Chuck and Josh Make It Through Female Puberty

In part two of the SYSK puberty saga, Josh and Chuck venture into new territory as they explore all of the amazing changes girls face when they come of age.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there
to oversee this one in particular. Yeah, and uh, this

(00:22):
is stuffy should know. Yeah, I'm glad Jerry's here for
this one because if it was guest producer Noel, it
wouldn't be like, I don't know. Yeah, this is on
female puberty. Jerry went through female puberty. No did not.
He did not, although Noel has a daughter, so he
might listen to this. So this one's for Nola exactly,

(00:45):
and for all you families out there, all you kids,
all your parents. Just like with the male puberty episode,
we hope that this serves as a springboard to conversation
because from what I found in research, and I'm sure
you did as well, that one of the big big
things that you need to try to maintain, which is
exceedingly difficult, is open lines of communication with your pubescent daughter.

(01:08):
And if you're the pubescent kid turning into a woman,
you need to try to share your feelings and talk
to your rents if at all possible. Yeah, that's tough.
And you know, this is very similar to male puberty.
I found not completely but well, I mean obviously physiologically
it's different, but going through a lot of the same stuff. Yeah,

(01:30):
for sure. Um, and and you're right, there will be
that point as a parent where you and I've heard
this from friends where they finally look at their teenage
daughter who was you were once their hero and now
you're just a big lam Oh you're a zero, You're
not funny, you're not cool. Uh And why should I
listen to you about anything, because you're also a big

(01:51):
fat hypocrite, right exactly. Just get ready, folks, Yeah, get
ready to you. And then well yeah, true, yeah, but
then after the age of thirteen, you're gonna be friends
again when they're like in their mid twenties, and they're
gonna think you're great again after the age of thirteen.
I don't think that's the way it works at all.
Between thirteen and like three, oh yeah, they're probably gonna

(02:12):
think you're super lame. That's called the waste land years.
And then they think you're cool again. Yeah, well I
was talking to give me about this. Then you feel
bad about you treated them from thirteen twenty you realize, Yeah,
they're they're not so bad after all. That. So female
puberty and um, the girls, if you're listening to this

(02:35):
and you are going through puberty, you're about to go
through puberty. Um, let us just be the the just
one thing that you turn to to find out more
about talk to people. Like I said, there's also a
ton a ton of stuff on the internet that has
some really great advice suggestions just basically type female puberty.

(02:58):
And anything that looks like it was compiled by a
doctor or reviewed by a doctor, it's probably fairly trustworthy. Yeah.
And um, here's a piece of advice. Uh, go to
iTunes and subscribe to stuff mom never told you. Oh yeah,
that's a good that's a good advice from our colleagues,
Caroline Kristen, because it is great and especially at that age,

(03:22):
they will help you through a whole host of issues
hormonal and emotional and physical and empower you. And it's
a great show. And they even have covered this probably
better than we will. But at least let us get
you going in the right direction, you know, Like I'm
I'm tittering nervously over here. I think you can imagine,
but I'm strangely calmer with this one than I was

(03:47):
with the male puberty one. I don't understand why. Yeah,
I could tell you since uh, since that you were
more nervous than the other one. So it's great, you
know what it is because I got to come to
this one from the same research perspective, Like I'm researching.
I'm not an expert, I'm an outsider researching it. And

(04:08):
here's what I came up with with male pubers, like
I went through there. So I think it was just
more personal. Maybe I hear you. Okay, so let's get
this started, right, okay, Chuck. Yes, Let's say you're a
little girl, okay, run about age eight, loving it. Things
are great and long. Maybe you got like, uh, your

(04:29):
nie skinned last week and that's bumming you out still,
But for the most part, you're pretty happy with everything,
and then all of a sudden, things just start to
get a little weird. You can't quite put your finger
on it. But what just happened was the g p
R fifty four gene. Since that you have reached the

(04:49):
minimum amount of fat in your body. Lepton is what
it monitors, and it caused the hypothalmus, which is a
cute little playing in your brain to distribute a chemical
that it's just been holding in reserve basically since you
were born, called ganadotropin releasing hormon or g n r H.

(05:11):
And you know that game mouse Trap, which no one
on the history of Earth ever actually finished before they
just set it off and made the whole thing go.
I didn't know there was a game attached to it, right, right,
pretty much, that's pretty much what it evolves too. This
is basically like mouse Trap for your body. Yeah. And
that um, that fat that you were talking about in

(05:34):
the lefton that resides there, that is a little bit
of a newer finding. Uh. Previously, uh, they thought it
was a critical weight theory of puberty basically just once
you reach a certain mass. But now they're thinking it
actually has to do with the fat itself. So that's why, Uh,
if you're a little girl that's overweight, you might go

(05:54):
through puberty a little bit earlier. Yeah, they think that
that's one reason why early onset puberty becoming more common,
that's right, which we'll talk about also later, right, Yeah,
which is not the same thing as precocious puberty. That's
an actual medical condition that you should see a doctor
about but between precocious puberty and hey, I'm just a

(06:14):
little bit on the early side, there's a very fuzzy
period now where there did not used to be. That
is not fully inderstood. No, they're still figuring it out.
So don't feel bad if you don't feel like you
have anything figured out either right now? Okay? Agreed? So um,
the g n r H hormone, the ganeto ganado trope
and releasing hormone, comes out of your hypothalamus and it

(06:36):
slides its way down to your pituitary gland and it
sets off in your pituitary gland the release of two
really really important hormones that are going to be important
for the rest of your I guess productive life. Reproductive life. Yeah,
LH the lutenizing hormone and f s H the follicle
stimulating hormone. And so these things start coursing through the body,

