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Chuck and Josh Make It Through Female Puberty · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to oversee this one in particular. Yeah, and uh, this
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is stuffy should know. Yeah, I'm glad Jerry's here for
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: this one because if it was guest producer Noel, it
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be like, I don't know. Yeah, this is on
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: female puberty. Jerry went through female puberty. No did not.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: He did not, although Noel has a daughter, so he
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: might listen to this. So this one's for Nola exactly,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and for all you families out there, all you kids,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: all your parents. Just like with the male puberty episode,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: we hope that this serves as a springboard to conversation
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: because from what I found in research, and I'm sure
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you did as well, that one of the big big
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: things that you need to try to maintain, which is
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: exceedingly difficult, is open lines of communication with your pubescent daughter.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: And if you're the pubescent kid turning into a woman,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you need to try to share your feelings and talk
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to your rents if at all possible. Yeah, that's tough.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And you know, this is very similar to male puberty.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I found not completely but well, I mean obviously physiologically
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: it's different, but going through a lot of the same stuff. Yeah,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: for sure. Um, and and you're right, there will be
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that point as a parent where you and I've heard
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: this from friends where they finally look at their teenage
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: daughter who was you were once their hero and now
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: you're just a big lam Oh you're a zero, You're
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: not funny, you're not cool. Uh And why should I
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: listen to you about anything, because you're also a big
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: fat hypocrite, right exactly. Just get ready, folks, Yeah, get
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: ready to you. And then well yeah, true, yeah, but
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: then after the age of thirteen, you're gonna be friends
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: again when they're like in their mid twenties, and they're
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: gonna think you're great again after the age of thirteen.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the way it works at all.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Between thirteen and like three, oh yeah, they're probably gonna
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: think you're super lame. That's called the waste land years.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And then they think you're cool again. Yeah, well I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: was talking to give me about this. Then you feel
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: bad about you treated them from thirteen twenty you realize, Yeah,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: they're they're not so bad after all. That. So female
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: puberty and um, the girls, if you're listening to this
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and you are going through puberty, you're about to go
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: through puberty. Um, let us just be the the just
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: one thing that you turn to to find out more
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: about talk to people. Like I said, there's also a
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  Speaker 1: ton a ton of stuff on the internet that has
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: some really great advice suggestions just basically type female puberty.
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  Speaker 1: And anything that looks like it was compiled by a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: doctor or reviewed by a doctor, it's probably fairly trustworthy. Yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And um, here's a piece of advice. Uh, go to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: iTunes and subscribe to stuff mom never told you. Oh yeah,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: that's a good that's a good advice from our colleagues,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Caroline Kristen, because it is great and especially at that age,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: they will help you through a whole host of issues
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: hormonal and emotional and physical and empower you. And it's
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a great show. And they even have covered this probably
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: better than we will. But at least let us get
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you going in the right direction, you know, Like I'm
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I'm tittering nervously over here. I think you can imagine,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: but I'm strangely calmer with this one than I was
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: with the male puberty one. I don't understand why. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I could tell you since uh, since that you were
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: more nervous than the other one. So it's great, you
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: know what it is because I got to come to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: this one from the same research perspective, Like I'm researching.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, I'm an outsider researching it. And
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: here's what I came up with with male pubers, like
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I went through there. So I think it was just
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  Speaker 1: more personal. Maybe I hear you. Okay, so let's get
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: this started, right, okay, Chuck. Yes, Let's say you're a
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  Speaker 1: little girl, okay, run about age eight, loving it. Things
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: are great and long. Maybe you got like, uh, your
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: nie skinned last week and that's bumming you out still,
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  Speaker 1: But for the most part, you're pretty happy with everything,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, things just start to
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  Speaker 1: get a little weird. You can't quite put your finger
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  Speaker 1: on it. But what just happened was the g p
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: R fifty four gene. Since that you have reached the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: minimum amount of fat in your body. Lepton is what
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: it monitors, and it caused the hypothalmus, which is a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: cute little playing in your brain to distribute a chemical
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that it's just been holding in reserve basically since you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: were born, called ganadotropin releasing hormon or g n r H.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And you know that game mouse Trap, which no one
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: on the history of Earth ever actually finished before they
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: just set it off and made the whole thing go.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a game attached to it, right, right,
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  Speaker 1: pretty much, that's pretty much what it evolves too. This
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: is basically like mouse Trap for your body. Yeah. And
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  Speaker 1: that um, that fat that you were talking about in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the lefton that resides there, that is a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a newer finding. Uh. Previously, uh, they thought it
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: was a critical weight theory of puberty basically just once
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  Speaker 1: you reach a certain mass. But now they're thinking it
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: actually has to do with the fat itself. So that's why, Uh,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: if you're a little girl that's overweight, you might go
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: through puberty a little bit earlier. Yeah, they think that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that's one reason why early onset puberty becoming more common,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that's right, which we'll talk about also later, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which is not the same thing as precocious puberty. That's
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: an actual medical condition that you should see a doctor
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: about but between precocious puberty and hey, I'm just a
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  Speaker 1: little bit on the early side, there's a very fuzzy
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: period now where there did not used to be. That
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: is not fully inderstood. No, they're still figuring it out.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: So don't feel bad if you don't feel like you
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: have anything figured out either right now? Okay? Agreed? So um,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the g n r H hormone, the ganeto ganado trope
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and releasing hormone, comes out of your hypothalamus and it
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  Speaker 1: slides its way down to your pituitary gland and it
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: sets off in your pituitary gland the release of two
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  Speaker 1: really really important hormones that are going to be important
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: for the rest of your I guess productive life. Reproductive life. Yeah,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: LH the lutenizing hormone and f s H the follicle
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: stimulating hormone. And so these things start coursing through the body,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: entering your bloodstream. And what just happened to you, my
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: young friend, is the you hit puberty. Yeah, that that
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: just started. And at this point you could be somewhere
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: around age eight, nine ten. This is the first stage
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of puberty. Basically anywhere between ages eight and eleven. I
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: think it's considered in the normal range. But like Chuck said, right,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: there's you can go earlier, you can go later. Slapping
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the term normal onto that is a really like touchy thing,
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  Speaker 1: and for good reason, because you know, this is a
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  Speaker 1: very self conscious time in people's lives. So the idea
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that you're outside of the norm on top of this
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: process of being abnormal or feeling abnormals, that's rough. But
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  Speaker 1: say on average that you're between eight and eleven when
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: this first happens. Yeah, there was sent me that New
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: York Times article is really good about the onset of
