop breastbuds earlier later again,
Speaker 1: totally normal. That's right, all right, So Chuck, the breasts
Speaker 1: are developed, the hormones are raging, um so, and the
Speaker 1: womb is developing, right. And as the womb is developing
Speaker 1: and it's learning to ovulate. Right. Um. The menstrual cycle, Guys,
Speaker 1: you and I tend to think of it as basically
Speaker 1: this um one week thing that happens, right, it's actually
Speaker 1: a usually a between a twenty and thirty day process.
Speaker 1: And it's not just the the part where you have
Speaker 1: your mensies, which is the part where you're shedding the
Speaker 1: endometrium from inside the uterus, the lining. It's this whole
Speaker 1: process of the follicles becoming stimulated, producing an ovum, the
Speaker 1: ovum traveling down the fallopian tube to the uterus hanging
Speaker 1: out there waiting to see whether it gets fertilized or not,
Speaker 1: and um. And then when the egg doesn't get fertilized,
Speaker 1: that endometrium, the lining of the uterus, which has become
Speaker 1: rich with like these blood vessels as part of the
Speaker 1: menstrual process, gets shed. Right. But before it gets shed,
Speaker 1: one of the things that will suddenly appear about six
Speaker 1: months prior to monarchy is what's called a white vaginal discharge.
Speaker 1: That's right, it is completely normal and it is uh
Speaker 1: the precursor to your first period. You don't need to
Speaker 1: stress out about it if you find that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you're in your room and you're getting ready for bed,
Speaker 1: and you you see something you haven't seen before in
Speaker 1: your underwear, then don't freak out. It's all very normal.
Speaker 1: It actually means that you have a very healthy uh uterus.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. There are all kinds of charge actually,
Speaker 1: and I did not know that there are all kinds
Speaker 1: of discharge. Are you referring to that one UM article
Speaker 1: we said, there's there's a great article on our podcast
Speaker 1: page that has photos of different types of discharge that
Speaker 1: that says, this is normal. This is normal. See a doctor,
Speaker 1: this is normal, you know. Yeah, the normal types UM
Speaker 1: light yellow discharge if you haven't started your period yet,
Speaker 1: the white, thick discharge is common at the beginning and
Speaker 1: end of the cycle. UM should not itch. If there
Speaker 1: is an itch going on, then you could have a
Speaker 1: yeast infection, right, which is basically just a bloom of
Speaker 1: candid to which can be brought on by things like
Speaker 1: taking antibiotics or something like that. The discharge can be
Speaker 1: clear and stretchy. That means you are ovulating. That is
Speaker 1: fertile mucus, right, That's the that's the good stuff. That's
Speaker 1: the stuff that let's sperm get in there and really
Speaker 1: travel to the ovum. That's right, clear and watery. That
Speaker 1: is not a problem either. That can occur at all
Speaker 1: times of the cycle. Uh. It can be dark yellow
Speaker 1: or green. Uh, and that could be a problem, and
Speaker 1: that means there could be an infection, especially like I said,
Speaker 1: if it's itchy, or if it's clumpy, or if it
Speaker 1: has a bad odor, then that may be something you
Speaker 1: need to get checked out. But for the most part
Speaker 1: of this stuff, it's called cervical mucus, and you're going
Speaker 1: to be discharging it for basically the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: just a it's just a fact of life. And again
Speaker 1: it means that you have a nice, healthy uterus and
Speaker 1: everything's all well with it, unless again there's some warning
Speaker 1: signs to it, and if there are discussing a doctor,
Speaker 1: get fixed up. You'll be fine. Yeah. And the last
Speaker 1: one I think we should mention is brown because that
Speaker 1: can probably be pretty stressful if you've never seen that
Speaker 1: before as a young girl. And that's after your period,
Speaker 1: and that's all that is is your body just cleaning
Speaker 1: things out. And also again completely normal because blood when
Speaker 1: it's old looks brown, right, So that's vaginal discharge. That's
Speaker 1: different from your actual mensies right. So with your menzies um,
Speaker 1: that is where you're shedding. Remember that really blood vessel
Speaker 1: rich lining that gets developed every month along the the
Speaker 1: um the inside of your uterus um that allows an
Speaker 1: fertilized egg to attach to it, really nourishes it and
Speaker 1: let's it turn into a fetus and all of that.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great stuff, but every month you need to
Speaker 1: shed it and and grow some more stuff. So when
Speaker 1: you shed it, that's what comes out in the form
Speaker 1: of your your menzies right. And it can feel apparently
Speaker 1: like a waterfall for a while, but it actually usually
Speaker 1: amounts to nothing more than four tablespoons, which is like
Speaker 1: a quarter cup at the most. Yeah, on average, can
Speaker 1: last from three to ten days. Usually the heaviest part
Speaker 1: of that will be in the second and third day um.