(06:59):
entering your bloodstream. And what just happened to you, my
young friend, is the you hit puberty. Yeah, that that
just started. And at this point you could be somewhere
around age eight, nine ten. This is the first stage
of puberty. Basically anywhere between ages eight and eleven. I
think it's considered in the normal range. But like Chuck said, right,

(07:22):
there's you can go earlier, you can go later. Slapping
the term normal onto that is a really like touchy thing,
and for good reason, because you know, this is a
very self conscious time in people's lives. So the idea
that you're outside of the norm on top of this
process of being abnormal or feeling abnormals, that's rough. But

(07:45):
say on average that you're between eight and eleven when
this first happens. Yeah, there was sent me that New
York Times article is really good about the onset of
female puberty and um since there was a landmark study
in nineteen sixty from the UK where they basically said
the average ages eleven, and that was always sort of

(08:06):
the common thinking. But there was a woman in the
nineteen eighties at the time, she was a physicians associate
at Duke named Marcia Herman Giddons, and she said, I'm
noticing a lot of eight and nine year old girls
in my clinic that are like getting pubic hare, that
are have their breast or butting, Like what's going on here? Uh?

(08:27):
And she started writing about that, and a lot of
endochronologists were saying no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. Uh.
And for a couple of uh, about twenty five years,
there was a big debate about it until finally, in
two thousand and ten, three major institutions Cincinnati Children's Hospital,
Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, and Mount Sinai School of

(08:48):
Medicine and New York UH published a study in Pediatric
saying that by age seven of white girls, of black girls,
of Hispanic girls, and two percent of Asian girls, we're
developing breasts, uh seven seven And that's that's budding breast.

(09:08):
That's not necessarily puberty. But no, but that's that was
the marker for the onset of puberty. So basically they're
saying and now that they don't know quite why this
is happening, but they do think that, um, if you're overweight,
that that can set it off, like we said, and
really interesting that family stress they think can kick off

(09:32):
puberty earlier. H. They've done studies where they found if
you're from a broken home or if you were without
your biological father, you were more than twice as likely
to go into puberty early. The same with childhood depression
as well. Yeah, or if your mother is suffering from depression,
it might kick that off. So I think just all
these family stresses can can just kick puberty in at

(09:53):
an earlier age. That's one of the theories at least.
Well that makes sense too, because the what seems to
be the increase seemingly prevalent attitude toward what constitutes the
onset of puberty is that once once you're getantotropin hormone
is released, then you're in puberty. Everything else is just
kind of symptomatic or markers of puberty. Right, So if

(10:16):
you are undergoing a lot of stress, well that can
lead to hormonal release, right. Well. Yeah, Plus, the last
little point they make in this article was that makes
sense in an evolutionary sense as far as the theory goes.
They think that if you have a stressful childhood, you're
inclined to earlier reproduction so you can survive bodies, Like,
we better get this underway. Yeah, Like, my family is stressed,

(10:38):
I don't know if I'm gonna survive, so I need
to have a baby at like a ten. That is
hardcore natural selection thinking, right, Yeah, pretty interesting, I think. Yeah,
so the the pubescent markers, right, the milestones that you
go through typically go hormone release, breastbuds, the pubic hare right,

(10:59):
and then those are the three things that that happened
in that order. Typically it can happen out of order.
But with with that hormone release, the first thing that
starts it out, which is first stage of puberty. What's
what's happening is um, your the uterus, the womb right,
which includes the uterus, the cervix, the fallopian tubes, ovaries,
all this stuff are starting to develop. Um, you were born.

(11:23):
I keep saying you, I'm not talking to you, Chuck,
Well I was. I'm the little girl in this experiment, right, girls, Okay,
so you you are. I'll just stay the little girl
that you have your skin knee I forgotten. Um you have.
You were born with about two million to five million
UM undeveloped eggs, which are called follicles. And remember one
of those hormones that gets released as follicle stimulating hormones.

(11:46):
So um, when your follicle hormones stimulating, When your follicle
stimulating hormones get at least, it goes down to your
ovaries and all of a sudden, you start to your
engine starts revving as far as your reproductive ability goes
that your body and you know, let's get you ready
to have a kid at some point, right, at some point. Yeah,
this this is a year's long process. But the point

(12:07):
is the first part of the whole thing is that
the cervix, the the ovaries, the Filippian tubes, the uterus
um all start to change internally and grow and develop. Sure. Yeah,
so typically in the past, the beginning of puberty is
said to start with monarchy, which is weird because that

(12:29):
that word, that term, it has a long history with stuff.
You should know, Yeah, because I remember on the Totem
Poles episode, it was that with the first appearance of it.
I think so because they would often build monarchy totems
as a celebratory uh thing when a when a young
girl has her first period, that's called the monarchy, right,
So typically that was always thought of as the first

(12:51):
sign of puberty or the first step. But as we know,
by the time monarchy comes on, you have already been
undergoing puberty inside your body for a little while. Yeah,
it's kind of stupid to mark the onset of puberty
with monarchy, because monarchy actually represents the end of your
first reproductive cycle, even though you probably wouldn't have been

(13:12):
able to conceive in that first attempt at it. It's
your body like kind of going through a few dry runs.
But that's a that doesn't make any sense to say, well,
you had your first period, so now you're in puberty.
You've been in puberty for probably a couple of years
by then. That's uh, And that monarchy can very wildly. Um.
They've done studies where they founded age difference of about

(13:33):
three and a half years, or it could be as
great as three and a half years, um, and it
all depends on you know, how fast your body is maturing. Well,
they found a developmental difference in of up to three
and a half years and girls the same age, So
some girls were three and a half years further along
in puberty even though they were ten years old, you know. Um.

