How To Make Puberty and Sex Talks Less Awkward with Dr. Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett

 0:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to hang out with Dr. Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett to chat about how to make puberty and sex talks less awkward. Our editor, Kristin, for the podcast and Rach both were like, oh my gosh, this episode is gold. I love how approachable Cara and Vanessa are and how much they let me be me in this and share about how little I was spoken to about puberty and sex and how awkward it is now when my kids do things like ask if they can invite me to their penis party. Fear not, Dr. Cara Natterson is a pediatrician and New York Times best -selling author of 10 books including the Care and Keeping of You series and Vanessa Kroll Bennett is a best -selling author and puberty educator. Together, they're two of the most trusted voices on puberty, co -authoring the national bestseller, This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained, and co -hosting This is So Awkward, the podcast. Cara and Vanessa run Less Awkward, the first company aimed at making puberty more comfortable with a membership for parents, an innovative health and sex ed curriculum for schools, and game -changing products. Cara and Vanessa speak to audiences across the country using science and humor to encourage open, albeit awkward, conversations. A relatable, reliable approach to help keep kids safe and healthy. They don't just hand out this advice, they live it. Between them, they are raising six teenagers. Y 'all, I'm so stoked for you to dive into this episode and to tune in to This is So Awkward, the podcast, and snag their book, This Is So Awkward. All right, folks, let's dive in. 

00:01:58    Alyssa

Hey there. I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co -creator of the Collaborative Emotion Processing Method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together. 

00:02:19    Alyssa

Okay, I have a question for you. When you were growing up, did they talk to you about your bodies or about sex? 

00:02:27    Vanessa

Did our mothers or parents? 

00:02:30    Alyssa

Yeah, yeah. 

00:02:32    Vanessa

So I will answer for my family. My dad was not that involved in the conversations. My mom did talk a lot about bodies and sex and even pleasure, I would say, made its way into some conversations. 

00:02:54    Alyssa

Oh wow. Ahead of her time, I feel like. 

00:02:56    Vanessa

She was very much ahead of her time. She was like a real product of 1970s New York parenting without the Tab, the can of Tab, and the cigarettes. And she did actually talk about it. I'm also a third, a four, as is Cara, which is kind of fascinating. 

00:03:16    Alyssa

I'm a four of five. 

00:03:18    Vanessa

You're a four of five. Interesting. Cara, we don't have a general, we are very drawn to other thirds of four, but I feel like a fourth of five is kind of fits in that category. It's like second to last. 

00:03:28    Alyssa

Thank you, I feel so welcome. 

00:03:30    Vanessa

Yeah. 

00:03:32    Cara

Come sit by us. 

00:03:36    Vanessa

So she, my older two siblings, I feel like we're divided into the big kids and the little kids, and my younger brother and I spent a lot of time like reading puberty books and sex books and kind of hanging out together. And my older siblings, I would say, spent much less time doing those activities. 

00:03:57    Alyssa

Yeah. 

00:03:58    Vanessa

Yeah. 

00:03:58    Alyssa

And what about you, Cara? 

00:03:59    Cara

My mom didn't talk to me at all. I mean, if my mother was sitting here right now, she would fully rewrite this history. She would be like, I talked to you every day. This hurts me because I can't believe you don't remember. But it's okay because I love her so much and she was a great mother in so many ways. But no, she did not talk to me. I'm the third of four. I am the only girl. 

00:04:21    Alyssa

I'm the only girl. 

00:04:22    Cara

I mean, Vanessa and I--

00:04:23    Vanessa

Oh, really? I have three boys and a girl, Alyssa, and my daughter's kick -ass.

00:04:30    Cara

Being the only girl, not knowing anything about changing bodies and being educated by by your older brothers who know nothing about changing bodies was very, very, very interesting. 

00:04:39    Vanessa

Thus, you became a pediatrician who writes all about puberty. 

00:04:43    Cara

Yes. But I do have - 

00:04:45    Alyssa

Like I will give my younger self what she needed. 

00:04:50    Cara

Yeah, exactly. But today I have a better dynamic with my mom on these topics because I started being very clinical about it. Like I was cold and clinical and that was an easy way in. And then over time have morphed into a much softer, fuzzier version of clinical. And it's been great. My mom has come along for the ride and she, I mean, she's not super into talking about menopause and later stages of life, but she will definitely go there about puberty. 

00:05:22    Alyssa

That's rad. I grew up in a household where they would rather die or throw up than mention any body part outside of like your chin and your elbow. And nobody would 

00:05:39    Cara

They talk about chins. Wow. 

00:05:41    Alyssa

I know. Risqué. And so there was no discussion about definitely not about puberty, not about my changing body, none of it. And then I when I came like into like college age was like, oh, this isn't something everyone experienced, and went completely the other way and was like, I'm just going to make you very uncomfortable in an effort to make myself feel comfortable here. And now I have had two home births that my parents have been at and have embraced the stuff of it all. And now as a parent, I'm like, oh my God, I have to like do a thing that I was never taught to me. Right? Like I have to have these conversations with humans. I have a son and a daughter and no one ever did that with me. And so it feels foreign. 

00:06:40    Vanessa

Yeah, I mean, that's, Alyssa, we hear that probably more than anything else is people figuring out how to do it when, meaning how to talk to kids about puberty and changing bodies. 

00:06:53    Cara

Thank you for clarifying that. We also talk about how to do it, let's just be very clear. 

00:07:00    Vanessa

I mean, ultimately, how to do it or how to be safe when doing it or how to get consent when doing it, you know, that variety. But people saying, I want to do it differently. I know the ways in which I didn't benefit from having it not talked about. I want to do it differently. I'm just not sure how. 

00:07:22    Alyssa

Yeah. Yeah.  And that's why I'm super stoked to chat about with y 'all because so much of our work at Seed is on like how do we foster relationships from an early age where we can have hard conversations and talk about anything and hold space for and really the like how do we have that type of relationship? What we don't do is like so then when you have that relationship, what do you say when it comes to puberty and changing bodies and sex, etc. And even in I have a forthcoming book this coming fall for the like elementary age and like how to raise emotionally intelligent humans and foster emotional development. And we have a section in there on like sex and puberty. And it's really on the like, how do we have that relationship where they can keep coming to us and we can have these hard, awkward,  challenging maybe for us new conversations, but what we don't do is what you do of like, and then what do you say? How do you have this? So thank you for doing the work you do. 

00:08:27    Cara

Well, you're welcome. Why though? Like why are we all, why is it so worrying and scary to script it actually, right? 

00:08:40    Alyssa

Yeah. 

00:08:40    Cara

And I think, I mean, some of it needs a little bit of medical expertise, great, okay, whatever. But like 80 % of it, 85 % of it, no. We know the facts. We know we can look up the words and learn the language. It feels very third rail. 

00:08:58    Alyssa

I think what is... So like when my son is like playing with his penis and my initial reaction is like, uuuugh, right? Like, and like, that is what comes up for me first, right? And so it's the it's the me part of it that I have to be like, OK, let's move past the initial reaction into secondary response. And then it's just a blank that's drawn, because in that moment, I forget anything I know about bodies and penises and any of this. And I'm just like, what am I supposed to say right now? Because all I want to say is like, stop it. 

00:09:39    Cara

Well, you don't know that I still live there in that very spot all these years later. 

00:09:45    Vanessa

But Alyssa, let's use that as an example. That's a perfect example. How old is he? 

00:09:49    Alyssa

He's about to be four. And it's his favorite body part and has been for a long time. 

00:09:54    Alyssa

Yeah, it will be and it will continue to be maybe forever and ever. 

00:10:00    Cara

BFFs forever. Yes. 

00:10:01    Alyssa

Also, as we dive into this, I feel like you'll appreciate this. The other day I was like, Sage, this is not an appropriate place to touch your penis. And he was like, mom, I'm not offended. He was like, I'm touching my scrotum. I was like, okay, just as a general rule of thumb, any place that is not appropriate to touch your penis is also not appropriate to touch your scrotum. 

00:10:21    Vanessa

I mean, you're winning at something if your four -year -old told you he was touching his scrotum. I mean, come on, that is a first. That is a first. 

00:10:31    Alyssa

Oh my God. I was like, yeah, just pair these together for general rule of thumb going forward. 