Speaker 1: And if you do feel like you're having an abnormally
Speaker 1: heavy period, then maybe you should call your doctor. Of course,
Speaker 1: and as you get to know your body, you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna be very in tune with your cycle and
Speaker 1: you know best how you feel and whether or not
Speaker 1: you think something's going on. But the first couple will
Speaker 1: probably freak you out. Yeah, it's totally understandable. Yeah, and there's, um,
Speaker 1: there's a long history of of period shaming, uh, which
Speaker 1: is terrible, and there are a lot of people trying
Speaker 1: to do something about that now, in particular in Australia. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's this really cool thing called a Celebration Day for Girls.
Speaker 1: I was founded in two thousand and it's a program
Speaker 1: I think founded by a woman that wrote a book
Speaker 1: called A Blessing Not a Curse, which is basically a
Speaker 1: guide book about monarchy in the in the cycle uh
Speaker 1: and said all these shameful, ugly attitudes about monarchy and
Speaker 1: in the period or obviously gonna have a really uh
Speaker 1: negative impact on your on your child. And so they're
Speaker 1: getting together now and they're doing these workshops where they
Speaker 1: get together with mothers and their daughters or fathers and
Speaker 1: daughters are both and where they teach them about what's
Speaker 1: going on and basically saying this is not something bad
Speaker 1: or dirty or ugly or shameful. This is awesome. This
Speaker 1: is like you should celebrate this. You're becoming a woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you look amazing, it's really amazing stuff. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing. So, you know, I think our audience is
Speaker 1: pretty sensitive and uh, up to date and forward thinking.
Speaker 1: But if there are any dads out there, little brothers
Speaker 1: who are are making fun of sister's period or your
Speaker 1: daughter's period, just don't even make jokes. Don't make cracks.
Speaker 1: This is very stand outside for a while by yourself.
Speaker 1: It's a very rough time, or it can be, and
Speaker 1: they need to be celebrated for entering this period in
Speaker 1: their life, not not shamed. So that's good stuff, chuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what it reminds me of. There's his kids
Speaker 1: in the hall from years and years and years ago
Speaker 1: where Dave Foley was the boyfriend with the good attitude
Speaker 1: towards menstruation. Remember that one, Hious, that's pretty good. Was
Speaker 1: there a counterpart that it was a little still liquy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. I'm sure. I'm positive it's online. Uh. One
Speaker 1: of the things though, even though men's season, monarchy and
Speaker 1: menstruation should be celebrated and investigated and understood and not
Speaker 1: poked fun at um, is that there are some definite
Speaker 1: downsides to it. Apparently, there is a a pole of
Speaker 1: women Um that was carried out by the Association of
Speaker 1: Reproductive Health Professionals and only eight percent of women said
Speaker 1: that they um found something positive about their um menstrual cycle.