(13:55):
So they figured out that hormones, probably the release of
hormones mark the onset of puberty. Um. One of the
other things that that comes along, like monarchy, can't it's
you notice it, right, It's very noticeable the thing that happens. Um.
And that's why for so long they used to say, well,

(14:15):
now everybody knows, so we know you're in puberty, right,
even though it doesn't make any sense. As we've said,
Another thing that happens fairly early on and girls in particular,
is a growth spurt, but like a cartoon growth spurt,
like Roger rabbit growth spurt, because the hands and the
feet grow first. Yeah, well, they can grow about three

(14:36):
and a half inches in a single year, which is
a lot, but not your hands and feet. Well, yeah,
you're you're your height, but the hands and feet are
gonna grow such that, um. You you might be a
little clumsy because you haven't gotten used to these big
banana boats at the end of your legs, right, but
fear not, because eventually the rest of your body is
gonna grow, um, in sync with it. What's weird is that, um,

(15:00):
girls grow through the growth spurts before boys. To do
you remember being like a boy and like the girls
all of a sudden in your class from like fifth
grade to sixth grade, where it's like, what what happened here?
What's going on? The giants? Exactly? Yeah? Year, Well, and
I was I was never like at the head of
my growth chart, so I was definitely like staring up

(15:23):
at girls wondering why they were taller than me. Why
are you mad? Why do I have special feelings about
this tall girl all of a sudden? Yeah, and why
are you so angry at me? Um? And we're gonna
talk to you boys here as well, because I can
definitely dole out some advice on how to treat your classmates.
So I'll be sprinkling that in here and there, your

(15:44):
Uncle Chuck and Mr Clark. That's right. So you're gonna
have your big hands and your big feet. You're gonna
be tripping, you're gonna be dropping things, but everything. Don't worry,
it's gonna even out. Your body's gonna catch up. And
even though you may be taller than some of the
boys in your class, um, they're gonna catch up to Um.
You're just a little bit ahead of the game. Yeah,

(16:05):
nothing to feel bad about. But you should also not
feel bad about this break right now. And then we're
gonna come back and talk about more of this stuff.

(16:30):
It's a chuck. We've kind of touched on it a
little bit. But let's let's talk about the actual stages
of puberty. Okay, let's so we've we've mentioned Stage one
is when the hormones start to get released from the
pituitary gland, the follicle stimulating hormone, lutenizing hormone, and these
along with estrogen for the rest of your reproductive life,

(16:51):
which goes from the time of your first period until
um menopause. Right, those three hormones are gonna be really
really important, and they interact with one another, and UM
one triggers one and and suppresses the other UM and
all of them cause those follicles, remember those tiny undeveloped

(17:11):
eggs that you're born with, about two million, with to
develop into eggs about once a month, right, this is
your menstrual cycle, that's right. So by the time you
enter puberty, the two million follicles, those two million eggs
actually have dwindled down to about four hundred thousand. And
every time you menstright, starting with that first time, about

(17:35):
a thousand of those follicles get stimulated and start to
turn into eggs. But one of them is just like
the runaway stand out, the head of the class, the
A plus student, and that one will develop into what's
called an ovum, which is a matured, unfertilized egg. And
as your as your estrogen levels grow throughout the month
and increase and increase they hit this this peak level,

(17:58):
and when it peaks, it triggers the sudden release of
lutenizing hormone, and that lutenizing hormone causes that egg to
pop out of your follicle and you know, the fallopian
tube and travel down to your uterus, and that is
called ovulation. This is probably not gonna happen on the
first period monarchy. Um, but I mean, it's entirely possible.

(18:23):
But this is the when you have monarchy. It's um,
it's again. It's usually like a dry run, like you're
trying to your body is figuring it out. Uh. Second stage?
Are we there yet? I think so? Okay, I guess
you should ask me. I'm the little girl here are
Are you ready to move on to the second stage? Yes,
Mr Clark? Okay, uh oh man, weird is getting kind

(18:47):
of weird. The second stage of puberty. Um. Again, it's
going to vary in age, but we'll go ahead and
say like eleven or twelve years old, Um, this is
when your breasts are gonna begin to grow, or as
they say and butting, is when the ariola is gonna
darken and rise some and you're gonna get some of
that breast tissue. And you you know, it might be

(19:11):
at that point that your parents say, all right, well,
maybe it's time to go to the store and introduce
you to something called the brazier or which no one
calls it anymore, it's called a little bra. And um,
you know, getting fitted for that thing I've heard is
not a lot of fun because it's like some big
mystery and it's hard to get it just right. But

(19:35):
hopefully mom and dad will will take you in or
a cool older sister. Yeah, and hopefully anyan dad's can
be involved in this stuff too. But since mom has
the experience, they can probably lend a little more like insight,
I would say. Right, and speaking of your mom, if
you have a wish to know probably what your breaths
are going to grow too in size. That sounded like

(19:56):
a joke, like an elementary school joke, speaking of your mom. Yes,
you your your mom's breast size is probably a decent
indicator of what yours is gonna grow too. But you're
made up of your mom and your dad, and your
dad just he just throws the whole thing off. So really, ultimately,
the best the best resources to look at your maternal

(20:18):
and paternal grandmothers and see what their breast sides look like. Right,
and don't freak out if there's are around their waist
because breast fall over the years and you don't need
to sweat that just yet. Maybe you could look at
pictures of them when they were younger, finally hit on
that might be horrifying. The third stage, Oh wait, I'm sorry.