00:10:35    Vanessa

You're like, it's a package deal, dude. It's a package deal. But like, that's a perfect example. I mean, I think clocking our reactions to whatever it is our kids are doing, let's say touching themselves, and for your listeners' sake, it's super normal for kids of all genders to touch themselves. Kids can masturbate, you know, from very early on. Toddlers can self -soothe through masturbation. And so it's not just boys who touch their genitals and kids don't just start touching themselves once they're in puberty. It happens, you know, they're checking stuff out, it feels nice. So figuring out your reaction, I mean, you're an educator. So like, you know, okay, let me clock my reaction here. And then it's like, do you need to say anything at all? So maybe you were in the supermarket while he was touching his scrotum, at which point you said, please don't touch your penis and scrotum in the supermarket. It's totally okay in your bedroom, in the bathroom, but like in public spaces, we're gonna not do that. The question becomes, Alyssa, when he says to you, why not? 

00:11:56    Alyssa

Right. And that's where I'm just like, I've forgotten everything I've ever heard about this. Right in the moment I'm just like because I said I become my mom: because I said so. 

00:12:05    Vanessa

Right This is the tricky part of these conversations because on the one hand we want our kids to feel bodily autonomy and to feel control and agency with their bodies, but also we have to teach them over time to understand their bodies and their beings in the larger context of the world whether it's in school, or at the town pool, or in the supermarket. And they do have to be aware of how their behavior makes other people feel. And the concept for a four -year -old of privacy is a really important time, right? Is he like in pre -K or like late? 

00:12:52    Alyssa

Umm hmm. 

00:12:52    Vanessa

Right, so the teachers probably spend, what do you imagine, Alyssa? I mean, 70 % of the day. 

00:12:58    Alyssa

I mean, I was a preschool teacher. 

00:13:00    Vanessa

Right.

00:13:00    Alyssa

 I just had a kid flashback. I was like, Bud you can't touch your penis in block area, and he'd be like, Miss Alyssa, just a little bit. And I'm like, nap time? And in the bathroom. Just a little bit, Miss Alyssa. So calm. 

00:13:14    Vanessa

Oh, bless. I mean, the negotiation, but it's like, the educators are helping to build the skills of appropriate places and privacy. So, if your kid says to you, why not, you can even say, hey, what do your teachers say at school? I'm curious, like, what the boundaries and the rules are at school, and let's think about how those apply with our family. So that would be one example. Cara, I don't know if you want to add to that. 

00:13:40    Cara

Yeah, I mean, so I have two separate thought streams happening in my head right now, and I'm going to try to hold the second one while I share the first one. Good luck to me. One is just my obsession with this concept of why, which Vanessa knows all too well because it's been years and years and years in conversation together, but now I have made her equally obsessed. I think explaining… 

00:14:07    Vanessa

Sometimes. 

00:14:07    Cara

Most of the… like 80 % of the time. I think explaining the why is the key to raising kids, not just parenting, but adulting kids. 

00:14:22    Alyssa

I 100 % agree. 

00:14:22    Cara

I think if we can share, right? If we can share our rationale, then they can take the rule or limit that we have set, and they can apply it to other circumstances, because it makes sense to them. Or they can push back, and we can be in an interesting conversation with them, which the older they get, the more interesting the conversations get, let me tell you. So I love the idea of explaining why it's not an apology, it's not an insistence, it's just you're just giving your rationale. That's one stream. Oh my God, I've held two streams in my brain. 

00:14:53    Vanessa

Bravo. 

00:14:54    Cara

Thank you. The second stream of thought is that there is this funny thing that happens when we're talking about bodies, body parts, changing bodies, touching bodies, anything that is remotely sexual, which is where is the clinical line? Like where is this sort of social and socially acceptable and relational and where is it about bodies and disease and dangerous things that could happen, right? 

00:15:29    Vanessa

And pee from your penis that gets on the blocks in the block area. 

00:15:34    Cara

AKA the gross stuff. Right, exactly. And like, I think what has happened over millennia is a complete muddling of the actual clinical or physiological or medical facts and the pieces that are not. So like when I was growing up and I'm a bit older than both of you, but when I was growing up, the big line about masturbation was, don't masturbate, you'll grow hair on your palms. There was a terrifying clinical consequence to touching your genitals. That's fascinating that the way to freak kids out was to give them a make -believe consequence that was physiological or biological, like crazy town, right? So we have so blurred these things. And the example of don't touch your scrotum in the market is such a great one because it's a great example of it's not biological, it's not clinical, nothing bad. You know, I mean, I would imagine there's a one in a zillion chance you pick up a wacky infection from something you just touched on the grocery cart, but chances are nothing's going to happen to you other than you're going to violate someone else's sense of okay. You've crossed the ick line with someone else and as that kid's adult, you're just helping that kid see we don't touch privates in public. That's the line, that's a social line we've all agreed on, but here are all the great places that you can do it. So I just find that blurring fascinating. 

00:17:22    Alyssa

Okay, Cara, I love this so much and I hadn't thought about it this way, of that separation between the clinical and the social. And this is where I think the rubber meets the road of when they ask why, if it is something that's social and it isn't clinical, I think that's where it gets hard because I don't know that we all know the why. Right? Like we don't all know our why. And it's why answering the whys for kids, it gets so annoying because sometimes like, I don't know, I just don't want you to do this, right? Like I set this boundary really quickly. Please, could you just for the love once in a blue moon follow that and not ask the why and like they're not going to, right? They want to be co -creators of it and they want to understand it. And I agree that kids understanding the why is really crucial in raising humans. It allows them to then make a conscious choice. It allows them to, as you said, apply that in other scenarios, but even in that moment, decide. I, for instance, I have two humans. My husband is like my son in that they love a boundary, they wanna know what it is, and they're gonna stay within it. I and my daughter are very similar, where I'm like, you can tell me the boundary, and then I'm gonna decide whether or not I think that that's an appropriate boundary and if I think that that's doubtful, I'm not going to follow it. And so if you give me the because I said so or I don't think that the reason behind the boundary is something that's in alignment with my values or what I think is true, I'm not going to follow it. Then for me, it's just not real. But providing that why is so key and I think that social piece is tough because we don't supposed to do that. You're not supposed to touch yourself in the grocery store, right? And so like, 

00:19:12    Vanessa

It's subjective. 

00:19:14    Alyssa

It is subjective. It is. And that's where I think it's going to change for everybody, right? Like my boundaries around stuff might be different than somebody else's. And it's going to come back to like, what are my beliefs and what are my social contract why's? 

00:19:31    Vanessa

Right. I mean, another question we get a lot is like, when should I stop walking around naked in my house or when should everybody stop walking around naked, right? People are aware of that as a boundary and I think are really looking for like a hard and fast age because they have a sense that things are. 

00:19:52    Alyssa

Vanessa, I feel like you're not going to tell me. 

00:19:54    Vanessa

There's no hard and fast age.

00:19:57    Alyssa

Hate this.

00:19:57    Vanessa

 I'm so sorry to tell you that. 

00:20:00    Cara

I mean, Vanessa put on clothes for today's podcast, so that's good. 

00:20:03    Vanessa

Yeah, I mean, count yourself lucky because you never know what you're gonna get. 

00:20:07    Alyssa

Or not, Vanessa, subjective there. 

00:20:09    Vanessa

I know, I know, it's subjective. You could also be really disappointed. But one of the things, Alyssa, getting back to your point is that we often say kids will tell you when they're ready for the norms in your household to change. So kids will often say, and I experienced this with my own kids, where they were like, either they stopped coming in while I was showering or getting ready for bed, or they would knock, or I would be doing stuff and they would say, oh, I don't wanna see this, let me know when you're done. They started to set the boundaries, which told me they were becoming aware of themselves in relationship to other people. And on top of that, different kids in a household are gonna have different boundaries. So I had a kid showing up, a male child showing up to the breakfast table with just pajama bottoms on and no top and his sister said, hey, can you wear a shirt to breakfast? Like it makes me uncomfortable when you're, I don't come to breakfast without a top on and I would like you to do the same thing and wear a top. And so I actually didn't have to intervene. They were actually dictating and educating each other and me about where their boundaries were. And so I think for the folks who fall into the category of you and your daughter who really want it to be set in a sense of like instinct and values and all of those things, those things exist. Kids have the capacity to express them and implement them if we give them the opportunity to do so. 

00:21:47    Cara

Chiming in, one little pro tip is in addition to everything Vanessa said, there are sometimes things that we do in our home uniquely and individually, but out in the world there's sort of an assumption of a certain level of behavior. So for instance, walking around naked. You might have a nudist kid in your home and that might be totally comfortable for you and totally comfortable for everyone in your house, great, whatever. But if that kid is not taught that covering up when they go to a sleepover at someone else's house is the socially expected way to behave, they could find themselves in a really precarious position. So we do a lot of educating about being in conversation about all of this, including what works in your house and what might look different out in the world. 