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  Speaker 1: female puberty and um since there was a landmark study
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty from the UK where they basically said
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the average ages eleven, and that was always sort of
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the common thinking. But there was a woman in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties at the time, she was a physicians associate
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: at Duke named Marcia Herman Giddons, and she said, I'm
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  Speaker 1: noticing a lot of eight and nine year old girls
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  Speaker 1: in my clinic that are like getting pubic hare, that
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  Speaker 1: are have their breast or butting, Like what's going on here? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: And she started writing about that, and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: endochronologists were saying no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And for a couple of uh, about twenty five years,
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  Speaker 1: there was a big debate about it until finally, in
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and ten, three major institutions Cincinnati Children's Hospital,
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  Speaker 1: Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, and Mount Sinai School of
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  Speaker 1: Medicine and New York UH published a study in Pediatric
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  Speaker 1: saying that by age seven of white girls, of black girls,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of Hispanic girls, and two percent of Asian girls, we're
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: developing breasts, uh seven seven And that's that's budding breast.
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  Speaker 1: That's not necessarily puberty. But no, but that's that was
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  Speaker 1: the marker for the onset of puberty. So basically they're
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: saying and now that they don't know quite why this
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  Speaker 1: is happening, but they do think that, um, if you're overweight,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that that can set it off, like we said, and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: really interesting that family stress they think can kick off
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  Speaker 1: puberty earlier. H. They've done studies where they found if
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you're from a broken home or if you were without
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  Speaker 1: your biological father, you were more than twice as likely
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  Speaker 1: to go into puberty early. The same with childhood depression
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  Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, or if your mother is suffering from depression,
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  Speaker 1: it might kick that off. So I think just all
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  Speaker 1: these family stresses can can just kick puberty in at
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  Speaker 1: an earlier age. That's one of the theories at least.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Well that makes sense too, because the what seems to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: be the increase seemingly prevalent attitude toward what constitutes the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: onset of puberty is that once once you're getantotropin hormone
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  Speaker 1: is released, then you're in puberty. Everything else is just
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  Speaker 1: kind of symptomatic or markers of puberty. Right, So if
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you are undergoing a lot of stress, well that can
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  Speaker 1: lead to hormonal release, right. Well. Yeah, Plus, the last
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  Speaker 1: little point they make in this article was that makes
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: sense in an evolutionary sense as far as the theory goes.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: They think that if you have a stressful childhood, you're
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: inclined to earlier reproduction so you can survive bodies, Like,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: we better get this underway. Yeah, Like, my family is stressed,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna survive, so I need
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: to have a baby at like a ten. That is
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: hardcore natural selection thinking, right, Yeah, pretty interesting, I think. Yeah,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: so the the pubescent markers, right, the milestones that you
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: go through typically go hormone release, breastbuds, the pubic hare right,
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  Speaker 1: and then those are the three things that that happened
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: in that order. Typically it can happen out of order.
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  Speaker 1: But with with that hormone release, the first thing that
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: starts it out, which is first stage of puberty. What's
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: what's happening is um, your the uterus, the womb right,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: which includes the uterus, the cervix, the fallopian tubes, ovaries,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: all this stuff are starting to develop. Um, you were born.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I keep saying you, I'm not talking to you, Chuck,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Well I was. I'm the little girl in this experiment, right, girls, Okay,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: so you you are. I'll just stay the little girl
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that you have your skin knee I forgotten. Um you have.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: You were born with about two million to five million
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: UM undeveloped eggs, which are called follicles. And remember one
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: of those hormones that gets released as follicle stimulating hormones.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: So um, when your follicle hormones stimulating, When your follicle
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: stimulating hormones get at least, it goes down to your
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: ovaries and all of a sudden, you start to your
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: engine starts revving as far as your reproductive ability goes
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that your body and you know, let's get you ready
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to have a kid at some point, right, at some point. Yeah,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this this is a year's long process. But the point
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: is the first part of the whole thing is that
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the cervix, the the ovaries, the Filippian tubes, the uterus
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: um all start to change internally and grow and develop. Sure. Yeah,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: so typically in the past, the beginning of puberty is
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: said to start with monarchy, which is weird because that
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that word, that term, it has a long history with stuff.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: You should know, Yeah, because I remember on the Totem
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Poles episode, it was that with the first appearance of it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I think so because they would often build monarchy totems
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: as a celebratory uh thing when a when a young
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: girl has her first period, that's called the monarchy, right,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: So typically that was always thought of as the first
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: sign of puberty or the first step. But as we know,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: by the time monarchy comes on, you have already been
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: undergoing puberty inside your body for a little while. Yeah,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it's kind of stupid to mark the onset of puberty
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: with monarchy, because monarchy actually represents the end of your
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: first reproductive cycle, even though you probably wouldn't have been
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: able to conceive in that first attempt at it. It's
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: your body like kind of going through a few dry runs.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: But that's a that doesn't make any sense to say, well,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you had your first period, so now you're in puberty.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: You've been in puberty for probably a couple of years
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: by then. That's uh, And that monarchy can very wildly. Um.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: They've done studies where they founded age difference of about
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: three and a half years, or it could be as
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: great as three and a half years, um, and it
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: all depends on you know, how fast your body is maturing. Well,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: they found a developmental difference in of up to three
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and a half years and girls the same age, So
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: some girls were three and a half years further along
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: in puberty even though they were ten years old, you know. Um.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So they figured out that hormones, probably the release of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: hormones mark the onset of puberty. Um. One of the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: other things that that comes along, like monarchy, can't it's
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you notice it, right, It's very noticeable the thing that happens. Um.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And that's why for so long they used to say, well,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: now everybody knows, so we know you're in puberty, right,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: even though it doesn't make any sense. As we've said,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Another thing that happens fairly early on and girls in particular,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: is a growth spurt, but like a cartoon growth spurt,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: like Roger rabbit growth spurt, because the hands and the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: feet grow first. Yeah, well, they can grow about three
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and a half inches in a single year, which is
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a lot, but not your hands and feet. Well, yeah,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you're you're your height, but the hands and feet are
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: gonna grow such that, um. You you might be a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: little clumsy because you haven't gotten used to these big
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: banana boats at the end of your legs, right, but
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: fear not, because eventually the rest of your body is
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: gonna grow, um, in sync with it. What's weird is that, um,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: girls grow through the growth spurts before boys. To do
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you remember being like a boy and like the girls
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden in your class from like fifth
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: grade to sixth grade, where it's like, what what happened here?