(20:40):
Second stage, you're gonna start getting some of that pubic hare, right,
and that's when the growth spurt's going to appear as well.
And your bones are growing really really fast. Um, but
they're not as dense as they would be normally. They're
not calcified fully, so they can break pretty easy. So
you need to be careful here. Yeah, that's why you
see a lot of little girls little boys walk around
arm casts. Although I have never broken a bone. I

(21:04):
think you better knock on wood. I'm knocking on wood.
Do you still have that knock on wood? President? I
got you, I sure do, nice. I do it all
the time at home. Uh. Third stage pubic care is
going to continue to grow. The breasts are going to
continue to grow. Hair actually shows up all over the place. Yeah,

(21:24):
just like a little boys. All of a sudden, it
was like in the armpits. It's around your growing areas
like a jungle. Yeah, just growing all over the place. Uh.
Your vagina is gonna grow in size. And this is
usually about the age of twelve to thirteen. And by
this time, about seventy of girls, um that have hit

(21:45):
stage three have already had monarchy. That's right. And you
might say we should probably pause here for a second, chuck.
If if you are a girl listening to this, there
might be a burning question like what is going on? Why?
What's the teleological reason for all of this? Right? Sure,
that's what they're saying. Um, what has happened is your

(22:05):
body has sensed that you you have enough fat to
sustain a child, a fetus, and your body is undergoing
the necessary changes to allow you to conceive a child
and then carry it to full term. That's what's happening
with your body right now, That's right. Another thing that's
gonna happen is you're gonna start sweating and becoming a

(22:27):
stinky little monster. Uh. And that's probably when you're gonna say, Hey,
while we're at the store getting my first bra, how
about a stick of Deo durant, right, anti perse print.
Those days of chasing fireflies all night and not taking
a bath for eight days with no repercussions, right, and
not smelling at all, smelling like a daisy the whole time.
Those days are gone for the rest of your life.

(22:49):
That's right. And parents, be you know, sensitive to this.
Don't make fun of your kids. Tell them there're stinky
monsters like I just did. Well, Yeah, you're talking to
other people's kids. Yeah, be nicer about it, because some
kids might laugh and think it's funny. Some kids might
be very sensitive to that thing. Just the tad you know,
which is normal. It's normal stage four around the age

(23:11):
of thirteen or fourteen. Um. The height that you're growing
is gonna slow down a little bit. You're not gonna
be growing as tall. Boys are gonna start catching up
to you in height and your fat levels. Your body
fat is gonna basically reach your adult level body fat.
Like in just a couple of years, you could have
gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of like eight percent

(23:32):
body fat to twenty six percent body fat. Uh. And
you do not want to lose this weight. This is
this is um normal weight gain. That's right, that your
body needs for to be in reproductive health. That's right,
you're gonna be Uh. If you've had your first period,
that means you've had your second and third. By this point,
your body is probably trying to work out some sort

(23:55):
of a regular rhythm, although for the first little while
it's probably gonna be fairly irregular. Oh yeah, your cycle
for many times, and supposedly girls who go through monarchy
after thirteen tend to have very irregular periods up until
eighteen yea, and even beyond that, even as an adult,

(24:15):
you can go out of rhythm for all sorts of
different things, including like birth control. Yeah. Absolutely uh. And
then stage five is when you are have fully matured
UM fourteen to seventeen all the way up to like
nineteen years old. You are through the stages of puberty.
You're probably as tall as you're gonna get. Your breasts
you're probably as big as they're gonna get without any

(24:37):
kind of surgical help, and um, your pubic hare is
hopefully as fully developed as it's gonna get. And then finally,
your your skeleton and your muscles and your cardiovascular system,
everything you're you're basically a young woman. You can vote,
you can't drink, and you can't rent a car. Right,

(25:00):
that's where you're at in life pretty much. So. UM.
One of the the again, one of the long time
markers of um pubescence in girls has been breast development,
starting with breast buds, right, And what's going on there
is your um. Again, your body's developing so that it

(25:23):
can support a kid internally. And UM, one of the
things that you will have to do once you have
a kid, or be able to do is the nurse. Right,
So your breast development is changing. There's more tissue, they're
they're getting bigger, and the one of the reasons they're
getting bigger is because there's they're actually structurally changing, so

(25:44):
you're forming milk ducks in there and new layers of
fatty tissue so that you can nurse. It's pretty cool.
And actually I read a really really interesting article on
UM mother's milk and the Stranger the other day. UM,
it's amazing stuff. Get this, dude. So apparently mother's milk

(26:06):
can change day to day and produce new antibodies based
on what the infant needs. So, like, if the infant
is battling like a little bit of a bug. The
mom's body can produce anybodies that are transferred through the milk.
They're like, how does the mom know this? And they
have figured out that the baby saliva communicates what what

(26:29):
what anybody's here she needs through the nipple, and then
the mother's body analyzes that stuff and goes, oh, we
need these humanibodies, produces it and gives it to the
kid in the form of milk. This is what you
will be able to do in just a few years. Girls,
that's pretty phenomenal stuff, that's right. Uh. So, as your
breast are getting larger, uh, they may be sore, they

(26:52):
may be itchy. Uh. If you have rapid growth, they
may have some stretch marks. Don't need to worry about
any of this stuff. They may be uh not the
same size. One breast might grow quicker than the other.
That's okay too. And Chuck, like you said, also, depending
on your race, um, you may develop breastbuds earlier later again,