00:22:44    Alyssa

Yeah, I love that. 

00:22:46    Vanessa

But if you take that example, Cara, I'm thinking about my daughter went to camp. She was like a total nudist, right? She just like roamed around. And she went to camp, sleepaway camp, and her friends were like, you have 20 minutes every day where you can run around the bunk naked, and otherwise we're gonna ask you to put some clothes on. And like, they collectively came up with, they taught her, and she could hear it, and I could prep her for that and say, listen, kiddo, not everybody is comfortable with this. And I might've even had that conversation, but it was the peer conversation and the sort of group decision -making that actually, I think, had the impact and the power. 

00:23:27    Cara

I mean, just as a side note, the power of things like sleepovers and sleepaway camp and anything where you get outside of that super comfort zone and you do have to learn those life lessons and you are challenged by peers, right? Those friends teach that stuff so much more powerfully and quickly than anyone else. I mean, we can all flashback right now to something some kid said to us and we're like, oh, yeah, I remember that from third grade. 

00:23:56    Alyssa

Yeah, 100%. Also, no one else from my family talked to me about bodies. So like Kate Ensel taught me how to put in a tampon. So really, really reliant on peers for this. Thanks, Kate. 

00:24:06    Vanessa

Yeah. Shout out to Kate

00:24:06    Cara

Shout out to Kate!

00:24:07    Alyssa

But when we are looking as kids get older, and we're looking at things like puberty and talking to them about sex and bodies in a way that continues to then evolve. One question that I have personally is around when we're looking at puberty, we know so much happens what I consider behind the scenes, like inside their body that we don't necessarily see any changes first on the outside, but there are internal things happening. When are we looking at that? How do we know when that's happening and what does it look like to talk about that? 

00:24:46    Cara

Okay. Thank you for knowing that. First of all, that's because not everyone does. And for anyone who is listening who doesn't, there's no shame in not knowing it. But here we go. Let's do a quick little primer on what puberty is and what causes it and what it actually looks like. Right? So maybe I'll kick it off and Vanessa, you pick it up because we've done this a time or two. Okay. So puberty has a very narrow definition. The very narrow definition is the sexual maturation of the reproductive system. What that means is like literally you go from I cannot be part of making a baby to I can potentially be part of making a baby, right? That is it. That is the path. What drives that process? The sex hormones. What are the sex hormones? There are actually five of them. Two of them come from the brain, LH and FSH, and they go out to the ovaries or the testicles, the organs that are in charge, the glands are in charge of making the other sex hormones, and the other three sex hormones are testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. So those five hormones are... I mean, there are other actors, but those are like the leading stars of the show, and they coordinate this narrow path of reproduction. A lot of it internal, some of it external, and Vanessa will get into what you see and what you don't see. I'll just add that there is a much broader definition of puberty, and the broader definition is that in addition to LH and FSH and estrogen and progesterone and testosterone changing the way all the parts work. They also change the way the brain works and the brain feels and the brain responds. And what that means is that there are big emotional swings and shifts that come along with puberty and relationships change and shift as a result of these surging and falling hormones. And by the way, the hormones don't nicely creep up slowly over time. They rise and they fall and they rise and they fall. and it's every six or eight or 10 hours and it's a total roller coaster and it feels terrible. Or at least it feels out of control and it's complicated for kids. It's complicated for us. We have hormonal mood swings and it feels bad. So when Vanessa and I talk about puberty, we are using sort of the big umbrella term puberty which is all of the downstream consequences of these hormone shifts. And so there are internal changes, there are physical external changes, and then there are social, emotional, and relational changes. And they all start around, on average, between eight and nine for a girl, between nine and ten for a boy. There are earlier kids, there are later kids, there's a wide span of normal. And there is no predictable path through, but it takes about a decade. Vanessa, baton. 

00:27:48    Alyssa

Before Vanessa jumps in, I have a science question for you, Cara. 

00:27:55    Cara

Oh, bring it. 

00:27:56    Alyssa

Is there a world in which we could easily test hormone levels to know when this is happening that could maybe at some point just be available as a part of like routine screening annually? We're going to test and see like, okay, this is what we've entered into just from the like, Yeah, what you're feeling is real and we're going to prep you for what's happening. 

00:28:22    Cara

Yeah. So you can ask the same question about menopause and we know the answer, right, around menopause data. So the answer is because these hormones rise and fall and rise and fall on the order of hours, it all depends when you're taking the blood and looking at the hormone levels, what your snapshot is. So, a one -time test taken, even if you did it once a day, it's not going to be helpful unless you collect a lot of days in a row. However, I have become slightly obsessed with this little concept here, so I started doing a little bit of research and there are some startup companies, by the way, anyone who's listening who's part of these, I would love to hear from you, who are doing 24 -hour hormone monitors in the same way that you have continuous glucose monitors that you can just put onto the skin, these little micro needles, and they're reading hormone levels 24 -7. 

00:29:26    Alyssa

Cool. 

00:29:26    Cara

That is super interesting and we'll actually graph out, I think, over time how these hormones are shifting and changing. But Vanessa, do you want to share actually all you need to know to guess that your kid is in puberty? 

00:29:41    Alyssa

Yeah. I think a lot of people right now are like, yeah, guessing because this is not the kid I used to know. 

00:29:46    Vanessa

So there's a pediatric endocrinologist who we really love and admire, Louise Greenspan, and she says the first sign of puberty is a slamming door. So what she means by that is the impact of rising and falling sex hormones on a human and being will result in mood swings. Now, people of all genders get mood swings. Testosterone works on the body in different ways than estrogen and progesterone. Testosterone can present more as anger or aggression and anecdotally silence, although we don't have research on that. We're looking for that. Estrogen is kind of wear on your sleeves emotions, laughing without being able to stop at stuff that's not funny, crying uncontrollably at stuff that's not that sad, you know, those kinds of things. So that's one sign. In terms of physical signs, the good news for parents of girls is that breast development is really the first physical sign of puberty in a female body. And as anyone who has had breast buds knows, those suckers poke out of anything. Like you could be wearing, you could be in the middle of winter in Vermont wearing like your bib, you know, ski pants and your down coat and like eight wool sweaters and those goddamn breast buds are like still poking out. It's unbelievable. 

00:31:17    Alyssa

You understand our brand. 

00:31:19    Vanessa

I do, I do. I'm a Vermont, I'm a Vermonter at heart. I still have my, the winter I spent in Vermont, I still have my coat from 30 years ago. And it's like still, it's enshrined in my Vermont, my love of Vermont. With boys, penises and testicles, the first sign of male puberty is very, very, very slow growth of the penis and testicles. And it's so slow that from day to day, you don't even notice that it's happening. Plus, as you said, it's behind the scenes, right? It's under underwear and shorts and pajamas. And at this age, apropos of our previous conversation, you may not be seeing your kid naked anymore. You may not be in the bathroom when they shower or go to the toilet or any of that. And so not only is it slow, but you also may not even see it happening. And so as opposed to breast buds, which the whole world knows a girl has breast buds with boys, it may not be till you go to the pediatrician and they take a look and say, oh yeah, actually this kid is starting puberty. So that is the sort of gendered difference is one of the complications about the onset of puberty because one can be so evident and one can happen for a couple of years before anyone notices. 

00:32:49    Cara

And one quick PSA about hair, zits, and body odor. Vanessa, you want to do that one? 

00:32:58    Vanessa

So hair, zits, and body odor are actually the result of a physiological process called adrenarche. They are not technically part of puberty because they are not governed by the sex hormones. They are governed by the adrenal androgens, which are produced by the adrenal glands that sit there like little triangles on top of the kidneys. And the adrenal glands produce a bunch of different hormones, including cortisol, the stress hormone. But the adrenal androgens, DHEA and DHEAS, tell the body to produce thicker, oilier sweat and to grow hair in new places or thicker, darker hair in places it didn't exist. So the thicker, more protein -rich sweat, as Cara likes to say, are a feast, a veritable banquet for the bacteria that lives on our skin, the natural microbiome that lives on our skin, which then eats the sweat and then farts it out. So body odor is actually bacteria farts, which is a great conversation. So on the feet and the underarms, in the groin, right? It's like when your car after soccer practice stinks, it's actually bacteria fart. And that thicker sweat is also what clogs the pores. And that's how zits and acne form. So people get concerned, and this is, I think, relevant, Alyssa, for your audience. You know, they may see a younger child with pubic hair and be really, really worried and frightened because they're like, oh, well, this six -year -old shouldn't have pubic hair. That does not necessarily mean that child is in puberty. That child is in adrenarche. It may not be, they may not be in puberty, and that is an opportunity to go and see your healthcare provider, because you wanna understand what's happening. 