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: What's going on? The giants? Exactly? Yeah? Year, Well, and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I was I was never like at the head of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: my growth chart, so I was definitely like staring up
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: at girls wondering why they were taller than me. Why
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: are you mad? Why do I have special feelings about
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: this tall girl all of a sudden? Yeah, and why
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: are you so angry at me? Um? And we're gonna
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: talk to you boys here as well, because I can
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: definitely dole out some advice on how to treat your classmates.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: So I'll be sprinkling that in here and there, your
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Uncle Chuck and Mr Clark. That's right. So you're gonna
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: have your big hands and your big feet. You're gonna
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: be tripping, you're gonna be dropping things, but everything. Don't worry,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: it's gonna even out. Your body's gonna catch up. And
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: even though you may be taller than some of the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: boys in your class, um, they're gonna catch up to Um.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: You're just a little bit ahead of the game. Yeah,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: nothing to feel bad about. But you should also not
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: feel bad about this break right now. And then we're
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: gonna come back and talk about more of this stuff.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: It's a chuck. We've kind of touched on it a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: little bit. But let's let's talk about the actual stages
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of puberty. Okay, let's so we've we've mentioned Stage one
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is when the hormones start to get released from the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: pituitary gland, the follicle stimulating hormone, lutenizing hormone, and these
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: along with estrogen for the rest of your reproductive life,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: which goes from the time of your first period until
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: um menopause. Right, those three hormones are gonna be really
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: really important, and they interact with one another, and UM
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: one triggers one and and suppresses the other UM and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: all of them cause those follicles, remember those tiny undeveloped
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: eggs that you're born with, about two million, with to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: develop into eggs about once a month, right, this is
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: your menstrual cycle, that's right. So by the time you
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: enter puberty, the two million follicles, those two million eggs
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: actually have dwindled down to about four hundred thousand. And
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: every time you menstright, starting with that first time, about
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a thousand of those follicles get stimulated and start to
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: turn into eggs. But one of them is just like
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the runaway stand out, the head of the class, the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: A plus student, and that one will develop into what's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: called an ovum, which is a matured, unfertilized egg. And
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: as your as your estrogen levels grow throughout the month
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and increase and increase they hit this this peak level,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and when it peaks, it triggers the sudden release of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: lutenizing hormone, and that lutenizing hormone causes that egg to
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: pop out of your follicle and you know, the fallopian
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: tube and travel down to your uterus, and that is
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: called ovulation. This is probably not gonna happen on the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: first period monarchy. Um, but I mean, it's entirely possible.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: But this is the when you have monarchy. It's um,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: it's again. It's usually like a dry run, like you're
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: trying to your body is figuring it out. Uh. Second stage?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Are we there yet? I think so? Okay, I guess
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you should ask me. I'm the little girl here are
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Are you ready to move on to the second stage? Yes,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Mr Clark? Okay, uh oh man, weird is getting kind
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of weird. The second stage of puberty. Um. Again, it's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: going to vary in age, but we'll go ahead and
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: say like eleven or twelve years old, Um, this is
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: when your breasts are gonna begin to grow, or as
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they say and butting, is when the ariola is gonna
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: darken and rise some and you're gonna get some of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: that breast tissue. And you you know, it might be
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: at that point that your parents say, all right, well,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: maybe it's time to go to the store and introduce
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you to something called the brazier or which no one
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: calls it anymore, it's called a little bra. And um,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you know, getting fitted for that thing I've heard is
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: not a lot of fun because it's like some big
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: mystery and it's hard to get it just right. But
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: hopefully mom and dad will will take you in or
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: a cool older sister. Yeah, and hopefully anyan dad's can
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: be involved in this stuff too. But since mom has
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the experience, they can probably lend a little more like insight,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I would say. Right, and speaking of your mom, if
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you have a wish to know probably what your breaths
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: are going to grow too in size. That sounded like
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a joke, like an elementary school joke, speaking of your mom. Yes,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you your your mom's breast size is probably a decent
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: indicator of what yours is gonna grow too. But you're
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: made up of your mom and your dad, and your
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: dad just he just throws the whole thing off. So really, ultimately,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the best the best resources to look at your maternal
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and paternal grandmothers and see what their breast sides look like. Right,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and don't freak out if there's are around their waist
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: because breast fall over the years and you don't need
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to sweat that just yet. Maybe you could look at
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: pictures of them when they were younger, finally hit on
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that might be horrifying. The third stage, Oh wait, I'm sorry.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Second stage, you're gonna start getting some of that pubic hare, right,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and that's when the growth spurt's going to appear as well.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And your bones are growing really really fast. Um, but
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: they're not as dense as they would be normally. They're
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: not calcified fully, so they can break pretty easy. So
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you need to be careful here. Yeah, that's why you
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: see a lot of little girls little boys walk around
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: arm casts. Although I have never broken a bone. I
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: think you better knock on wood. I'm knocking on wood.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Do you still have that knock on wood? President? I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: got you, I sure do, nice. I do it all
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the time at home. Uh. Third stage pubic care is
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: going to continue to grow. The breasts are going to
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: continue to grow. Hair actually shows up all over the place. Yeah,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: just like a little boys. All of a sudden, it
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: was like in the armpits. It's around your growing areas
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like a jungle. Yeah, just growing all over the place. Uh.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Your vagina is gonna grow in size. And this is
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: usually about the age of twelve to thirteen. And by
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: this time, about seventy of girls, um that have hit
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: stage three have already had monarchy. That's right. And you
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: might say we should probably pause here for a second, chuck.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: If if you are a girl listening to this, there
