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

Episode Date: September 29, 2015

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HouseStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, oversee this one in particular.

Yeah, and this is Stuff You Should Know. Yeah, I'm glad Jerry's here for this one. Because if it was, I guess producer Noel, it would not. You'd be like, I don't know. Yeah, this is on Female Puberty. Jerry went through Female Puberty, Noel did not. He did not. Although Noel has a daughter, so he might listen to this.

Yeah, so this one's for Noel. Yeah, exactly. And for all you families out there, all you kids, all you 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. And if you're the pubescent kid, turning into a woman, you need to try to share your feelings and talk to your rents 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, for sure. 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 lame-o. You're a zero. Yeah, you were not funny. You're not cool, and why should I listen to you about anything, because you're also a big fat hypocrite? Right, exactly.

Just get ready, folks. Yeah. Get ready, you. And then, well, yeah, true. Yeah. But then, after the age of 13, you're gonna be friends again, when they're like in their mid-20s,

and they're gonna think you're great again. After the age of 13, I don't think that's the way it works at all. No, between 13 and like 23. Oh yeah, gotcha. They're probably gonna think you're super lame. That's called the wasteland years. Yeah, and then they think you're cool again.

Yeah, well, I was talking to you about this. Then you feel bad about how you treated them from 13 to 20. You realize, yeah, they're not so bad, after all. That is right. So, female puberty, and the girls, if you're listening to this, and you are going through puberty,

you're about to go through puberty, let us just be the, just one thing that you turn to to find out more about it. Talk to people, like I said. There's also a ton, ton of stuff on the internet that has some really great advice, suggestions, just basically type female puberty, and anything that looks like it was compiled by a doctor,

or reviewed by a doctor, is probably fairly trustworthy. Yeah, and here's a piece of advice. Go to iTunes, and subscribe to stuff that your mom never told you. Oh yeah, that's a good advice. From our colleagues, Carolyn and Kristen, because it is great, and especially at that age,

they will help you through a whole host of issues, hormonal, and emotional, and physical, and power 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, I'm tittering nervously over here, I think you can imagine,

but I'm strangely calmer with this one than I was with the male puberty one. Interesting. I don't understand why. Yeah, I could tell you since, I sensed 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 here's what I came up with. With male puberty, it was like, I went through there. Sure, sure, I get it. 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. Around about age eight.

Yeah. Loving it, things are great. My beard's nice and long. Maybe you got like your knee skinned. Sure. Last week, and that's bumming you out still, but for the most part, you're pretty happy with everything.

Yeah. 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 GPR-54 gene sensed that you have reached the minimum amount of fat in your body.

Leptin is what it monitors, and it caused the hypothalamus, which is a cute little gland in your brain, to distribute a chemical that it's just been holding in reserve, basically since you were born, called gonadotropin-releasing hormone, or GNRH. That's right.

And you know that game mousetrap, 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, exactly. You just set it up and did it over and over.

Pretty much, that's pretty much what it devolves to. This is basically like mousetrap for your body. Yeah, and that fat that you were talking about in the leptin that resides there, that is a little bit of a newer finding. Previously, 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 if you're a little girl that's overweight, you may go through puberty a little bit earlier. Yeah, they think that's one reason why early onset puberty is 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. Sure. Between precocious puberty and, hey, I'm just a little bit on the early side, there's a very fuzzy period now where there did not used to be.

Right. That is not fully understood. 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 the GNRH hormone, the gonadotropin releasing hormone, comes out of your hypothalamus

and it 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 gonna be important for the rest of your, I guess, productive life, reproductive life. Yeah, LH, the luteinizing hormone, and FSH, the follicle stimulating hormone. Right.

And so these things start coursing through the body, entering your bloodstream. And what just happened to you, my young friend, is the, you hit puberty. Yeah. That just started. And at this point, you could be somewhere around age eight, nine, 10.

This is the first stage of puberty. Basically anywhere between ages eight and 11, I think it's considered in the normal range. But like Chuck said, right? 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 abnormal is true. That's rough. But say on average that you're between eight and 11 when this first happens. Yeah, there was a, I sent you that New York Times article

was really good about the onset of female puberty. And since the, there was a landmark study in 1960 from the UK where they basically said the average age is 11. And that was always sort of the common thinking. But there was a woman in the 1980s at the time she was a physician's associate at Duke named Marcia Herman Giddens. And she said, I'm noticing a lot of eight

and nine year old girls in my clinic that are like getting pubic hair, that are have their breasts are budding, like what's going on here? And she started writing about that. And a lot of endocrinologists were saying, no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. And for a couple of about 25 years,

there was a big debate about it until finally in 2010, three major institutions, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, published a study in Pediatrics saying that by age seven, 10% of white girls, 23% of black girls, 15% of Hispanic girls and 2% of Asian girls

were developing breasts. By age what? Seven. Seven. And that's budding breasts, that's not necessarily puberty, but. No, but that was the marker for the onset of puberty that they used for a very long time.