00:34:52    Alyssa

Do they typically line up timeline -wise? 

00:34:54    Vanessa

They typically, they are often coincidental, but you can get a kid who's like pretty far in puberty who has very little underarm hair or no facial hair or not that much leg hair. Or you can have a kid who has like, you know, that little wispy little mustache or really hairy legs or under... I don't know if you guys heard the joke, the Nikki Glaser joke. 

00:35:18    Cara

I was just thinking about that. 

00:35:19    Vanessa

Did you watch the Golden Globes? Okay. 

00:35:21    Alyssa

I was like going between that and football. 

00:35:24    Vanessa

I know. It's a hard choice. So Nikki Glaser said to Timothée Chalamet that he has a mustache right now for a role, and she was like, your eyelashes are so long. I love how they look on your upper lip. Like dying. And it's literally what I said, I said to my daughter, I was like, oh, what's with his like wispy, like puby little mustache? No offense to the descriptor, puby. So some kids will have hair growth and not a lot of development, but usually it's around the same time, which is why people assume it's one and the same. 

00:36:10    Alyssa

Okay, so this is all very helpful. Also, I don't get the Timothée Chalamet appeal. It's so not for me. 

00:36:18    Vanessa

Me neither. 

00:36:19    Alyssa

Ugh, but - 

00:36:21    Vanessa

Like my, I ate lunch that was bigger than Timothée Chalamet. Like, it's like - 

00:36:28    Alyssa

It's so real, it's so real.

00:36:32    Cara

I think that's your best line. 

00:36:35    Alyssa

When we are looking outside of puberty and we're moving into like talking to kids about sex and looking at the, this obviously there's an evolution of how we talk to kids about sex. At what age, and Cara, I'm thinking of your like science versus social here of at what age is it appropriate to be really technical about the details and to start discussing contraception, which comes right into that puberty talk and all that jazz. And because I think for a lot of folks, it's like, oh yeah, never feels like the right time. And they always feel too young. And I was just chatting with my sister -in -law. I have nieces and nephews who are 16 and down. And so we were chatting about how like all of a sudden she was like, there are conversations we should probably be having. She was like, it just felt like it came out of nowhere. Then I was like, oh shoot, I think we're probably there. And she was like, as I started diving into like, what do I even say? How do I do this? I realized as I was diving into the literature, like, turns out I should have had this conversation a few years ago and, like, didn't know that. So, yeah, I think it, like, can creep up on you because it just, they're your kid. And all of a sudden you're like, wait, I'm supposed to talk to you about sex? 

00:38:00    Cara

Right. And we all have this fear that you bring something up and it's, like, wishing it will happen, right? So I'm never going to bring up sex, right? 

00:38:11    Alyssa

Or just, like, ruining their childhood. Where she was like, I don't want to ruin the innocence of who they are. 

00:38:16    Cara

 All fair. Let's start here. It's never too late. So if you didn't have the conversation and you're listening to this or you're… 

00:38:29    Alyssa

You hear that Margaret? It's never too late. That's my mom name. Margaret, it's okay. 

00:38:32    Cara

It's okay. 

00:38:33    Vanessa

Margaret, ask Alyssa for the copy of our book and it'll give you all the instructions you need to have all the conversations. 

00:38:39    Alyssa

It's never too late to have this conversation. 

00:38:41    Cara

And what's amazing about awkward conversations, or at least conversations that you might feel awkward about, is you can start them by saying, I feel like I should have had this conversation with you five years ago. So I'm kind of anxious to begin with because I think I missed a big boat here, but here we go. This is how important it is. I'm like circling back now and I want to start this conversation now. Vanessa taught me that long ago, that narrating how you feel about entering a conversation is as effective a way into a conversation as anything. So I, just like Vanessa cannot give you a magic number about when to not run around the house naked, I cannot give you a magic number about when to talk about sex. But what I can tell you is there are some little, I don't know, little markers of data in our society that give us hints and clues about when our kids might need to have this information. And one bummer of a piece of data that is just going to suck the positive energy out of this conversation for a second here is that 50 % of kids in this country have seen porn online by the time they're 12. Oh, and 10%, sorry, 15 % of 10 -year -olds, okay? Okay. So if you would like to be the one sex educating your kid and you would like to have a voice in the narrative about what they think sex is or should be, it's super helpful to hold that piece of data in mind because by the time they're 12, there's a solid chance that they have been exposed to two or more people having sex. This is free porn, not like behind a paywall, good feminist porn. This is violent, aggressive, misogynistic, non -consensual, like the whole thing. Everything you don't want your kid to ever have with sex, that's what they're getting. They're not looking for it. It's finding them. It's everywhere. It's a click away. It's like we can get into that whole conversation, but at the end of the day, you are their antidote to that narrative. It feels really uncomfortable or scary for a lot of people. It feels like never feels great, but never is only your little narrow window. The pornographers, it's 12. So I would hold those two things to be true and recognize that this isn't one talk. Oh, if it were only one talk, that would be so amazing because it would be one and done and that would be easy peasy. 

00:41:23    Alyssa

Check. 

00:41:24    Cara

It is not. It is right. Right? It is dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of talks that happen over years and years and years. And it's not monologues like what I'm doing right now, because even you are bored by my voice right now. It is a question or a statement, or as Vanessa likes to say, when you gotta get a piece of information through, it is a, hey, I'm gonna set a timer, two minutes, I'm gonna say what I have to say, and then I am going to shut up. And if you want to have a conversation about it, you can. And if you want to circle back with me, that's fine too. And then you just do your thing. And then you attempt to be in conversation. And I will end my diatribe, my monologue with this. As your kids grow and change, you will continue to iterate the you have these conversations, but you know the kids in your lives. So I have two kids, one is a talker and one is not. The talker, this is easy. We talk about it all the time. We talk about it like for three minutes here and there and then it's like, wait a minute, okay, great, like great talk. And then we move on and we watch TV or, you know, we say, you know, whatever the next thing is or bye, see you later, mom, I love you. My non -talker is such a committed non -talker, that at age 19, I've been doing this for a long time and trying to have this back and forth for many, many years. And I do a lot of my end, but he's not doing a lot of heavy lifting on his end. At 19, recently I said to him, dude, we have to figure out how this is a conversation. We have to move past two minute monologues from me and get to conversation, because I'm never giving up. And he appreciated that I know who he is and I see who he is and I'm not giving up. And he still gets all the information from me, but I get an unsatisfying amount of nothing back. And as the one who desperately wants conversation in that dynamic, it's hard. So, to parents who say, my kid won't talk to me about it, I see you, I feel you, it's my lived experience with one of my kids and I do this for a living, they are who they are. And so, it doesn't mean you don't do your end of the heavy lifting. 

00:43:58    Alyssa

Okay. I love that note. And for our teachers listening, this is our kids who are like, yeah, they're paying attention to the thing even though they're not looking at you or they're off and they're tapping. I was just spending time in a fourth grade classroom for some consultation and the teacher was like, this child will not pay attention to a single thing, like help me understand their nervous system. And afterwards, after observation was like, no, he's getting everything. He's just not sitting and attending in the way that we hope he would in a classroom setting that feels really comfortable and convenient, but he's getting all of it. In fact, he's doing what his body needs to do to get all of it. And I think so often what you were just describing there, Cara, of like, no, I want to have conversation and dialogue. And we hear this a lot with emotion, like emotional literacy and emotional language. People are like, the kids won't talk to me about their feelings. I'm like, they don't have to. And it can still be very effective. And what I hear from you in that, Cara, is maintaining that relationship where you're saying like, yeah, I'm going to keep this door open because if at any point you do want to talk about it or you need to talk about it, I want you to always know that I'm here to talk about it. And so not only are you giving him info, but you're keeping that door open for him. 

00:45:25    Cara

Yeah. I'm not just keeping the door open. I am shoving my foot in that door and it will not shut, right? And I think whether it's a parent, a grandparent, a trusted adult, an educator, a healthcare interpreter, like shove your foot in that door. That's great. You don't have to do it aggressively, but boy, do they appreciate it, right? We know that. 

00:45:47    Vanessa

And it's not about us. 

00:45:47    Alyssa

Well, and there's a difference between doing it versus making them respond, right? 

00:45:51    Vanessa

Yes. 

00:45:51    Alyssa

And we can say like, I don't need you to respond. And I loved that tip from Vanessa there of like, I'm going to set a two -minute timer. I'm going to say my thing. You can have a conversation or ask questions after that, or you can take time and think about it and I'm here if you need me, really allowing them to be themselves in this. 