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: might be a burning question like what is going on? Why?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: What's the teleological reason for all of this? Right? Sure,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that's what they're saying. Um, what has happened is your
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: body has sensed that you you have enough fat to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: sustain a child, a fetus, and your body is undergoing
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the necessary changes to allow you to conceive a child
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and then carry it to full term. That's what's happening
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: with your body right now, That's right. Another thing that's
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: gonna happen is you're gonna start sweating and becoming a
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: stinky little monster. Uh. And that's probably when you're gonna say, Hey,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: while we're at the store getting my first bra, how
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: about a stick of Deo durant, right, anti perse print.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Those days of chasing fireflies all night and not taking
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: a bath for eight days with no repercussions, right, and
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: not smelling at all, smelling like a daisy the whole time.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Those days are gone for the rest of your life.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: That's right. And parents, be you know, sensitive to this.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Don't make fun of your kids. Tell them there're stinky
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: monsters like I just did. Well, Yeah, you're talking to
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: other people's kids. Yeah, be nicer about it, because some
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: kids might laugh and think it's funny. Some kids might
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: be very sensitive to that thing. Just the tad you know,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: which is normal. It's normal stage four around the age
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of thirteen or fourteen. Um. The height that you're growing
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: is gonna slow down a little bit. You're not gonna
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: be growing as tall. Boys are gonna start catching up
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to you in height and your fat levels. Your body
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: fat is gonna basically reach your adult level body fat.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Like in just a couple of years, you could have
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of like eight percent
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: body fat to twenty six percent body fat. Uh. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: you do not want to lose this weight. This is
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: this is um normal weight gain. That's right, that your
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: body needs for to be in reproductive health. That's right,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be Uh. If you've had your first period,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that means you've had your second and third. By this point,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: your body is probably trying to work out some sort
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of a regular rhythm, although for the first little while
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be fairly irregular. Oh yeah, your cycle
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: for many times, and supposedly girls who go through monarchy
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: after thirteen tend to have very irregular periods up until
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: eighteen yea, and even beyond that, even as an adult,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: you can go out of rhythm for all sorts of
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: different things, including like birth control. Yeah. Absolutely uh. And
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: then stage five is when you are have fully matured
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: UM fourteen to seventeen all the way up to like
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen years old. You are through the stages of puberty.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: You're probably as tall as you're gonna get. Your breasts
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you're probably as big as they're gonna get without any
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: kind of surgical help, and um, your pubic hare is
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: hopefully as fully developed as it's gonna get. And then finally,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: your your skeleton and your muscles and your cardiovascular system,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: everything you're you're basically a young woman. You can vote,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: you can't drink, and you can't rent a car. Right,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that's where you're at in life pretty much. So. UM.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: One of the the again, one of the long time
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: markers of um pubescence in girls has been breast development,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: starting with breast buds, right, And what's going on there
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: is your um. Again, your body's developing so that it
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: can support a kid internally. And UM, one of the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: things that you will have to do once you have
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a kid, or be able to do is the nurse. Right,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: So your breast development is changing. There's more tissue, they're
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: they're getting bigger, and the one of the reasons they're
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: getting bigger is because there's they're actually structurally changing, so
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you're forming milk ducks in there and new layers of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: fatty tissue so that you can nurse. It's pretty cool.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And actually I read a really really interesting article on
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: UM mother's milk and the Stranger the other day. UM,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: it's amazing stuff. Get this, dude. So apparently mother's milk
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: can change day to day and produce new antibodies based
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: on what the infant needs. So, like, if the infant
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: is battling like a little bit of a bug. The
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: mom's body can produce anybodies that are transferred through the milk.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: They're like, how does the mom know this? And they
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: have figured out that the baby saliva communicates what what
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: what anybody's here she needs through the nipple, and then
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the mother's body analyzes that stuff and goes, oh, we
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: need these humanibodies, produces it and gives it to the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: kid in the form of milk. This is what you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: will be able to do in just a few years. Girls,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that's pretty phenomenal stuff, that's right. Uh. So, as your
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: breast are getting larger, uh, they may be sore, they
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: may be itchy. Uh. If you have rapid growth, they
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: may have some stretch marks. Don't need to worry about
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: any of this stuff. They may be uh not the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: same size. One breast might grow quicker than the other.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: That's okay too. And Chuck, like you said, also, depending
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: on your race, um, you may develop breastbuds earlier later again,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: totally normal. That's right, all right, So Chuck, the breasts
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: are developed, the hormones are raging, um so, and the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: womb is developing, right. And as the womb is developing
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and it's learning to ovulate. Right. Um. The menstrual cycle, Guys,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you and I tend to think of it as basically
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: this um one week thing that happens, right, it's actually
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a usually a between a twenty and thirty day process.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: And it's not just the the part where you have
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: your mensies, which is the part where you're shedding the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: endometrium from inside the uterus, the lining. It's this whole
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: process of the follicles becoming stimulated, producing an ovum, the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: ovum traveling down the fallopian tube to the uterus hanging
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: out there waiting to see whether it gets fertilized or not,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and um. And then when the egg doesn't get fertilized,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that endometrium, the lining of the uterus, which has become
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: rich with like these blood vessels as part of the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: menstrual process, gets shed. Right. But before it gets shed,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: one of the things that will suddenly appear about six
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: months prior to monarchy is what's called a white vaginal discharge.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: That's right, it is completely normal and it is uh
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the precursor to your first period. You don't need to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: stress out about it if you find that, uh, you know,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: you're in your room and you're getting ready for bed,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and you you see something you haven't seen before in