So basically they're saying now that they don't know quite why this is happening, but they do think that if you're overweight, that that can set it off like we said. And really interesting that family stress, they think can get off puberty earlier. 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. 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 just kick puberty in at an earlier age,

that's one of the theories at least. That makes sense too, because what seems to be the increasingly prevalent attitude toward what constitutes the onset of puberty is that once your geratotropin hormone is released, then you're in puberty. Everything else is just kind of symptomatic or markers of puberty, right?

So if 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 it 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.

Yeah, bodies like we better get this underway. Yeah, like my family is stressed, I don't know if I'm gonna survive, so I need to have a baby at like 10. That is hardcore natural selection thinking right there. Yeah, pretty interesting, I think. Yeah, so the pubescent markers, right? The milestones that you go through,

typically go hormone release, breast buds, the pubic hair, right? And then those are the three things that happen in that order, typically. It can happen out of order, but with that hormone release, the first thing that starts it out, which is first stage of puberty,

what's happening is the uterus, the womb, right, which includes the uterus, the cervix, the fallopian tubes, the ovaries, all this stuff, are starting to develop. You were born, I keep saying you, I'm not talking to you Chuck. No, I'm the little girl in this experiment, right? Girls, okay, so you, you are.

I'll just stay the little girl. That's right, you have your skin knee, I forgot. You were born with about two million to five million undeveloped eggs, which are called follicles. And remember one of those hormones that gets released is follicle stimulating hormones. So when your follicle hormones stimulate,

or when your follicle stimulating hormones get released, 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. Yeah, it's your body saying, you know, let's get you ready to have a kid at some point. Right, at some point. Yeah.

This is a years long process, but the point is the first part of the whole thing is that the cervix, the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the uterus, 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 word, that term, it has a long history with stuff you should know. Yeah, because I remember in the totem poles episode. It was that with the first appearance of it? I think so, because they would often build monarchy totems. That's right. As a celebratory thing when a young girl

has her first period, it's called the monarchy. Right. So typically that was always thought of as the first 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. Yeah. Even though you probably wouldn't have been able to conceive in that first attempt at it. It's your body like kind of going through a few dry runs, but 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 right. And that monarchy can vary wildly. They've done studies where they found a age difference of about three and a half years, or it could be as great as three and a half years, and it all depends on how fast your body's maturing. Well, they found a developmental difference

of up to three and a half years in girls the same age. So some girls were three and a half years further along in puberty even though they were 10 years old. Right. So they figured out that hormones, probably the release of hormones, mark the onset of puberty. One of the other things that comes along,

like monarchy, you notice it, right? It's a very noticeable point, the thing that happens. And that's why for so long they used to say, well, now everybody knows. So we know you're in puberty, right? Yeah, yeah. Even though it doesn't make any sense, as we've said. Another thing that happens fairly early on,

in girls in particular, is a growth spurt. Yes. But like a cartoon growth spurt, like Roger Rabbit growth spurt, because the hands and the feet grow first. Yeah, they can grow about three and a half inches in a single year, which is a lot, but. Not your hands and feet.

Well, yeah, your height. But the hands and feet are gonna grow such that 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's gonna grow in sync with it. What's weird is that girls grow through these growth spurs

before boys do. 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, it's like, what happened here? What's going on? Land of the Giants. Exactly, yeah.

I wasn't this short last year. Well, and I was never like at the head of my growth chart, so I was definitely like staring up 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?

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. Oh, nice. Your 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, they're gonna catch up to, you're just a little bit ahead of the game. Yeah.

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. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references

to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll wanna be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s,

called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing.

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Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So, Chuck, we've kind of touched on it a little bit, but let's talk about the actual stages of puberty, OK? Let's. So we've mentioned stage one is when the hormones start to get released from the pituitary gland, the follicle-stimulating hormone, the luteinizing hormone.

And these, along with estrogen, for the rest of your reproductive life, which goes from the time of your first period until menopause, right? Yep. Those three hormones are going to be really, really important. And they interact with one another. And one triggers one and suppresses the other. And all of them cause those follicles,

remember those tiny, undeveloped eggs that you're born with about 2 million with, to develop into eggs about once a month, right? And this is your menstrual cycle. That's right. So by the time you enter puberty, the 2 million follicles, those 2 million eggs, actually have dwindled down to about 400,000.

Yes. And every time you menstruate, starting with that first time, about 1,000 of those follicles get stimulated and start to turn into eggs. But one of them is just like the runaway standout, 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, right?

That's right. And as your estrogen levels grow throughout the month and increase and increase, they hit this peak level. And when it peaks, it triggers the sudden release of luteinizing hormone. And that luteinizing hormone causes that egg to pop out of your follicle and enter the fallopian tube and travel down to your uterus.