00:46:12    Vanessa

Yeah, I mean, I think people, when they finally work up the courage to have the conversations, they are hoping for it to be a really memorable, meaningful exchange with their kid, right? They know how long they've been gearing up to have what in their minds is a really big conversation. The kids don't know any of that. They're not reading your mind. They don't know that you've been ruminating for three months over actually approaching them to have the conversation. They just know at some point over the weekend, you paused the football game and said, hey dude, we gotta talk about sex, right? And then we're hurt or disappointed or we take it personally when they're not like, oh yes, mom, let's spend four hours talking about reproduction. 

00:47:01    Alyssa

I've been waiting for this. 

00:47:04    Vanessa

Like, I thought you'd never ask, right? And no, they're like, it can be transactional, they can be silent, they can even have body language that makes us feel rejected. But I want people to remember that if they're still in the room, they're still listening, right? I'm thinking about that student, Alyssa, who was not giving any of the sort of outward signs that they were attending to what was happening in class, but they were getting it all. So if we think about our tweens and teens in the same way, they may not give us the outward signs they want. They're not, they may not turn to us and say, oh mom, thank you so much. I love you so much for having the first of many, many sex talks with me, right? They're like, they're never gonna say that. And that's fine, because it's not about us. It's about us imparting critical information to help them understand their bodies,  keep their bodies safe, respect their bodies and respect other bodies. And that's the mission. That's the work. It's not how do we feel when we're having the conversation. 

00:48:10    Alyssa

Oh, I love this. The how do we feel when we're having the conversation, I mean, it's so key. And our research and emotional development, we developed a method called the CEP method. There's five components and one is adult child interactions, the other four are about us. And it's always the doozy, right? The actual like kid stuff is so much easier than the us stuff. The like, how do I feel? What are my expectations? What's coming up for me? What's the story I'm telling myself? All that jazz. And you're right, they're not gonna be like, you know what, mom, thank you. I can tell you have my best interest at heart. Thank you so much for bringing this up. And it's just never gonna happen. 

00:48:52    Vanessa

They're not gonna be like, can we have a moment for gratitude, for your bravery and courage to raise this?

00:48:58    Cara

Wouldn't that be a good AI bot? Like a parent validating AI bot, just to chime in. 

00:49:04    Alyssa

Yeah, just like pops in. By the way, mom, you nailed that. 

00:49:08    Cara

Yeah, exactly. I would actually make it attached to my kids. I would just have it like be a little mouthpiece. 

00:49:16    Alyssa

So good. The last thing that I just wanna touch on before we let y 'all go is I'm curious if there's research on differences for neurodivergent humans, neurodivergent brains in terms of things like the impact of hormones on impulse control or things like that. 

00:49:38    Cara

Yeah, we get this question a lot. I'm going to start with my most general answer, which is I actually think the word neurodivergent is going to go away in about 10 years because I don't know what neurotypical is anymore, you know? I think brain types are supposed to be divergent. So I think the data as we're collecting all this data over time, and there's a lot of research going on, is going to get confusing to interpret when two decades from now we look back and we're like, wait, what is neurodivergent? Anyways, just a little editorial there. But the answer is yes. And there are lots of ways in which neurodivergence does impact both puberty and the experience through puberty. And one is that we know that kids with certain type of neurodivergence will either not be educated in the same way. They will not be addressed in the way that neurotypical kids are. And then it's like, they're not armed with the same information. Why not? I don't understand, but that's the fact. And they're sort of treated. We've had a few of our own podcast guests on who talk about this issue and talk about whether it's physical disability or neurodivergence and sort of the inequity of information, which is really an interesting topic. Then there's actually what happens inside the brain, which is, I think, less well understood, but boy, we know a lot about... Let's just take a typical ADD brain, if you will, and not that there is a typical one, but this sort of archetype of an ADD brain, and we can imagine what fuel testosterone might put on that fire if you already have a brain that is impulsive, if you know that the maturation of the prefrontal cortex is happening maybe a little more slowly in those brains and the brain needs the prefrontal cortex to be smart and long -term and consequential thinking to balance out that emotional impulsive limbic system and boy, that's not gonna happen until you're 30 anyways, but now you've got surging testosterone or surging estrogen that is impacting the way that those neurons wire and fire. So yes, lots of ways, you can tell lots of stories about how this goes. I don't know of, Vanessa, I don't know if you know of, but I don't know of any data that very specifically says this specific diagnosis is connected with this specific experience through puberty. 

00:52:25    Vanessa

No, I mean, we would love that data because the question comes up, what we do know is that unfortunately kids who have developmental disabilities are at higher risk for sexual predation. And depending on, this is more relevant to a person with autism, depending on where on the autism spectrum they sit, that they may not have received, as Cara mentioned earlier, sex education, or they may be in facilities or contexts where they're in the care of other people and at higher risk for sexual predation. And so we really, really encourage people who are in this field. And there are some amazing people. For example, Emily Ladau is a disability rights activist who speaks about the importance of health and sex ed for people with a variety of disabilities and people with special needs. So for people listening who think, oh, you know, my kid can't handle it, or it's too much information, or I'm just trying to keep my head above water dealing with all this other stuff, we hear you and we get it. But they are at higher risk. And so we really, you use the same skills that you do in educating them, right? It's very concrete. You may break down concepts and physiology and anatomy to smaller bite -sized pieces, but do not avoid educating all kids in this because their safety is really at stake. 

00:54:14    Alyssa

That makes sense and is a bummer, but also makes sense to me. I am so stoked for your book to be out in the world. And let me tell you, I need it. Having grown up with four brothers and no one talking to me. And now I'm like, God, help. This is so awkward. So if folks, if you're tuning in and you are like, yeah, give it to me. The book is This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained, ready to be snagged wherever books are sold. Thank you so much, Cara and Vanessa. Where can folks find you, learn more about your work, tune into your podcast? 

00:54:58    Vanessa

You can find us on Instagram at less.awkward because we make everything less awkward and our website lessawkward.com. For the same reason, we make everything less awkward. Those are two great places and our podcast is called This is So Awkward and the subtitle of that should be Alyssa, but it doesn't have to be. And our job is to help make it more comfortable. 

00:55:25    Alyssa

Sure, or learn how to be in the awkward and uncomfortable. 

00:55:28    Vanessa

And just swim in those waters. 

00:55:31    Cara

Swim in the awkward. That should be our next book, Vanessa. 

00:55:36    Alyssa

I'm here to brainstorm with y 'all. Thank you so much for writing it. 

00:55:39    Cara

After the AI bot, you know. 

00:55:41    Alyssa

That's right. Thank you so much for writing it and for doing this work for the rest of us to be able to tap into. 

00:55:49    Vanessa

Thanks for having us, Alyssa. 

00:55:51    Cara

So much fun. 

00:55:52    Alyssa

Stay tuned after this note from our sponsors. Rach and I will be right back with the breakdown. 

00:55:56    

[Music]

00:56:03    Alyssa

Hello. I just like got into doing work. The thing, you know, I've been traveling, I was away from home, doing work like in person in both conferences, presentations, work in school districts, et cetera, outside of Vermont. And all that means is that all of the other work that's a part of my job, just like doesn't get done when I'm in person. So I just was like lost in my inbox and like all those little tasks that people are like, I need this, I need that. And all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, Rach. 

00:56:36    Rachel

I figured I was gonna give you, it was funny cause it was like right at the time I opened my phone to be like, I should probably remind her. And then your text came through. 

00:56:46    Alyssa

Yeah. 

00:56:47    Rachel

Yeah, I figured as much. 

00:56:50    Alyssa

Oh, it's real. But I love the in -person stuff. 

00:56:54    Rachel

The in -person stuff is, I wanna like clone you because it fills your cup, but it also I think is hard because then like you come back and you're behind and whelmed. And it's just that like, that both things can be true, that it's super fulfilling for you and it's hard logistically. 

00:57:19    Alyssa

Yeah, it's so true. And what I really need, I think, is an assistant who's traveling with me, who can be in my inbox when I'm... Right now, I have help that often travels with me, but it's to take care of Mila. Or we have her stay here and help with Mila and I travel. Because I often-- 

00:57:42    Rachel

Yeah, you need like a personal assistant. 

00:57:47    Alyssa

Yeah. Any takers out there? Anybody want to come be my personal assistant and travel with me? Who can know the ins and outs of this business and all the things? That'd be great. Thanks. 

00:58:00    Rachel

Yeah, it's like we could train them up so fast. We just need to teach them everything. 