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: your underwear, then don't freak out. It's all very normal.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: It actually means that you have a very healthy uh uterus.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. There are all kinds of charge actually,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and I did not know that there are all kinds
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of discharge. Are you referring to that one UM article
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: we said, there's there's a great article on our podcast
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: page that has photos of different types of discharge that
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that says, this is normal. This is normal. See a doctor,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: this is normal, you know. Yeah, the normal types UM
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: light yellow discharge if you haven't started your period yet,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the white, thick discharge is common at the beginning and
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: end of the cycle. UM should not itch. If there
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: is an itch going on, then you could have a
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: yeast infection, right, which is basically just a bloom of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: candid to which can be brought on by things like
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: taking antibiotics or something like that. The discharge can be
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: clear and stretchy. That means you are ovulating. That is
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: fertile mucus, right, That's the that's the good stuff. That's
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the stuff that let's sperm get in there and really
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: travel to the ovum. That's right, clear and watery. That
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: is not a problem either. That can occur at all
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: times of the cycle. Uh. It can be dark yellow
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: or green. Uh, and that could be a problem, and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: that means there could be an infection, especially like I said,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: if it's itchy, or if it's clumpy, or if it
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: has a bad odor, then that may be something you
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: need to get checked out. But for the most part
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, it's called cervical mucus, and you're going
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: to be discharging it for basically the rest of your life,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: just a it's just a fact of life. And again
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: it means that you have a nice, healthy uterus and
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: everything's all well with it, unless again there's some warning
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: signs to it, and if there are discussing a doctor,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: get fixed up. You'll be fine. Yeah. And the last
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: one I think we should mention is brown because that
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: can probably be pretty stressful if you've never seen that
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: before as a young girl. And that's after your period,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and that's all that is is your body just cleaning
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: things out. And also again completely normal because blood when
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: it's old looks brown, right, So that's vaginal discharge. That's
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: different from your actual mensies right. So with your menzies um,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that is where you're shedding. Remember that really blood vessel
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: rich lining that gets developed every month along the the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: um the inside of your uterus um that allows an
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: fertilized egg to attach to it, really nourishes it and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: let's it turn into a fetus and all of that.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: It's pretty great stuff, but every month you need to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: shed it and and grow some more stuff. So when
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you shed it, that's what comes out in the form
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: of your your menzies right. And it can feel apparently
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: like a waterfall for a while, but it actually usually
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: amounts to nothing more than four tablespoons, which is like
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a quarter cup at the most. Yeah, on average, can
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: last from three to ten days. Usually the heaviest part
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of that will be in the second and third day um.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And if you do feel like you're having an abnormally
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: heavy period, then maybe you should call your doctor. Of course,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and as you get to know your body, you're gonna
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be very in tune with your cycle and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you know best how you feel and whether or not
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you think something's going on. But the first couple will
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: probably freak you out. Yeah, it's totally understandable. Yeah, and there's, um,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: there's a long history of of period shaming, uh, which
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: is terrible, and there are a lot of people trying
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to do something about that now, in particular in Australia. Uh.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: There's this really cool thing called a Celebration Day for Girls.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I was founded in two thousand and it's a program
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: I think founded by a woman that wrote a book
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: called A Blessing Not a Curse, which is basically a
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: guide book about monarchy in the in the cycle uh
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and said all these shameful, ugly attitudes about monarchy and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: in the period or obviously gonna have a really uh
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: negative impact on your on your child. And so they're
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: getting together now and they're doing these workshops where they
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: get together with mothers and their daughters or fathers and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: daughters are both and where they teach them about what's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: going on and basically saying this is not something bad
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: or dirty or ugly or shameful. This is awesome. This
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: is like you should celebrate this. You're becoming a woman. Yeah,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: when you look amazing, it's really amazing stuff. Yeah, it's
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: it's amazing. So, you know, I think our audience is
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: pretty sensitive and uh, up to date and forward thinking.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: But if there are any dads out there, little brothers
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: who are are making fun of sister's period or your
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: daughter's period, just don't even make jokes. Don't make cracks.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: This is very stand outside for a while by yourself.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: It's a very rough time, or it can be, and
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: they need to be celebrated for entering this period in
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: their life, not not shamed. So that's good stuff, chuck. Yeah,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you know what it reminds me of. There's his kids
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in the hall from years and years and years ago
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: where Dave Foley was the boyfriend with the good attitude
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: towards menstruation. Remember that one, Hious, that's pretty good. Was
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: there a counterpart that it was a little still liquy? Yeah,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that's good. I'm sure. I'm positive it's online. Uh. One
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: of the things though, even though men's season, monarchy and
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: menstruation should be celebrated and investigated and understood and not
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: poked fun at um, is that there are some definite
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: downsides to it. Apparently, there is a a pole of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: women Um that was carried out by the Association of
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Reproductive Health Professionals and only eight percent of women said
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: that they um found something positive about their um menstrual cycle.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: There about menstruating, they weren't very happy with it, right,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure one of the big reasons is because,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: um it feels awful like you cramp. And the reason
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: why cramping is associated with it is because that endometrium
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: is being shed and the way it sheds is your
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: um users contracts. And it can be uncomfortable to say
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the least. Yeah, it can be everywhere uncomfortable to debilitating,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: depending on who you are. There is no single method
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: to relieve cramping. You might try medications or just rest