(27:15):
totally normal. That's right, all right, So Chuck, the breasts
are developed, the hormones are raging, um so, and the
womb is developing, right. And as the womb is developing
and it's learning to ovulate. Right. Um. The menstrual cycle, Guys,
you and I tend to think of it as basically

(27:36):
this um one week thing that happens, right, it's actually
a usually a between a twenty and thirty day process.
And it's not just the the part where you have
your mensies, which is the part where you're shedding the
endometrium from inside the uterus, the lining. It's this whole

(27:57):
process of the follicles becoming stimulated, producing an ovum, the
ovum traveling down the fallopian tube to the uterus hanging
out there waiting to see whether it gets fertilized or not,
and um. And then when the egg doesn't get fertilized,
that endometrium, the lining of the uterus, which has become
rich with like these blood vessels as part of the

(28:19):
menstrual process, gets shed. Right. But before it gets shed,
one of the things that will suddenly appear about six
months prior to monarchy is what's called a white vaginal discharge.
That's right, it is completely normal and it is uh
the precursor to your first period. You don't need to

(28:39):
stress out about it if you find that, uh, you know,
you're in your room and you're getting ready for bed,
and you you see something you haven't seen before in
your underwear, then don't freak out. It's all very normal.
It actually means that you have a very healthy uh uterus.
That's right. Uh. There are all kinds of charge actually,

(29:01):
and I did not know that there are all kinds
of discharge. Are you referring to that one UM article
we said, there's there's a great article on our podcast
page that has photos of different types of discharge that
that says, this is normal. This is normal. See a doctor,
this is normal, you know. Yeah, the normal types UM
light yellow discharge if you haven't started your period yet,

(29:24):
the white, thick discharge is common at the beginning and
end of the cycle. UM should not itch. If there
is an itch going on, then you could have a
yeast infection, right, which is basically just a bloom of
candid to which can be brought on by things like
taking antibiotics or something like that. The discharge can be
clear and stretchy. That means you are ovulating. That is

(29:47):
fertile mucus, right, That's the that's the good stuff. That's
the stuff that let's sperm get in there and really
travel to the ovum. That's right, clear and watery. That
is not a problem either. That can occur at all
times of the cycle. Uh. It can be dark yellow
or green. Uh, and that could be a problem, and
that means there could be an infection, especially like I said,

(30:10):
if it's itchy, or if it's clumpy, or if it
has a bad odor, then that may be something you
need to get checked out. But for the most part
of this stuff, it's called cervical mucus, and you're going
to be discharging it for basically the rest of your life,
just a it's just a fact of life. And again
it means that you have a nice, healthy uterus and
everything's all well with it, unless again there's some warning

(30:33):
signs to it, and if there are discussing a doctor,
get fixed up. You'll be fine. Yeah. And the last
one I think we should mention is brown because that
can probably be pretty stressful if you've never seen that
before as a young girl. And that's after your period,
and that's all that is is your body just cleaning
things out. And also again completely normal because blood when
it's old looks brown, right, So that's vaginal discharge. That's

(30:57):
different from your actual mensies right. So with your menzies um,
that is where you're shedding. Remember that really blood vessel
rich lining that gets developed every month along the the
um the inside of your uterus um that allows an
fertilized egg to attach to it, really nourishes it and
let's it turn into a fetus and all of that.

(31:18):
It's pretty great stuff, but every month you need to
shed it and and grow some more stuff. So when
you shed it, that's what comes out in the form
of your your menzies right. And it can feel apparently
like a waterfall for a while, but it actually usually
amounts to nothing more than four tablespoons, which is like

(31:39):
a quarter cup at the most. Yeah, on average, can
last from three to ten days. Usually the heaviest part
of that will be in the second and third day um.
And if you do feel like you're having an abnormally
heavy period, then maybe you should call your doctor. Of course,
and as you get to know your body, you're gonna
you're gonna be very in tune with your cycle and

(32:01):
you know best how you feel and whether or not
you think something's going on. But the first couple will
probably freak you out. Yeah, it's totally understandable. Yeah, and there's, um,
there's a long history of of period shaming, uh, which
is terrible, and there are a lot of people trying
to do something about that now, in particular in Australia. Uh.

(32:24):
There's this really cool thing called a Celebration Day for Girls.
I was founded in two thousand and it's a program
I think founded by a woman that wrote a book
called A Blessing Not a Curse, which is basically a
guide book about monarchy in the in the cycle uh
and said all these shameful, ugly attitudes about monarchy and

(32:44):
in the period or obviously gonna have a really uh
negative impact on your on your child. And so they're
getting together now and they're doing these workshops where they
get together with mothers and their daughters or fathers and
daughters are both and where they teach them about what's
going on and basically saying this is not something bad

(33:05):
or dirty or ugly or shameful. This is awesome. This
is like you should celebrate this. You're becoming a woman. Yeah,
when you look amazing, it's really amazing stuff. Yeah, it's
it's amazing. So, you know, I think our audience is
pretty sensitive and uh, up to date and forward thinking.
But if there are any dads out there, little brothers

(33:25):
who are are making fun of sister's period or your
daughter's period, just don't even make jokes. Don't make cracks.
This is very stand outside for a while by yourself.
It's a very rough time, or it can be, and
they need to be celebrated for entering this period in
their life, not not shamed. So that's good stuff, chuck. Yeah,

(33:45):
you know what it reminds me of. There's his kids
in the hall from years and years and years ago
where Dave Foley was the boyfriend with the good attitude
towards menstruation. Remember that one, Hious, that's pretty good. Was
there a counterpart that it was a little still liquy? Yeah,
that's good. I'm sure. I'm positive it's online. Uh. One
of the things though, even though men's season, monarchy and