00:58:04    Alyssa

It's fine. Just everything. It's fine. Yeah, and this is our, Beans will go to childcare in the fall and the help that I have will shift. I won't have her anymore. She's going to grad school. So I also got to figure out what does that even look like? 

00:58:26    Rachel

Yeah, that's wild. 

00:58:27    Alyssa

Because guess what else is happening in the fall? We're publishing a book. 

00:58:30    Rachel

I know. Aggh!

00:58:31    Alyssa

So that'll be a chill time. 

00:58:34    Rachel

Yeah, we may be interrupted today because my kids are on break. 

00:58:39    Alyssa

Oh, that's fine. Sagey has been at school in the month of February for literally one and a half days, and it is currently February 18th. He has three school days this week. We'll see if they're open all three days and then they're off next week. So even if he attends all three days this week, it'll be four and a half days that he went to school in the month of February. 

00:59:05    Rachel

Yeah. My kids missed so much school when we had influenza, and then they were sick also the week before with a different thing. So I'm friends with a bunch of their teachers, and where were we? Oh, I was at one of their teachers' houses, just hanging out, and we were talking about school, and my friend Tina was like, Nora and Abel have missed a ton of school this quarter. I'm like, I know. I mean, what am I going to do? We've been sick and sick and sick and sick. And then add in often not necessary snow days. And we're just like missing. 

00:59:43    Alyssa

This is a hill I'm going to die on. 

00:59:44    Rachel

Well, I think, you know, I can be like, oh, this is cozy. I'm gonna have my kids home. And whatever, we're gonna do snow day activities. And then I think about so many of the parents at my kids' school do not have the ability to miss work or do not have flexible jobs, and just how unfair that is and how much privilege there is in just being able to be like, hey, my kids are off, so I'm not going to be super available for work today and go play in the snow. And so I wish that school districts took that into account a little bit more. But yeah, so also my kids have missed a ton of school and they're home this week. Honestly though, after being so sick with the flu and then it turning into pneumonia, I'm not hating that, knock on wood, we're all healthy right now and we're not going into school and getting exposed to a bunch more garbage. Abel also had norovirus while I had pneumonia. And so I'm just feeling like - 

01:00:49    Alyssa

That's right. 

01:00:50    Rachel

--a little bit like, yeah, I don't want to go places. Usually my kids will be like, we just want to stay home. And I'm like, no, we need an outing. And they're like, we just want to stay home. And I'm like, perfect, great. We're not going anywhere. 

01:01:03    Alyssa

That's how I felt after the flu. Yeah, the flu rocked Sagey and I. And it was like, honestly well -timed for us in that he was off for two weeks at Christmas, New Year's time. And that's when we got it. But it hit so hard that then when things people were like trying to hang out in the new year and I was like sorry we're busy not seeing people because I my immune system just needs a minute. 

01:01:30    Rachel

That's how I feel too. I just felt like because Abel had the flu right after I did and then immediately got he went back to school for a day and a half one day and the half day came down with noro and I was just like, okay, I can't. I won't. Um, I hope you guys are ready to become hermits because that's what's about to go down. Um, 

01:01:51    Alyssa

So real. 

01:01:53    Rachel

Anyway, I'll have to say they're here. 

01:01:56    Alyssa

Um, okay, cool. 

01:01:58    Rachel

But actually, they cleaned the house for me while we were just in our other meetings. And I only heard them brawling one time. Okay, like, what is this? It's called they're not in school, so they both have more capacity. Ooh. 

01:02:18    Alyssa

Oh, yeah. It's so real. That's so interesting. Zach, when we were traveling, I went out first solo. I kept saying I was on vacation. I drove to New York State by myself in a car. 

01:02:32    Rachel

For a work trip. Yeah, we can call it vacation if that's what feels right to you. 

01:02:37    Alyssa

Just like driving in a car by yourself for six hours is vacation and then I was there for 48 hours and like by myself and then the rest of the crew came and then like Zach and Gabby brought the kids and then I still worked from there and then Zach and Sage went home and Gabby and Mila and I stayed for the last like three days of the trip. And Sagey came home with Zach. And then when Mila and I got home, Zach was like, oh my gosh, he has not been like... We have this little bike that Beans got for Christmas. It's like a little four wheel situation, you know? And Sagey will zoom around the house on it. And it's all different emergency vehicles because we're so into that right now. And Zach, when we got back, Zach was like, oh, wow, he hasn't been riding that bike around at all. He hasn't touched it once while you guys were gone. And then we come back and we add stimulation and sound and all that. And he's back on the bike. And I was like, oh, first of all, great awareness, Zach. And just like cool to note those things of like, yeah, this is how they show up when they're regulated and have more capacity, and then we add more stimuli to the environment and we see these other things happen. 

01:04:02    Rachel

It's honestly like, part of me is like, yeah, duh, they're nervous system. But sometimes I'm like, wow, it's like the real life manifestation of it can be mind blowing because every time the kids are on break or like have a long weekend, Cody will be like, wow, like, Nora is like a totally different kid. Like I'm vibing with her, things are going great, we're able to problem solve, whatever. And every time we're like, all right, what's the common denominator? And it's always that she's had a break from school. And - 

01:04:31    Alyssa

She has more capacity. 

01:04:32    Rachel

It's just like, she also needs to go to school for her connection and social needs. I've homeschooled her and she didn't thrive. But it's just interesting to see from how we react. It's good to note that when it feels like she's being super bratty or difficult, it's always when either she's got like some kind of academic or social stress happening. 

01:04:56    Alyssa

Yeah, of course. And like, I think we don't give enough credit to those things, right? I was just in a school district for three straight days and I was doing like in -person observations and then I got to have the whole staff, pre -K through sixth grade, for a half an hour at the end of the day each day. And one of the things that I was chatting with them about is just like how much and how often we are asking kids to do things that are hard for them. And whether it's learning something new cognitively, right? Like we're always trying to advance to the next thing where we're keeping their brain challenged. And at the same time, they're learning all these social skills and navigating inclusion and belonging in peer relationships and feeling left out or feeling embarrassed or trying to figure out how to fit in, or how to make friends with these people, or how to enter into this. And that's hard work that they're doing all the time. And we just don't give enough credit to that. 

01:06:02    Rachel

Yeah. And I think we also just don't make the connection between the challenging behaviors and that. When I'm like, hey, go brush your teeth, and instead she antagonizes her brother or like runs away and does something annoying, I'm not always like, oh, yeah, she's stressed about that school project. Because it's like, how are those connected? They are, of course, but in the moment, I'm like, no, can you just go do what I freaking asked you to do? 

01:06:31    Alyssa

A hundred percent. We've also noticed, we can tell what we're working with from the minute you talk to Sage in the morning of like, hmm, where are we on how well he slept last night? Because he'll either  be like, no, go away. I can't, my legs are broken. Stop talking to me. Why are you talking to me? And like that voice that makes me want to murder sombody. Or he's like, hey, mama, good morning. And it is just Jekyll and Hyde. And we started to connect, oh, how did Beans sleep last night? Because that's also probably about how he slept. Even though he has a raging sound machine in his room, they share a wall and he hears all things. And so he's not like consciously like awake and asking for us, but when she cries out, he will hear. 

01:07:21    Rachel

It's probably pulling him. 

01:07:22    Alyssa

And you can just tell, or like, exactly. And you hear like the plows go by right now because it's wintertime, whatever, and they're going by in the morning. And all those things for him just like disrupting his sleep, you know from the minute you say hi to him how he slept and how regulated he is. 

01:07:39    Rachel

It's so hard to start from a dysregulated space. 

01:07:42    Alyssa

Yes, it's so hard. And then the other day when Zach came back with Sage, I was doing all the nighttime stuff with Mila and then I would have to like get up and get ready and go to work. And so she had woken up one night like twice and then like midnight one, and then she woke up at like 4:30 and my alarm was gonna go off at 5:30. And by the time I got her back down, I was just like, I'm up. And I was operating on so little sleep and just had so much at that moment compassion for Sage, because I was like, oh yeah, I am Sage in a grumpy mood in the morning right now. Like I just don't have the capacity for anyone's BS. 

01:08:29    Rachel

Absolutely. Actually, this is so funny. I mean, not funny that she posted on Facebook, but my mother -in -law posted a picture of me on Facebook from an outing yesterday. And I was like hangry and over, cause we had just been to these like championship basketball games that my niece and nephew were playing in, like my sensory nightmare. And also I was hungry and I'm on my period. So there's this picture of me like sitting at the table where both kids are like at me about something. And I had just have like thrown my hands up in the air. And I in the moment was saying like, I can't take all of this on. Like I had already given them their food but they were having these very tiny little detail about it, like how much the broth to noodle ratio was. And I literally was just like, you guys, I can't, I'm not gonna measure your broth in milliliters. Like it's time for me to eat or I'm going to turn into the Hulk, okay? Milliliters of broth. Like friends, you don't wanna see the side of me that's about to come out. 