Speaker 1: There about menstruating, they weren't very happy with it, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure one of the big reasons is because,
Speaker 1: um it feels awful like you cramp. And the reason
Speaker 1: why cramping is associated with it is because that endometrium
Speaker 1: is being shed and the way it sheds is your
Speaker 1: um users contracts. And it can be uncomfortable to say
Speaker 1: the least. Yeah, it can be everywhere uncomfortable to debilitating,
Speaker 1: depending on who you are. There is no single method
Speaker 1: to relieve cramping. You might try medications or just rest
Speaker 1: or certain diet or activity, Uh, try anything. You can.
Speaker 1: Ask your your girlfriends, ask your mom, ask your weird aunt,
Speaker 1: and uh, they'll probably have some good advice on on
Speaker 1: how to you know, quell those cramps somewhat. And then finally,
Speaker 1: of course, along with menstruation comes pre minstrul old syndrome
Speaker 1: p MS, which we should do a show on at
Speaker 1: some point. And I agree wholeheartedly. Man, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of um weirdness, a lot of misunderstanding around that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. Uh, there may be some bloating going on,
Speaker 1: aches and pains which you talked about, and moodiness which
Speaker 1: can happen, and you know you may not feel like yourself.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's just the easiest way to say it.
Speaker 1: You're not a bad person. You may hate all boys,
Speaker 1: you might. Yeah, and again Dad's little brothers, big, go
Speaker 1: stand outside. Don't start making fun of your sister and
Speaker 1: saying you're acting this way because you're going to have
Speaker 1: your period. That is a bad road to go down.
Speaker 1: Clean dog poop up in the yard or something. That's right,
Speaker 1: and you think about yourself for a little while. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's take another break here, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about teenage moods and
Speaker 1: acne and all the other good stuff. All right, we're back,
Speaker 1: and Jerry just gave us a stamp of approval that
Speaker 1: we're doing a pretty good job so far. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if I buy no man, I think she's she
Speaker 1: didn't lie to us, scurry lies. She's a publicist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the publicists did not like that episode. Oh did you
Speaker 1: hear bad things? Uh? Huh. All I've gotten is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys hit it on the head. Just a lot
Speaker 1: of them were like, you really hurt my feelings really,
Speaker 1: especially once they didn't make it all the way through
Speaker 1: the episode. Oh where I say at the end, like,
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about big celebrity probosists, which you probably
Speaker 1: should have frontloaded because some people haven't made it through that.
Speaker 1: And they said, well, all right, let's talk about acne. Uh.
Speaker 1: We We've been over acne a bunch, so I don't
Speaker 1: think we really need to talk about the actual process
Speaker 1: of acne. Haven't we done like a whole episode on acne? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Plus we hit it again in the male puberty. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, you're gonna get acne a little girl. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why is because you're now producing
Speaker 1: hair follicles. And your hair follicles produced see bum, and
Speaker 1: see bum is a substance that mixes with all sorts
Speaker 1: of nasty stuff, including dead skin cells, and when it
Speaker 1: happens in the follicle itself rather than on your skin,
Speaker 1: bacteria likes to eat that stuff. You get an infection
Speaker 1: and that's is it, and it's gonna happen, but it
Speaker 1: won't happen to you as much as it does two boys.