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: or certain diet or activity, Uh, try anything. You can.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Ask your your girlfriends, ask your mom, ask your weird aunt,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: and uh, they'll probably have some good advice on on
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: how to you know, quell those cramps somewhat. And then finally,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of course, along with menstruation comes pre minstrul old syndrome
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: p MS, which we should do a show on at
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: some point. And I agree wholeheartedly. Man, I think there's
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of um weirdness, a lot of misunderstanding around that. Yeah,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I agree. Uh, there may be some bloating going on,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: aches and pains which you talked about, and moodiness which
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: can happen, and you know you may not feel like yourself.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's just the easiest way to say it.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: You're not a bad person. You may hate all boys,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you might. Yeah, and again Dad's little brothers, big, go
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: stand outside. Don't start making fun of your sister and
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: saying you're acting this way because you're going to have
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: your period. That is a bad road to go down.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Clean dog poop up in the yard or something. That's right,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and you think about yourself for a little while. All right, Well,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: let's take another break here, and when we come back,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about teenage moods and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: acne and all the other good stuff. All right, we're back,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and Jerry just gave us a stamp of approval that
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: we're doing a pretty good job so far. I'm not
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: sure if I buy no man, I think she's she
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: didn't lie to us, scurry lies. She's a publicist. Yeah,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the publicists did not like that episode. Oh did you
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: hear bad things? Uh? Huh. All I've gotten is like, yeah,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: you guys hit it on the head. Just a lot
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: of them were like, you really hurt my feelings really,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: especially once they didn't make it all the way through
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the episode. Oh where I say at the end, like,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just talking about big celebrity probosists, which you probably
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: should have frontloaded because some people haven't made it through that.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: And they said, well, all right, let's talk about acne. Uh.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: We We've been over acne a bunch, so I don't
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: think we really need to talk about the actual process
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of acne. Haven't we done like a whole episode on acne? Yeah,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Plus we hit it again in the male puberty. Oh yeah,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: but um, you're gonna get acne a little girl. Yeah. Well,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why is because you're now producing
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: hair follicles. And your hair follicles produced see bum, and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: see bum is a substance that mixes with all sorts
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of nasty stuff, including dead skin cells, and when it
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: happens in the follicle itself rather than on your skin,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: bacteria likes to eat that stuff. You get an infection
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: and that's is it, and it's gonna happen, but it
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: won't happen to you as much as it does two boys.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: That's right. So much for not getting into what acne
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: is that was fast man. I was like that old
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: FedEx guy. Uh So, this is a tough time in
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: your life. Your body is changing. You're gonna feel weird,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: you might be cramping, you might feel physically odd, emotionally odd,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: hormonially off, and then on top of that, you're gonna
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: add acne. It's it's cruel and unusual punishment, is what
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: that is. And Tom actually wrote the male puberty and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: female puberty um articles, right, and in both of them
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: he says just wash your face. And we said that
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in the male puberty episode and we heard from some
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: people that are like, yeah, that's great that that works
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: for some people. It doesn't work for everybody. Know, Um,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: they're basically like dealing with PMS. There's a lot of
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: different things you can try and just go find out
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: what's good for you. Absolutely I got lucky. Some people
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: aren't as lucky. I was not lucky. Did you have
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: bad acney? Oh yeah, not on my face? I Backney, right,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: But even still I get zits and you don't. It
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: drives me crazy. Yeah, well it drives Emily crazy just
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: because she wants to pop him. Yeah you mean like
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: to do that too. She didn't get any action. So
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: she's just like, come on, what's going on. Yeah, she
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: looks forward to summer. I get more in the summer
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: if you were a young girl. Um. One thing we
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: didn't say in the boys episode, which we probably could have,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: because little boys can wear makeup if they want, I guess,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: but take your makeup off at night. Oh yeah, I remember.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: For some reason, this stands out in my mind. I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: saw an interview with Stevie next years ago where someone
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: was asking about her skin looking so great. Still. Oh,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I think you told me this. It might have been
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: it might have been in the acting episode, but she said,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: you know is even in the height of my like
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: drinking and drugging days, at the end of the night,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I would take off my makeup. And she's like, that's
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: why I have such great skin. That in all the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: lacy scarves that I wear. That helps, I guess, protects
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: her from bugs exactly. So we've covered pretty much everything physiological.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: This is all the stuff that's going to happen to you. Um, physically, psychologically,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of changes too. I don't know,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: nothing happens psychologically, right, So, I mean, I would like
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: to think that it's probably all based. You could probably
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: trace every single change in emotion to hormone. I don't
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: think that this is necessarily true. I think that really
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: kicks it off, really goods things going. But it is
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: true that you have to deal with little brothers and
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: boys who don't understand, and jerk dads and um even
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: a nice supportive mom is going to seem like a
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: monster to you. Like so, I think it creates something
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: of a feedback loop for these several years of your
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: puberty where you are way moodier, way more stressed out,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and uh, the world reacts to you as such, so
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you react to the world as such, and you just
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: basically have to buckle up and hold on for this stuff.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: And there are a lot of really bad decisions you
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: can make along the way because you start to have
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: a lot more freedom. You get your driver's license, you
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: are out there in the world, and people have just
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: imbued a lot more trust and responsibility and you at
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: the time when you possibly deserve it the absolute least,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: but you need it the most because it's part of
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: your development. So you really have to make some good
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: choices at this point in time, at times when things
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: don't quite make sense to you. So at a time
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: like this, the best thing that you can do is