01:09:34    Alyssa

It's so, so real. And like hangry is a thing for you. Like you're interceptive sensitive and you will get the hangries. And I've seen them. 

01:09:45    Rachel

I'm so interceptive. 

01:09:46    Alyssa

Nobody wants that. 

01:09:47    Rachel

But I'm realizing the older I get, the more I'm like, I am the amount of interceptive sensitive I am is frankly annoying. 

01:10:00    Alyssa

And I'm not interceptive sensitive. For me, where you would remark on this, for the whole time I've known you where up until me being pregnant with Beans, I will just nibble food here and there, but I could go for a long time without food and I just don't get hangry or hungry. In fact, there's other things that will happen that remind me like, oh, you have to eat. I just remember you being like, what is happening in your body? Who are you? What's happening? Just trying to give you because we're so opposite. 

01:10:37    Rachel

You were eating so little and I eat so much. I eat more than all of my friends. I eat more. Probably the only person I know that eats more than me is Cody. I would watch you eat, quote, lunch, which was one piece of bread with a mashed avocado on top. I'm like, that is literally a bite for me. In what world is that lunch? That's barely an appetizer. 

01:11:08    Alyssa

I know. We have such different... It's just hunger cues for me. Same with tired. I will, and I see it with Beans. You see it when she's in a group of people, and that's how I am too. We're like, I can override those tired cues and just like power through because there's something else that feels more exciting and like pulling at me and like Sage will not. He will just like shut down because he's intercepted sensitive. He's like, I need to go to sleep. And yeah, I just am not. And so our bodies work so differently and it's been really fun for me to get to know yours. But you definitely are interceptive sensitive. Who are we chatting about today? 

01:11:49    Rachel

We are chatting, talking about Vanessa and Cara, sex and puberty talks. 

01:11:56    Alyssa

Yeah I love this one. 

01:11:56    Rachel

And this was just really fun to listen to. They're so down to earth and funny and authentic. Which I think you probably have to be if your job is to talk about sex and puberty. But yeah, it was really fun to listen to them. 

01:12:16    Alyssa

Yeah, I felt like I could also fully be myself with them, like I could really show up and just be like, this is a thing that I intellectually know and then in practice, it's so unnatural for me because it's so far from what I grew up experiencing that I have to like really I'm doing this for the first time without ever having it been done for me in any capacity. And it feels so foreign and my initial reactions often to anything sex or puberty related with kids is like, ahhh, I'm like, I want to run away from this so fast. And I felt like I could just be like me in that. And you know what? That just made me think too. when I was at one of these school districts last week, we were talking about shame versus empathy. And I asked after like chatting with this whole staff, elementary staff, I asked like, what's one of the challenges that comes up for you? And one of the first grade teachers said, it feels unnatural to use the empathy language. And I was like, 100 % yes, because so many of us experienced so much shame -based language that that actually feels easier to use. And it's like a retraining of the brain to use empathy -based language when you've experienced only shame -based language. And that's how I feel around sex and puberty talks where I'm like, I have to retrain my brain here. 

01:13:57    Rachel

Yeah, absolutely. I think too, I think you've used this analogy before, but I think of it like passing a baton. Think about my mom who, when I started my period, gave me the rundown, tried to help make me feel supported, and shared with me that when she started her period, her older sister was given the task of giving her the lowdown, that her mom didn't have the capacity to do that. And then I think there are some things from purity culture that prevented my mom from having certain discussions with me. And so now it's my turn to have the baton. And as I'm passing it to Nora, I'm going to have discussions that I didn't experience from my own parents, and it does feel uncomfortable. 

01:14:47    Alyssa

I like the baton because the bar is so low for me right now that it feels like there's really only one way to go, which is exciting because it means I can already improve and then pass that baton. Even just using anatomically correct terms or saying the word tampon out loud. My dad literally once said, like, do you have to keep using that word? And I was like, tampon? Yeah. Every month I'm going to use that word. Going to have to get them every month. 

01:15:19    Rachel

I don't know if I could say. 

01:15:21    Alyssa

But that was so much the approach. 

01:15:23    Rachel

Honestly though, I don't know if I, I could definitely say vagina in front of my dad. I don't know if I could say vulva. 

01:15:30    Alyssa

Oh yeah, my dad would just be like, do we have, come on. 

01:15:32    Rachel

I think my dad would just walk away. 

01:15:36    Alyssa

Yeah, because our dads have different reactions, but it's the same internal thing, which is vomit. 

01:15:40    Rachel

Yeah, totally. I can say vagina because he was at the hospital when Nora was born and that was fine. And I don't know, vagina I feel like is more accepted culturally than vulva. 

01:15:57    Alyssa

Totally. Also, I can say vagina, but my dad still hates it. 

01:16:00    Rachel

Oh, my dad's not like, let's talk - 

01:16:02    Alyssa

He's like 10 out of 10 would rather talk about your nose. 

01:16:04    Rachel

Oh, same. I mean, my dad's not like, let's talk about your anatomy, but I feel like I could be like, yeah, when I gave birth to Nora, I tore it. I had stitches in my vagina and he would be like, okay, TMI, but it wouldn't be like he had to leave the space. Whereas if I was like, yeah, I've been teaching Nora how to, you know, whatever, this is her body part the vulva. If I said that when she was a baby, my dad would be like, okay, bye. Bye. So yeah, I think like, or even like Abel used to say scrotum, and he said it fro -tum, because he was like a baby. And there was like this weird vibe of like, why hadn't I just taught him to say like balls or something like that, you know? 

01:16:48    Alyssa

Yeah, totally. 

01:16:49    Rachel

I hate the word balls. 

01:16:52    Alyssa

Oh, yeah. No, that's not happening here. Zach got a vasectomy. And leading up to it, I had told Sage that Dada was having an operation. And so there were going to be some things over the weekend that he couldn't do. He just needed to rest a little bit. And so then, of course, he had a million questions. What's the operation? And I said, oh, he's just having an operation on his scrotum because we're all done having babies, and that obviously led to way more questions of like, why is dad having an operation if we're all done having babies? Does dad have a uterus? And I was like, no. Great question. Yada, yada. It led to me saying that dad's scrotum has sperm in it and I have an egg, and when they connect and they meet, it can make a baby. And so they are making it so that his sperm will not connect with my egg, so that we cannot make more babies. All this to say, then Sagey told everyone he came in contact with that Zach had an infection in his scrotum and was having an operation, which was Zach's nightmare, but hilarious. But also my dad was like, yeah, of course you taught him the word scrotum. And I was like, that tiny human part of me that never felt seen, I guess, or helped in any of this, was like, yeah, I taught him and I wish he would have talked about any body part other than my elbow. Like what, yeah, he's going to know that this is a body part that he has. 

01:18:30    Rachel

Also culturally, why are we more comfortable with a term like ballsack than - 

01:18:37    Alyssa

Sorry. 

01:18:37    Rachel

But legit, people are more comfortable with the term ballsack than they are with the term scrotum. I would much rather hear the word scrotum. 

01:18:50    Alyssa

Yeah, if Sage was walking around saying Zach had an infection in his ballsack and was having an operation. 

01:18:54    Rachel

So upsetting. 

01:18:55    Alyssa

Also, people would be put off by that. 

01:18:57    Rachel

100%, even more so for me, because I'm like, okay, ballsack is kind of crude, whereas scrotum is anatomy. 

01:19:06    Alyssa

Yeah. 

01:19:07    Rachel

Yeah, I don't know. It's just funny how, in a lot of ways, I feel more comfortable with the words that culturally, I think, feel less comfortable to a lot of people. 