Speaker 1: That's right. So much for not getting into what acne
Speaker 1: is that was fast man. I was like that old
Speaker 1: FedEx guy. Uh So, this is a tough time in
Speaker 1: your life. Your body is changing. You're gonna feel weird,
Speaker 1: you might be cramping, you might feel physically odd, emotionally odd,
Speaker 1: hormonially off, and then on top of that, you're gonna
Speaker 1: add acne. It's it's cruel and unusual punishment, is what
Speaker 1: that is. And Tom actually wrote the male puberty and
Speaker 1: female puberty um articles, right, and in both of them
Speaker 1: he says just wash your face. And we said that
Speaker 1: in the male puberty episode and we heard from some
Speaker 1: people that are like, yeah, that's great that that works
Speaker 1: for some people. It doesn't work for everybody. Know, Um,
Speaker 1: they're basically like dealing with PMS. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: different things you can try and just go find out
Speaker 1: what's good for you. Absolutely I got lucky. Some people
Speaker 1: aren't as lucky. I was not lucky. Did you have
Speaker 1: bad acney? Oh yeah, not on my face? I Backney, right,
Speaker 1: But even still I get zits and you don't. It
Speaker 1: drives me crazy. Yeah, well it drives Emily crazy just
Speaker 1: because she wants to pop him. Yeah you mean like
Speaker 1: to do that too. She didn't get any action. So
Speaker 1: she's just like, come on, what's going on. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: looks forward to summer. I get more in the summer
Speaker 1: if you were a young girl. Um. One thing we
Speaker 1: didn't say in the boys episode, which we probably could have,
Speaker 1: because little boys can wear makeup if they want, I guess,
Speaker 1: but take your makeup off at night. Oh yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1: For some reason, this stands out in my mind. I
Speaker 1: saw an interview with Stevie next years ago where someone
Speaker 1: was asking about her skin looking so great. Still. Oh,
Speaker 1: I think you told me this. It might have been
Speaker 1: it might have been in the acting episode, but she said,
Speaker 1: you know is even in the height of my like
Speaker 1: drinking and drugging days, at the end of the night,
Speaker 1: I would take off my makeup. And she's like, that's
Speaker 1: why I have such great skin. That in all the
Speaker 1: lacy scarves that I wear. That helps, I guess, protects
Speaker 1: her from bugs exactly. So we've covered pretty much everything physiological.
Speaker 1: This is all the stuff that's going to happen to you. Um, physically, psychologically,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of changes too. I don't know,
Speaker 1: nothing happens psychologically, right, So, I mean, I would like
Speaker 1: to think that it's probably all based. You could probably
Speaker 1: trace every single change in emotion to hormone. I don't
Speaker 1: think that this is necessarily true. I think that really
Speaker 1: kicks it off, really goods things going. But it is
Speaker 1: true that you have to deal with little brothers and
Speaker 1: boys who don't understand, and jerk dads and um even
Speaker 1: a nice supportive mom is going to seem like a
Speaker 1: monster to you. Like so, I think it creates something
Speaker 1: of a feedback loop for these several years of your
Speaker 1: puberty where you are way moodier, way more stressed out,
Speaker 1: and uh, the world reacts to you as such, so
Speaker 1: you react to the world as such, and you just
Speaker 1: basically have to buckle up and hold on for this stuff.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of really bad decisions you
Speaker 1: can make along the way because you start to have
Speaker 1: a lot more freedom. You get your driver's license, you
Speaker 1: are out there in the world, and people have just
Speaker 1: imbued a lot more trust and responsibility and you at
Speaker 1: the time when you possibly deserve it the absolute least,
Speaker 1: but you need it the most because it's part of
Speaker 1: your development. So you really have to make some good
Speaker 1: choices at this point in time, at times when things
Speaker 1: don't quite make sense to you. So at a time
Speaker 1: like this, the best thing that you can do is
Speaker 1: turn to Judy Bloom. Yeah, man, amen, just set you straight.
Speaker 1: She certainly will. You're gonna be really self aware for
Speaker 1: the first time. You're just happy, go lucky days is
Speaker 1: a little girl are gonna be long gone, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna be really aware of your appearance. Probably gonna be
Speaker 1: worried about your appearance. Um, that is so normal as
Speaker 1: a parent. You may think it's self obsession. It is not.
Speaker 1: It is a young girl starting to become a woman
Speaker 1: and looking in the mirror and going, what in the
Speaker 1: world is happening here? Yeah? Right, Uh, look at my face.