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: turn to Judy Bloom. Yeah, man, amen, just set you straight.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: She certainly will. You're gonna be really self aware for
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the first time. You're just happy, go lucky days is
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: a little girl are gonna be long gone, and you're
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: gonna be really aware of your appearance. Probably gonna be
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: worried about your appearance. Um, that is so normal as
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: a parent. You may think it's self obsession. It is not.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: It is a young girl starting to become a woman
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and looking in the mirror and going, what in the
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: world is happening here? Yeah? Right, Uh, look at my face.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: It just screw a quarter inch while I was standing
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: here exactly. Uh uh. This is when your your daughter
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: is going to start um looking at her belief system
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and challenging yours and saying, like I said earlier about you,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: big hypocrite. That's when your daughter is going to become
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: a vegan and yell at you for buying a dog
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: from a pet store and become aware of all these
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: social injustices and like, how in the world can you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: guys act like that? Like you're supposed to be my teachers.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: It's called Yeah, put food on the tube. That's all
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that matters. Uh. So, yeah, they're gonna be challenging you,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: and they're gonna be uh erratic and moody and um,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: it's just gonna be a big circus and you just
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: there's no avoiding it. You just gotta get through it. Yeah,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and again, I mean, like just keeping the lines of
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: communication as open as possible and not chasing your parents
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: out of your room when they come and try to
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: talk to because they seem concerned. It's a really good move.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: And if you're a parent's a good move to try
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to address stuff, especially if you're noticing things that your
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: kid didn't do before. There's a certain amount of healthy experimentation,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: right sure, with with pushing boundaries and figuring out where
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the edges are, but that can very easily and very
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: quickly change into like really like problematic deviant behavior. These
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: are the choices I was telling you about earlier. Kids
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: that like, you have to make good choices. Even though
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: some of your friends are not making good choices, you
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: need to still stand up and do the right thing
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: and the same things. And if your parent you're noticing
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: that your kid might not be making the good choices.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: You have to address that. That's right. And again, I
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: think that the best line is talking to them, not
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: necessarily locking them in their room for the rest of
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: their teenage years, because that doesn't work. I hate to
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: break it to you. Uh, kids are gonna find a way.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: They're gonna sneak out. They're gonna do what they want
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to do. So if you stay there, buddy, and as
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: much as you can and keep those lines open, you're
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: gonna be ahead of the game. Uh. Your daughter's gonna
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: start caring about fashion and clothing a little more. Um,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and boys just gonna go boy crazy, might go a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: little boy crazy, but she's gonna be looking around saying,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: where do I fit in? You know? Am I am
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I gonna follow the trends? Or am I gonna wear? Uh?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Am I gonna have my own style and just be
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: my own person. And where these weird clothes I might
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: get made fun of? Well supposedly like weird is like
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: where it's at these days with the kids. Did you
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: know that? Sure? So then we're normal clothes right and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: less like a young Republican exactly. Um. Some potential pitfalls
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: here as your body is changing because of society's obsession
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: with the female form and getting bombarded every day with
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: how thin you have to be and how perfect your
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: body has to be. Uh, it is fraught with complications
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: as a young girl to look a certain way. And
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: this is where you can set yourself up for trouble
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: with eating disorders or if you're if you're not good
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: at expressing yourself, you have no outlet to doing like
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: self cutting and these bad things behind closed doors. Um,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: all of that is is very sad, scary stuff, but um,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: all of it can be overcome and it is all
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: very much treatable as long as you talk to your
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: parents about it to get their help they want to
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: help you, or somebody someone you trust. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: And I was looking into self cutting in particular. Um,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: one of the it seems like if you learn to
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: express your emotions through something like that, that's it's tough
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to shed that. Apparently, like fifty or sixty percent of
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: people who self cut as adults all started um at puberty,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. So that's that's not a healthy way to
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: express yourself for to get the rage out or whatever
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: it is that you're doing that for. So you again
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: you have to be smart during this time too. Uh
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you Uh, your daughter might be experimenting with masturbation early
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: on and thinking about sexy things. It's all very normal. Um,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: even at a very very young age. Uh. There are
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: young girls as young as four and five years old
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: who find themselves simulating sex, like with their pillow in
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: their bed, with a stuffed animal. Like I've I've seen
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: it with my own two eyes, Mr. Bank. I don't
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: want to embarrass anyone in my family, but I've seen it.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Probably stop there, and it's uh for a parent. If
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you've never seen that, it can be very Yeah, it
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: can be very disconcerting, I'm sure, but it's all super
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: normal and you don't have to worry about it. Um. No,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: but that said you were not ready for sex when
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: you're going through puberty or even right after you emerge
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: from it. No, of course not. And that's not at
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: four and five. They don't even know what that is.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're just uh, they know it feels good
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: and they're messing around. And uh, don't shame them, don't
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: make them feel like they're dirty or doing something bad. Uh.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: If it you know, everything I read just says you know,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: just sort of wait it out and it should eventually pass. Basically,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: let it guess pass, yea or um, maybe if you
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: interrupt or like interrupt her to go do something fun,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: play a game, um or. I even saw one advice
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: burst into the room just as a scary clown. That'll
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: stop it quick. Uh. One advice thing I saw said
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: to um sometimes to just if it's happening in front,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: like you're all sitting around watching TV and you see
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: it's happening, then say, you know, would you like to
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: go to your room and have a look private time,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and then they'll come back ten minutes later and be
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: with the family again. Where did you see that advice?