01:19:19    Alyssa

Sure. I, full disclosure, feel comfortable with none of it, but I am working on it. And really, I just want them to know that there's no shame in this game, while also helping them understand what's culturally appropriate in terms of things to talk about or share with different people. And also, you know, body parts to touch and when and where and what's appropriate with all that jazz. And I feel like my greatest work here has been in just like honing the skill to find the pause to give myself time to move from initial reaction to secondary response of like when I walked into rest time to bring Sagey his snack, and he had apparently brought an ice pack into rest time, and now he's putting the ice pack as I'm walking in down his pants. And I, in that moment, have a lot of things I want to say, all of which are not going to be helpful or supportive and for me, it's like finding that every time I feel the urge to like, I need to say 7 million things right now and it's like the urgency to say has become one of my personal cues to just shut up and say nothing because I need a minute to collect those thoughts and that is true for so many scenarios. But this is one of those where I was like, I feel like I want to say all these things. Okay, I'm going to pause. I said, here's your snack, buddy. I have to go grab something and I'm going to be right back. And I walked away and I was like, immediately texted my friend. I was like, this is what I just walked into, blah, blah, blah. I need to like offload it. And she wasn't even available to like go back and forth with me. But for me, just like offloading and word vomiting that somewhere is helpful. And then I was able to like collect myself enough to walk back in and just be curious and be like, what's down your pants? What's going on in here, bud? What's your plan here? And like be able to navigate it there. But oof, in those moments, that is the skill that is most helpful for me is the ability to pause, which is not always accessible. 

01:21:44    Rachel

Yeah, absolutely. I think like for me with a kid who's like on the cusp of puberty and not in puberty, but definitely in the like door slamming, where there's obviously some hormonal shifts happening. I am feeling a little bit nervous for like, knowing that embarrassment is a trigger for this child, how I'm going to support her emotionally when puberty does kick off. 

01:22:24    Alyssa

Yeah. 

01:22:25    Rachel

That's like where my mindset has been because like a lot of her peers have begun puberty and like they were saying like breast buds are just like so obvious, you know? And just thinking about like what that's gonna look like for her and I feel like 10 years in to my relationship with her, we have a really good like shame -free back and forth about body stuff but puberty just feels like a whole different beast. 

01:22:53    Alyssa

Totally, also because it's something that is so personal that I think there's like a want to know more but don't necessarily want to talk to you about. And yeah, it aligns also age -wise with this like shift from codependence into more interdependence as well, where there's a natural pull away from our parents. And yeah, I just feel like that's so like, I was thinking of like, in Big Kids Bigger Feelings and what we've written about and in that book around like puberty and sex and that jazz, and how it is challenging from a relationship standpoint, because it does really align with that developmental shift outside of the home and towards peers and social inclusion and all that jazz, and how hard and tender that relationship is anyway. 

01:24:06    Rachel

Yeah. It's this nuanced balance that I am working on finding of wanting to support her as she becomes more independent and also wanting to make sure that she knows that when she needs me, it doesn't matter what it is, she can come to me. And that is a balance too of like, I don't want to be a parent that pries. I don't want her to feel like I'm privy to every single thing that she experiences or feels. And I want to make sure that if she's going through something hard or she experiences something scary or stressful, that I can be there for her and that she'll come to me. 

01:25:02    Alyssa

100%. I am so grateful for the independence I had in a lot of ways. I wish that people talked to me about more things and I had a safe space to process stuff. And also, I love that I was able to have IM conversations with friends that no one was watching or checking up on, that I could go and play with my friends or have spaces where we could connect and chat and disconnect and have conflict and all that, and that there wasn't an adult always there to manage it or to step in or to smooth it over, to help us figure it out. It was such a huge part of social growth and learning was being able to just be a kid and make mistakes and feel left out and have those hard experiences as a part of growth without an adult there to fix it or to stand over. And I think about that now of like, I think especially with the millennial parent generation that so many of us grew up in this space where we didn't feel seen or heard, and we had that safe space, that there's been a lot of the times a pendulum swing where we're too involved and too quick to step in and smooth over, especially as kids get older, where it's like, yeah, no, it's okay for you to not be invited to the birthday party, or for this person to not be included, or to not be picked first or for another person to have said something rude about them. We can give them the tools to navigate that and not step in and smooth it over. And I think that's the delicate balance, right? Is how do we foster this relationship where they know we're there as a landing space for them always, and we're not gonna step in to rescue them. 

01:27:02    Rachel

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that's hard for me is like sometimes Nora will come home from school and tell me that she had a conflict with a friend, but then she's like, but I don't want to tell you who it was and I don't want to tell you what happened. I'm like, okay. And it's hard for me not to be like, okay, well, you brought it up. So now I want to know, you know, 

01:27:21    Alyssa

Give me the tea! 

01:27:21    Rachel

There's-- basically right. And I have to be like, step back for a second and think about like, I didn't feel like I was afforded much privacy as a kid or teen. And it really bothered me and led to me sneaking around and lying a lot. And I don't want Nora to feel like she has to lie to me or sneak around to have privacy. So it's that balance of like, I want to make sure that she always knows the things that she does need to tell me, right, that are like safety issues or something that she does need adult support with. And also know that if she doesn't want to tell me about a fight she had with a friend, she doesn't have to. And I'm not going to try to force it out of her or take control of the situation, but there is that part of me that just wants the tea, right? I'm like, tell me what happens. 

01:28:14    Alyssa

Yeah. Oh, 100%. 100%. Even just to have the tea. I also was sneaking around and lying a lot, but I did have privacy. I think mine was the opposite where I wanted somebody to notice me. I wanted to be seen. And for me, it was like coping mechanisms, really trying to have somebody notice me. 

01:28:38    Rachel

Yeah, that makes so much sense. 

01:28:41    Alyssa

It's on brand. Oh, I love this episode. I'm so jazzed about their book and their podcast. I'm actually gonna go on their podcast here soon as well. 

01:28:56    Rachel

Oh fun!

01:28:56    Alyssa

Yeah, and get to chat about like the emotion processing and all that jazz here in this stage. 

01:29:01    Rachel

I have so many emotions. We're not even in puberty yet. I'm just in the precursor. 

01:29:08    Alyssa

Pre -pubescent. 

01:29:10    Rachel

And the emotions, the eye rolling. She's definitely embarrassed of me now. There's just so many things that I'm like, whoa, here we are. And yet, we have so much more to go. 

01:29:21    Alyssa

I like so distinctly remember being embarrassed about my dad. So much embarrassment. 

01:29:25    Rachel

Yeah, Nora totally gets embarrassed. Like, at basketball games, if a fun song plays, I'll start dancing, and now it's like she rolls her eyes at me. Right? 

01:29:33    Alyssa

Yeah, and she's like, I'd rather die. 

01:29:35    Rachel

Like, legit. Yeah. So I'm like, ooh, this is a new season of parenthood. But then also sometimes it's like - 

01:29:42    Alyssa

Yeah, I relate so much to her. 

01:29:44    Rachel

Oh, I mean, same. I remember feeling like my mom was so cringe. And looking back, my mom was amazing, but whatever. Um, I, but I'm just like, dang, this is like, it's all so two -sided too, right? Because I'm like, okay, she rolls her eyes, she slams her door, she's annoyed and embarrassed at me. But then I'm like, hey, babe, I have a really full work day today, like, I'm sorry, you guys are kind of going to be on your own. And she makes Abel breakfast, puts away the groceries, makes him lunch. And I'm like, okay, so you can be super annoying. And also this, like, newfound independence can be super amazing. You know? 

01:30:19    Alyssa

Yeah. And that you're like kind and a part of the family. And I know kids who are too afraid to roll their eyes or slam that door. And it is then looked at as like they're respectful and really they're in relationships where they're too afraid to do that because they're going to be in trouble. And so they stay quiet and are afraid of hurting their parents' feelings, right? Like would never in a million years be like, that's embarrassing, stop, because they're too afraid of hurting their parents' feelings. And that's like a thing that I don't want either. So its just  friggin' man. 

01:31:00    Rachel

There's so many. 

01:31:01    Alyssa

Somebody should write a book about it. 

01:31:03    Rachel

We really should have. 

01:31:07    Alyssa

Oh, I'm so excited. Big Kids, Bigger Feelings drops September 2025. 

01:31:11    Rachel

I'm super excited. 

01:31:14    Alyssa

Thanks for tuning in to Voices of Your Village. Check out the transcript at voicesofyourvillage.com. Did you know that we have a special community over on Instagram hanging out every day with more free content? Come join us at @seed.and.sew S -E -W. Take a screenshot of you tuning in, share it on the ‘Gram and tag @seed.and.sew to let me know your key takeaway. If you're digging this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We love collaborating with you to raise emotionally intelligent humans.

Connect with Cara and Vanessa:

Instagram: @less.awkward

Website: https://lessawkward.com/

Order the book: This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained

Podcast: This is So Awkward

Connect with us:

Instagram: @seed.and.sew 

Podcast page: Voices of Your Village

Seed and Sew's Regulation Quiz: Take the Quiz

Order Tiny Humans, Big Emotions now! 

Website: seedandsew.org

Music by: Ruby Adams and  Bensound