Speaker 1: It just screw a quarter inch while I was standing
Speaker 1: here exactly. Uh uh. This is when your your daughter
Speaker 1: is going to start um looking at her belief system
Speaker 1: and challenging yours and saying, like I said earlier about you,
Speaker 1: big hypocrite. That's when your daughter is going to become
Speaker 1: a vegan and yell at you for buying a dog
Speaker 1: from a pet store and become aware of all these
Speaker 1: social injustices and like, how in the world can you
Speaker 1: guys act like that? Like you're supposed to be my teachers.
Speaker 1: It's called Yeah, put food on the tube. That's all
Speaker 1: that matters. Uh. So, yeah, they're gonna be challenging you,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be uh erratic and moody and um,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be a big circus and you just
Speaker 1: there's no avoiding it. You just gotta get through it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, I mean, like just keeping the lines of
Speaker 1: communication as open as possible and not chasing your parents
Speaker 1: out of your room when they come and try to
Speaker 1: talk to because they seem concerned. It's a really good move.
Speaker 1: And if you're a parent's a good move to try
Speaker 1: to address stuff, especially if you're noticing things that your
Speaker 1: kid didn't do before. There's a certain amount of healthy experimentation,
Speaker 1: right sure, with with pushing boundaries and figuring out where
Speaker 1: the edges are, but that can very easily and very
Speaker 1: quickly change into like really like problematic deviant behavior. These
Speaker 1: are the choices I was telling you about earlier. Kids
Speaker 1: that like, you have to make good choices. Even though
Speaker 1: some of your friends are not making good choices, you
Speaker 1: need to still stand up and do the right thing
Speaker 1: and the same things. And if your parent you're noticing
Speaker 1: that your kid might not be making the good choices.
Speaker 1: You have to address that. That's right. And again, I
Speaker 1: think that the best line is talking to them, not
Speaker 1: necessarily locking them in their room for the rest of
Speaker 1: their teenage years, because that doesn't work. I hate to
Speaker 1: break it to you. Uh, kids are gonna find a way.
Speaker 1: They're gonna sneak out. They're gonna do what they want
Speaker 1: to do. So if you stay there, buddy, and as
Speaker 1: much as you can and keep those lines open, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be ahead of the game. Uh. Your daughter's gonna
Speaker 1: start caring about fashion and clothing a little more. Um,
Speaker 1: and boys just gonna go boy crazy, might go a
Speaker 1: little boy crazy, but she's gonna be looking around saying,
Speaker 1: where do I fit in? You know? Am I am
Speaker 1: I gonna follow the trends? Or am I gonna wear? Uh?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna have my own style and just be
Speaker 1: my own person. And where these weird clothes I might
Speaker 1: get made fun of? Well supposedly like weird is like
Speaker 1: where it's at these days with the kids. Did you
Speaker 1: know that? Sure? So then we're normal clothes right and
Speaker 1: less like a young Republican exactly. Um. Some potential pitfalls
Speaker 1: here as your body is changing because of society's obsession
Speaker 1: with the female form and getting bombarded every day with
Speaker 1: how thin you have to be and how perfect your
Speaker 1: body has to be. Uh, it is fraught with complications
Speaker 1: as a young girl to look a certain way. And
Speaker 1: this is where you can set yourself up for trouble
Speaker 1: with eating disorders or if you're if you're not good
Speaker 1: at expressing yourself, you have no outlet to doing like
Speaker 1: self cutting and these bad things behind closed doors. Um,
Speaker 1: all of that is is very sad, scary stuff, but um,
Speaker 1: all of it can be overcome and it is all
Speaker 1: very much treatable as long as you talk to your
Speaker 1: parents about it to get their help they want to
Speaker 1: help you, or somebody someone you trust. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was looking into self cutting in particular. Um,
Speaker 1: one of the it seems like if you learn to
Speaker 1: express your emotions through something like that, that's it's tough
Speaker 1: to shed that. Apparently, like fifty or sixty percent of
Speaker 1: people who self cut as adults all started um at puberty,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. So that's that's not a healthy way to
Speaker 1: express yourself for to get the rage out or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you're doing that for. So you again
Speaker 1: you have to be smart during this time too. Uh
Speaker 1: you Uh, your daughter might be experimenting with masturbation early
Speaker 1: on and thinking about sexy things. It's all very normal. Um,
Speaker 1: even at a very very young age. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: young girls as young as four and five years old
Speaker 1: who find themselves simulating sex, like with their pillow in
Speaker 1: their bed, with a stuffed animal. Like I've I've seen
Speaker 1: it with my own two eyes, Mr. Bank. I don't
Speaker 1: want to embarrass anyone in my family, but I've seen it.