(34:08):
menstruation should be celebrated and investigated and understood and not
poked fun at um, is that there are some definite
downsides to it. Apparently, there is a a pole of
women Um that was carried out by the Association of
Reproductive Health Professionals and only eight percent of women said

(34:30):
that they um found something positive about their um menstrual cycle.
There about menstruating, they weren't very happy with it, right,
And I'm sure one of the big reasons is because,
um it feels awful like you cramp. And the reason
why cramping is associated with it is because that endometrium

(34:51):
is being shed and the way it sheds is your
um users contracts. And it can be uncomfortable to say
the least. Yeah, it can be everywhere uncomfortable to debilitating,
depending on who you are. There is no single method
to relieve cramping. You might try medications or just rest
or certain diet or activity, Uh, try anything. You can.

(35:14):
Ask your your girlfriends, ask your mom, ask your weird aunt,
and uh, they'll probably have some good advice on on
how to you know, quell those cramps somewhat. And then finally,
of course, along with menstruation comes pre minstrul old syndrome
p MS, which we should do a show on at
some point. And I agree wholeheartedly. Man, I think there's

(35:34):
a lot of um weirdness, a lot of misunderstanding around that. Yeah,
I agree. Uh, there may be some bloating going on,
aches and pains which you talked about, and moodiness which
can happen, and you know you may not feel like yourself.
Oh yeah, that's just the easiest way to say it.
You're not a bad person. You may hate all boys,

(35:56):
you might. Yeah, and again Dad's little brothers, big, go
stand outside. Don't start making fun of your sister and
saying you're acting this way because you're going to have
your period. That is a bad road to go down.
Clean dog poop up in the yard or something. That's right,
and you think about yourself for a little while. All right, Well,

(36:17):
let's take another break here, and when we come back,
we'll talk a little bit more about teenage moods and
acne and all the other good stuff. All right, we're back,

(36:42):
and Jerry just gave us a stamp of approval that
we're doing a pretty good job so far. I'm not
sure if I buy no man, I think she's she
didn't lie to us, scurry lies. She's a publicist. Yeah,
the publicists did not like that episode. Oh did you
hear bad things? Uh? Huh. All I've gotten is like, yeah,
you guys hit it on the head. Just a lot

(37:04):
of them were like, you really hurt my feelings really,
especially once they didn't make it all the way through
the episode. Oh where I say at the end, like,
I'm just talking about big celebrity probosists, which you probably
should have frontloaded because some people haven't made it through that.
And they said, well, all right, let's talk about acne. Uh.
We We've been over acne a bunch, so I don't

(37:24):
think we really need to talk about the actual process
of acne. Haven't we done like a whole episode on acne? Yeah,
Plus we hit it again in the male puberty. Oh yeah,
but um, you're gonna get acne a little girl. Yeah. Well,
one of the reasons why is because you're now producing
hair follicles. And your hair follicles produced see bum, and
see bum is a substance that mixes with all sorts

(37:44):
of nasty stuff, including dead skin cells, and when it
happens in the follicle itself rather than on your skin,
bacteria likes to eat that stuff. You get an infection
and that's is it, and it's gonna happen, but it
won't happen to you as much as it does two boys.
That's right. So much for not getting into what acne
is that was fast man. I was like that old
FedEx guy. Uh So, this is a tough time in

(38:07):
your life. Your body is changing. You're gonna feel weird,
you might be cramping, you might feel physically odd, emotionally odd,
hormonially off, and then on top of that, you're gonna
add acne. It's it's cruel and unusual punishment, is what
that is. And Tom actually wrote the male puberty and
female puberty um articles, right, and in both of them
he says just wash your face. And we said that

(38:28):
in the male puberty episode and we heard from some
people that are like, yeah, that's great that that works
for some people. It doesn't work for everybody. Know, Um,
they're basically like dealing with PMS. There's a lot of
different things you can try and just go find out
what's good for you. Absolutely I got lucky. Some people
aren't as lucky. I was not lucky. Did you have
bad acney? Oh yeah, not on my face? I Backney, right,

(38:51):
But even still I get zits and you don't. It
drives me crazy. Yeah, well it drives Emily crazy just
because she wants to pop him. Yeah you mean like
to do that too. She didn't get any action. So
she's just like, come on, what's going on. Yeah, she
looks forward to summer. I get more in the summer
if you were a young girl. Um. One thing we

(39:12):
didn't say in the boys episode, which we probably could have,
because little boys can wear makeup if they want, I guess,
but take your makeup off at night. Oh yeah, I remember.
For some reason, this stands out in my mind. I
saw an interview with Stevie next years ago where someone
was asking about her skin looking so great. Still. Oh,
I think you told me this. It might have been
it might have been in the acting episode, but she said,

(39:34):
you know is even in the height of my like
drinking and drugging days, at the end of the night,
I would take off my makeup. And she's like, that's
why I have such great skin. That in all the
lacy scarves that I wear. That helps, I guess, protects
her from bugs exactly. So we've covered pretty much everything physiological.