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: It was in a on a parenting site. Huh, Well,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: do you think it's bad advice? No, I'm just I'm surprised.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I thought you were doling that out yourself. No, of course,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I've never dealt with this, but I went to a
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: lot of because I couldn't find any medical advice except
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: for from parenting sites for doctors. Was that like, it's normal,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: it's normal. It didn't go any further than that. Yeah,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: basically the root of it all was don't shame them,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, just let them do their thing. Yeah, I
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: mean it makes sense, all right. Should we finish up
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: like we did with the male puberty and talk about
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: some puberty rituals around the world. You know, we have
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: a future is like health coaches after this. I think
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling we we did pretty good here,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: but also the feeling we're gonna hear from some people
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: that are like, you guys, you know you shouldn't say
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this these days. Yeah, you know, like that's I've been
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: tense the entire episode because of that. Well, we we
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: tried to get it just right. We did, but I also,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're imparting some information here and heavy, heavy,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: important information. I want to get it right, you know. Yeah,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: but you can't be at the leading edge of every word.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: We can, you know, yes, we can, all right, the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: female puberty rituals. There is a great history, especially pre
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: twentieth century, of UH seclusion at the beginning of monarchy,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: taking a girl out of the tribe or out of
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the village or out of wherever for a period of
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: a couple of days to a year or more, um
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: secluded away from everyone else. And I looked it up
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: and there's a couple of reasons they think sociologically, one
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: is to act as a social preparation where it's a
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: good thing because they get their secluded with their moms
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: and their aunts and they really say like all right,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: well now we gotta start teaching you all these things.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And the other one was just superstition relating to blood
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: as ancient as it gets, or fearing um women who
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: are going through their menstrual cycle. Supernatural reasons um apparently, Uh,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I like this one. The Urubu cut poor in Brazil,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: their tribe in Brazil. Um they when a girl goes
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: through monarchy, they cut her hair and then she can
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Mary once it grows back to shoulder length. Yeah, it's
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: kind of interesting, like it's it's almost like a preternatural
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: understanding of the development that the body still has yet
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: to go through before she can you know Mary. Yeah,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: it's a good point. Uh. In Ghana, there are villages
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: that um for a few weeks, they separate the girl
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: from the village and then they give her instruction which
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: we were talking about, which is a good thing on
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: social mora, aids and sex said and courtship, and then
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: then they have a big celebration, which is really nice.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: With Yeah, same with the Jewish community as of the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: twentieth century. Um, with the advent of bot mitzvah's, which
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: is like a bar mitzvah for girls. Yeah, but they
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: didn't have them before the twentieth century. Yeah. And I
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: looked into other rituals and things, and almost every one
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: of them I saw we're sort of along those same lines,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: which is, seclude them for a little while, teach them
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: about things, and then throw a big party. Uh. Did
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: you see the Apache one, the morning Star dance? When
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: an Apache girl goes through monarchy, Um, she's secluded from
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the rest of the village for four days, goes through
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: this um basically a period of fasting, um, getting very
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: little sleep, and on the fourth day, while she's already
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: basically starving and sleep to probably, she does a dance
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: from sundown to sun up? Are you kidding me? And
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: um they there's a really neat national geographic video about
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: it where this girl is so excited because this is
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: like this marks the transition to womanhood for her, you know.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: But um, she learns a lot about herself, her tribe
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: or history, um during this period because she's hanging out
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: with her you know, her mom and her grandmother and
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: just being taught all this stuff. Interesting. Yeah, it sounds
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. I saw some South American tribe. I think
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: that files the teeth into fangs. Why monarchy? Monarchy? Uh,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: have you got anything else? I got nothing else? Man.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I hope we did something good here. I think we did.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I feel good about it. Uh. If you want to
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: know more about female puberty, you can type those words
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: into your favorite search engine and I'll bring up all
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. You could also type it into the
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I said search parts, time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: I just tweeted at you, so you may have seen this,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to make sure you got my appreciation
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: loud and clear. Just finished listening to the Auto Tune episode, which,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, was one of the best you've
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: ever done. A lot of people like that one, and
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you both for being so conscious
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: about letting Tracy and Holly have the mic for your
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: listener mail discussion. You let the women speak about their
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: experiences instead of subtly making it all about the dudes. Uh.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: In this should not be an extraordinary thing. Yet it was. Indeed,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: it demonstrated that you both have an excellent grasp of
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: what it means to be a male feminist and solid
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: allies to disenfranchise groups. I wish more men in my
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: line of work had your attitude and intent on a
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: lobbyist for a nonprofit, by the way, that works against
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: domestic violence. So bravo, three cheers and well done. And
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: that is from Noel. Do tweet. Thanks a lot. No, well, yeah,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: that's really nice of you. Try do your best. Yeah
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't. Yeah, do your best. Suddenly making it about us,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: We didn't do that. Uh not this not this time, time,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: this time. If you want to get in touch with
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: us to give us kudos or say you guys suck
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: or whatever reason um, or to let us know if
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: we really missed the mark on female puberty, we want
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to hear all about it. You can tweet to us
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
• 53:49
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• 53:51
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• 53:53
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• 53:56
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• 53:58
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• 54:06
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