Speaker 1: Probably stop there, and it's uh for a parent. If
Speaker 1: you've never seen that, it can be very Yeah, it
Speaker 1: can be very disconcerting, I'm sure, but it's all super
Speaker 1: normal and you don't have to worry about it. Um. No,
Speaker 1: but that said you were not ready for sex when
Speaker 1: you're going through puberty or even right after you emerge
Speaker 1: from it. No, of course not. And that's not at
Speaker 1: four and five. They don't even know what that is.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're just uh, they know it feels good
Speaker 1: and they're messing around. And uh, don't shame them, don't
Speaker 1: make them feel like they're dirty or doing something bad. Uh.
Speaker 1: If it you know, everything I read just says you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of wait it out and it should eventually pass. Basically,
Speaker 1: let it guess pass, yea or um, maybe if you
Speaker 1: interrupt or like interrupt her to go do something fun,
Speaker 1: play a game, um or. I even saw one advice
Speaker 1: burst into the room just as a scary clown. That'll
Speaker 1: stop it quick. Uh. One advice thing I saw said
Speaker 1: to um sometimes to just if it's happening in front,
Speaker 1: like you're all sitting around watching TV and you see
Speaker 1: it's happening, then say, you know, would you like to
Speaker 1: go to your room and have a look private time,
Speaker 1: and then they'll come back ten minutes later and be
Speaker 1: with the family again. Where did you see that advice?
Speaker 1: It was in a on a parenting site. Huh, Well,
Speaker 1: do you think it's bad advice? No, I'm just I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: I thought you were doling that out yourself. No, of course,
Speaker 1: I've never dealt with this, but I went to a
Speaker 1: lot of because I couldn't find any medical advice except
Speaker 1: for from parenting sites for doctors. Was that like, it's normal,
Speaker 1: it's normal. It didn't go any further than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically the root of it all was don't shame them,
Speaker 1: and uh, just let them do their thing. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it makes sense, all right. Should we finish up
Speaker 1: like we did with the male puberty and talk about
Speaker 1: some puberty rituals around the world. You know, we have
Speaker 1: a future is like health coaches after this. I think
Speaker 1: I have a feeling we we did pretty good here,
Speaker 1: but also the feeling we're gonna hear from some people
Speaker 1: that are like, you guys, you know you shouldn't say
Speaker 1: this these days. Yeah, you know, like that's I've been
Speaker 1: tense the entire episode because of that. Well, we we
Speaker 1: tried to get it just right. We did, but I also,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're imparting some information here and heavy, heavy,
Speaker 1: important information. I want to get it right, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you can't be at the leading edge of every word.
Speaker 1: We can, you know, yes, we can, all right, the
Speaker 1: female puberty rituals. There is a great history, especially pre
Speaker 1: twentieth century, of UH seclusion at the beginning of monarchy,
Speaker 1: taking a girl out of the tribe or out of
Speaker 1: the village or out of wherever for a period of
Speaker 1: a couple of days to a year or more, um
Speaker 1: secluded away from everyone else. And I looked it up
Speaker 1: and there's a couple of reasons they think sociologically, one
Speaker 1: is to act as a social preparation where it's a
Speaker 1: good thing because they get their secluded with their moms
Speaker 1: and their aunts and they really say like all right,
Speaker 1: well now we gotta start teaching you all these things.