(40:00):
This is all the stuff that's going to happen to you. Um, physically, psychologically,
there's gonna be a lot of changes too. I don't know,
nothing happens psychologically, right, So, I mean, I would like
to think that it's probably all based. You could probably
trace every single change in emotion to hormone. I don't
think that this is necessarily true. I think that really

(40:21):
kicks it off, really goods things going. But it is
true that you have to deal with little brothers and
boys who don't understand, and jerk dads and um even
a nice supportive mom is going to seem like a
monster to you. Like so, I think it creates something
of a feedback loop for these several years of your
puberty where you are way moodier, way more stressed out,

(40:43):
and uh, the world reacts to you as such, so
you react to the world as such, and you just
basically have to buckle up and hold on for this stuff.
And there are a lot of really bad decisions you
can make along the way because you start to have
a lot more freedom. You get your driver's license, you
are out there in the world, and people have just

(41:04):
imbued a lot more trust and responsibility and you at
the time when you possibly deserve it the absolute least,
but you need it the most because it's part of
your development. So you really have to make some good
choices at this point in time, at times when things
don't quite make sense to you. So at a time
like this, the best thing that you can do is
turn to Judy Bloom. Yeah, man, amen, just set you straight.

(41:27):
She certainly will. You're gonna be really self aware for
the first time. You're just happy, go lucky days is
a little girl are gonna be long gone, and you're
gonna be really aware of your appearance. Probably gonna be
worried about your appearance. Um, that is so normal as
a parent. You may think it's self obsession. It is not.
It is a young girl starting to become a woman

(41:50):
and looking in the mirror and going, what in the
world is happening here? Yeah? Right, Uh, look at my face.
It just screw a quarter inch while I was standing
here exactly. Uh uh. This is when your your daughter
is going to start um looking at her belief system
and challenging yours and saying, like I said earlier about you,
big hypocrite. That's when your daughter is going to become

(42:12):
a vegan and yell at you for buying a dog
from a pet store and become aware of all these
social injustices and like, how in the world can you
guys act like that? Like you're supposed to be my teachers.
It's called Yeah, put food on the tube. That's all
that matters. Uh. So, yeah, they're gonna be challenging you,

(42:33):
and they're gonna be uh erratic and moody and um,
it's just gonna be a big circus and you just
there's no avoiding it. You just gotta get through it. Yeah,
and again, I mean, like just keeping the lines of
communication as open as possible and not chasing your parents
out of your room when they come and try to

(42:53):
talk to because they seem concerned. It's a really good move.
And if you're a parent's a good move to try
to address stuff, especially if you're noticing things that your
kid didn't do before. There's a certain amount of healthy experimentation,
right sure, with with pushing boundaries and figuring out where
the edges are, but that can very easily and very

(43:13):
quickly change into like really like problematic deviant behavior. These
are the choices I was telling you about earlier. Kids
that like, you have to make good choices. Even though
some of your friends are not making good choices, you
need to still stand up and do the right thing
and the same things. And if your parent you're noticing
that your kid might not be making the good choices.

(43:35):
You have to address that. That's right. And again, I
think that the best line is talking to them, not
necessarily locking them in their room for the rest of
their teenage years, because that doesn't work. I hate to
break it to you. Uh, kids are gonna find a way.
They're gonna sneak out. They're gonna do what they want
to do. So if you stay there, buddy, and as
much as you can and keep those lines open, you're

(43:55):
gonna be ahead of the game. Uh. Your daughter's gonna
start caring about fashion and clothing a little more. Um,
and boys just gonna go boy crazy, might go a
little boy crazy, but she's gonna be looking around saying,
where do I fit in? You know? Am I am
I gonna follow the trends? Or am I gonna wear? Uh?
Am I gonna have my own style and just be

(44:16):
my own person. And where these weird clothes I might
get made fun of? Well supposedly like weird is like
where it's at these days with the kids. Did you
know that? Sure? So then we're normal clothes right and
less like a young Republican exactly. Um. Some potential pitfalls
here as your body is changing because of society's obsession

(44:38):
with the female form and getting bombarded every day with
how thin you have to be and how perfect your
body has to be. Uh, it is fraught with complications
as a young girl to look a certain way. And
this is where you can set yourself up for trouble
with eating disorders or if you're if you're not good
at expressing yourself, you have no outlet to doing like

(45:00):
self cutting and these bad things behind closed doors. Um,
all of that is is very sad, scary stuff, but um,
all of it can be overcome and it is all
very much treatable as long as you talk to your
parents about it to get their help they want to
help you, or somebody someone you trust. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
And I was looking into self cutting in particular. Um,

(45:22):
one of the it seems like if you learn to
express your emotions through something like that, that's it's tough
to shed that. Apparently, like fifty or sixty percent of
people who self cut as adults all started um at puberty,
I'm sure. So that's that's not a healthy way to
express yourself for to get the rage out or whatever

(45:44):
it is that you're doing that for. So you again
you have to be smart during this time too. Uh
you Uh, your daughter might be experimenting with masturbation early
on and thinking about sexy things. It's all very normal. Um,
even at a very very young age. Uh. There are

(46:06):
young girls as young as four and five years old
who find themselves simulating sex, like with their pillow in
their bed, with a stuffed animal. Like I've I've seen
it with my own two eyes, Mr. Bank. I don't
want to embarrass anyone in my family, but I've seen it.
Probably stop there, and it's uh for a parent. If

(46:27):
you've never seen that, it can be very Yeah, it
can be very disconcerting, I'm sure, but it's all super
normal and you don't have to worry about it. Um. No,
but that said you were not ready for sex when
you're going through puberty or even right after you emerge
from it. No, of course not. And that's not at
four and five. They don't even know what that is.
Oh yeah, they're just uh, they know it feels good

(46:47):
and they're messing around. And uh, don't shame them, don't
make them feel like they're dirty or doing something bad. Uh.
If it you know, everything I read just says you know,
just sort of wait it out and it should eventually pass. Basically,
let it guess pass, yea or um, maybe if you