Speaker 1: And the other one was just superstition relating to blood
Speaker 1: as ancient as it gets, or fearing um women who
Speaker 1: are going through their menstrual cycle. Supernatural reasons um apparently, Uh,
Speaker 1: I like this one. The Urubu cut poor in Brazil,
Speaker 1: their tribe in Brazil. Um they when a girl goes
Speaker 1: through monarchy, they cut her hair and then she can
Speaker 1: Mary once it grows back to shoulder length. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, like it's it's almost like a preternatural
Speaker 1: understanding of the development that the body still has yet
Speaker 1: to go through before she can you know Mary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good point. Uh. In Ghana, there are villages
Speaker 1: that um for a few weeks, they separate the girl
Speaker 1: from the village and then they give her instruction which
Speaker 1: we were talking about, which is a good thing on
Speaker 1: social mora, aids and sex said and courtship, and then
Speaker 1: then they have a big celebration, which is really nice.
Speaker 1: With Yeah, same with the Jewish community as of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Um, with the advent of bot mitzvah's, which
Speaker 1: is like a bar mitzvah for girls. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: didn't have them before the twentieth century. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: looked into other rituals and things, and almost every one
Speaker 1: of them I saw we're sort of along those same lines,
Speaker 1: which is, seclude them for a little while, teach them
Speaker 1: about things, and then throw a big party. Uh. Did
Speaker 1: you see the Apache one, the morning Star dance? When
Speaker 1: an Apache girl goes through monarchy, Um, she's secluded from
Speaker 1: the rest of the village for four days, goes through
Speaker 1: this um basically a period of fasting, um, getting very
Speaker 1: little sleep, and on the fourth day, while she's already
Speaker 1: basically starving and sleep to probably, she does a dance
Speaker 1: from sundown to sun up? Are you kidding me? And
Speaker 1: um they there's a really neat national geographic video about
Speaker 1: it where this girl is so excited because this is
Speaker 1: like this marks the transition to womanhood for her, you know.
Speaker 1: But um, she learns a lot about herself, her tribe
Speaker 1: or history, um during this period because she's hanging out
Speaker 1: with her you know, her mom and her grandmother and
Speaker 1: just being taught all this stuff. Interesting. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I saw some South American tribe. I think
Speaker 1: that files the teeth into fangs. Why monarchy? Monarchy? Uh,
Speaker 1: have you got anything else? I got nothing else? Man.
Speaker 1: I hope we did something good here. I think we did.
Speaker 1: I feel good about it. Uh. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about female puberty, you can type those words
Speaker 1: into your favorite search engine and I'll bring up all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. You could also type it into the
Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
Speaker 1: I said search parts, time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: I just tweeted at you, so you may have seen this,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to make sure you got my appreciation
Speaker 1: loud and clear. Just finished listening to the Auto Tune episode, which,
Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, was one of the best you've
Speaker 1: ever done. A lot of people like that one, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you both for being so conscious
Speaker 1: about letting Tracy and Holly have the mic for your
Speaker 1: listener mail discussion. You let the women speak about their
Speaker 1: experiences instead of subtly making it all about the dudes. Uh.
Speaker 1: In this should not be an extraordinary thing. Yet it was. Indeed,
Speaker 1: it demonstrated that you both have an excellent grasp of
Speaker 1: what it means to be a male feminist and solid
Speaker 1: allies to disenfranchise groups. I wish more men in my
Speaker 1: line of work had your attitude and intent on a
Speaker 1: lobbyist for a nonprofit, by the way, that works against
Speaker 1: domestic violence. So bravo, three cheers and well done. And
Speaker 1: that is from Noel. Do tweet. Thanks a lot. No, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really nice of you. Try do your best. Yeah
Speaker 1: I didn't. Yeah, do your best. Suddenly making it about us,
Speaker 1: We didn't do that. Uh not this not this time, time,
Speaker 1: this time. If you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: us to give us kudos or say you guys suck
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