(47:07):
interrupt or like interrupt her to go do something fun,
play a game, um or. I even saw one advice
burst into the room just as a scary clown. That'll
stop it quick. Uh. One advice thing I saw said
to um sometimes to just if it's happening in front,

(47:27):
like you're all sitting around watching TV and you see
it's happening, then say, you know, would you like to
go to your room and have a look private time,
and then they'll come back ten minutes later and be
with the family again. Where did you see that advice?
It was in a on a parenting site. Huh, Well,
do you think it's bad advice? No, I'm just I'm surprised.
I thought you were doling that out yourself. No, of course,

(47:50):
I've never dealt with this, but I went to a
lot of because I couldn't find any medical advice except
for from parenting sites for doctors. Was that like, it's normal,
it's normal. It didn't go any further than that. Yeah,
basically the root of it all was don't shame them,
and uh, just let them do their thing. Yeah, I

(48:12):
mean it makes sense, all right. Should we finish up
like we did with the male puberty and talk about
some puberty rituals around the world. You know, we have
a future is like health coaches after this. I think
I have a feeling we we did pretty good here,
but also the feeling we're gonna hear from some people
that are like, you guys, you know you shouldn't say
this these days. Yeah, you know, like that's I've been

(48:34):
tense the entire episode because of that. Well, we we
tried to get it just right. We did, but I also,
I mean, we're imparting some information here and heavy, heavy,
important information. I want to get it right, you know. Yeah,
but you can't be at the leading edge of every word.
We can, you know, yes, we can, all right, the
female puberty rituals. There is a great history, especially pre

(48:57):
twentieth century, of UH seclusion at the beginning of monarchy,
taking a girl out of the tribe or out of
the village or out of wherever for a period of
a couple of days to a year or more, um
secluded away from everyone else. And I looked it up

(49:19):
and there's a couple of reasons they think sociologically, one
is to act as a social preparation where it's a
good thing because they get their secluded with their moms
and their aunts and they really say like all right,
well now we gotta start teaching you all these things.
And the other one was just superstition relating to blood
as ancient as it gets, or fearing um women who

(49:40):
are going through their menstrual cycle. Supernatural reasons um apparently, Uh,
I like this one. The Urubu cut poor in Brazil,
their tribe in Brazil. Um they when a girl goes
through monarchy, they cut her hair and then she can
Mary once it grows back to shoulder length. Yeah, it's

(50:03):
kind of interesting, like it's it's almost like a preternatural
understanding of the development that the body still has yet
to go through before she can you know Mary. Yeah,
it's a good point. Uh. In Ghana, there are villages
that um for a few weeks, they separate the girl
from the village and then they give her instruction which

(50:26):
we were talking about, which is a good thing on
social mora, aids and sex said and courtship, and then
then they have a big celebration, which is really nice.
With Yeah, same with the Jewish community as of the
twentieth century. Um, with the advent of bot mitzvah's, which
is like a bar mitzvah for girls. Yeah, but they
didn't have them before the twentieth century. Yeah. And I

(50:48):
looked into other rituals and things, and almost every one
of them I saw we're sort of along those same lines,
which is, seclude them for a little while, teach them
about things, and then throw a big party. Uh. Did
you see the Apache one, the morning Star dance? When
an Apache girl goes through monarchy, Um, she's secluded from
the rest of the village for four days, goes through

(51:10):
this um basically a period of fasting, um, getting very
little sleep, and on the fourth day, while she's already
basically starving and sleep to probably, she does a dance
from sundown to sun up? Are you kidding me? And
um they there's a really neat national geographic video about

(51:31):
it where this girl is so excited because this is
like this marks the transition to womanhood for her, you know.
But um, she learns a lot about herself, her tribe
or history, um during this period because she's hanging out
with her you know, her mom and her grandmother and
just being taught all this stuff. Interesting. Yeah, it sounds
pretty cool. I saw some South American tribe. I think

(51:52):
that files the teeth into fangs. Why monarchy? Monarchy? Uh,
have you got anything else? I got nothing else? Man.
I hope we did something good here. I think we did.
I feel good about it. Uh. If you want to
know more about female puberty, you can type those words

(52:13):
into your favorite search engine and I'll bring up all
sorts of stuff. You could also type it into the
search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since
I said search parts, time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
I just tweeted at you, so you may have seen this,
but I wanted to make sure you got my appreciation
loud and clear. Just finished listening to the Auto Tune episode, which,

(52:34):
in my humble opinion, was one of the best you've
ever done. A lot of people like that one, and
I wanted to thank you both for being so conscious
about letting Tracy and Holly have the mic for your
listener mail discussion. You let the women speak about their
experiences instead of subtly making it all about the dudes. Uh.
In this should not be an extraordinary thing. Yet it was. Indeed,

(52:55):
it demonstrated that you both have an excellent grasp of
what it means to be a male feminist and solid
allies to disenfranchise groups. I wish more men in my
line of work had your attitude and intent on a
lobbyist for a nonprofit, by the way, that works against
domestic violence. So bravo, three cheers and well done. And

(53:15):
that is from Noel. Do tweet. Thanks a lot. No, well, yeah,
that's really nice of you. Try do your best. Yeah
I didn't. Yeah, do your best. Suddenly making it about us,
We didn't do that. Uh not this not this time, time,
this time. If you want to get in touch with
us to give us kudos or say you guys suck

(53:37):
or whatever reason um, or to let us know if
we really missed the mark on female puberty, we want
to hear all about it. You can tweet to us
at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot

(53:58):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Visit how stuff works dot com. H