And that is called ovulation. That's right. This is probably not going to happen on the first period, monarchy. Right. But I mean, it's entirely possible. But this is the, when you have monarchy, it's, again, it's usually like a dry run.

Like you're trying to, your body's figuring it out. Yeah. Second stage, are we there yet? I think so. OK. I guess you should ask me. I'm the little girl here. Are you ready to move on to the second stage?

Yes, Mr. Clark. OK. Oh, man, weird. It's getting kind of weird. The second stage of puberty, again, is going to vary in age. But we'll go ahead and say, like, 11 or 12 years old. This is when your breasts are going

to begin to grow or bud, as they say. And budding is when the areola is going to darken and rise some. And you're going to get some of that breast tissue. And you know, it might be 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.

Right. It's called a little bra. And 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 hopefully mom and dad will take in. Or a cool older sister. Yeah, and hopefully any dads can be involved in this stuff,

too, but since mom has the experience, they can probably lend a little more insight, I would say. Right. And speaking of your mom, if you have a wish to know probably what your breasts are going to grow to in size. That sounded like a joke, like an elementary school joke. Speaking of your mom.

Yeah, sure. Your mom's breast size is probably a decent indicator of what yours is going to grow to. Sure. But you're made up of your mom and your dad. Right. And your dad just, he just throws the whole thing off. So really, ultimately, the best resource

is to look at your maternal and paternal grandmothers and see what their breast size looked like. Right. And don't freak out if theirs are around their waist because breasts 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.

There you go. All right. That's a good idea. We finally hit on. That might be horrifying. The third stage, oh wait, I'm sorry, second stage, you're going to start getting some of that pubic hair. Right.

And that's when the growth spurt's going to appear as well. And your bones are growing really, really fast. Yeah. But they're not as dense as they would be normally. They're not calcified fully. So they can break pretty easily. So you need to be careful here. Yeah, that's why you see a lot of little girls and little boys

walking around in arm casts. That's right. Although I have never broken a bone, I think. You better knock on wood. I'm knocking on wood. Do you still have that knock on wood present I got you? I sure do. Nice.

I do it all the time at home. Good. Third stage, pubic hair is going to continue to grow. The breasts are going to continue to grow. Hair actually shows up all over the place. Yeah, just like little boys. All of a sudden, it's like in the armpits. It's around your groin area.

It's like a jungle. Yeah, just growing all over the place. Your vagina is going to grow in size. And this is usually about the age of 12 to 13. Right. By this time, about 70% of girls that have hit stage three have already had monarchy. That's right.

And you might say, we should probably pause here for a second, Chuck. 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? I'm sure that's what they're saying. What has happened is your body has sensed

that 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. Yep, that's right. Another thing that's going to happen is you're going to start sweating and becoming a stinky little monster.

Stinky. And that's probably when you're going to say, hey, while we're at the store getting my first bra, how about a stick of deodorant or antiperspirant? 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. That's right. And parents be sensitive to this. Don't make fun of your kids and tell them they'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 a tad, you know? Which is normal. It's normal. Stage four, around the age of 13 or 14, the height that you're growing is going to slow down a little bit. You're not going to be growing as tall.

Boys are going to start catching up to you in height. And your fat levels, your body fat is going to basically reach your adult level of body fat. Like in just a couple of years, you could have gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of like 8% body fat to 26% body fat. And you do not want to lose this weight. This is normal weight gain that your body

needs to be in reproductive health. That's right. You're going to be, 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 of a regular rhythm. Although for the first little while, it's probably going to be fairly irregular.

Oh, yeah. Your cycle. For many times. And supposedly, girls who go through monarchy after 13 tend to have very irregular periods up until 18. Yeah. And even beyond that, even as an adult, you can go out of rhythm for all sorts of different things,

including birth control. Yeah, absolutely. And then stage five is when you are fully matured, 14 to 17, all the way up to like 19 years old. You are through the stages of puberty. You're probably as tall as you're going to get. Your breasts are probably as big as they're going to get without any kind of surgical help.

And your pubic hair is, hopefully, is fully developed as it's going to get. And then finally, your skeleton and your muscles and your cardiovascular system, everything, you're basically an adult, a young woman. You can vote. You can't drink, and you can't run a car. Right.

That's where you're at in life. Yeah, pretty much. So one of the, again, one of the longtime markers of pubescence in girls has been breast development, starting with breast buds. And what's going on there is, again, your body's developing so that it can support a kid, internally.

And one of the things that you will have to do once you have a kid or be able to do is to nurse, right? Yeah. So your breast development is changing. There's more tissue there. They're getting bigger. And one of the reasons they're getting bigger is because they're actually structurally changing.

So 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 mother's milk in The Stranger the other day. It's amazing stuff. Get this, dude. So apparently, mother's milk can change day to day

and produce new antibodies based on what the infant needs. So if the infant is battling a little bit of a bug, the mom's body can produce antibodies that are transferred through the milk. Amazing. They're like, how does the mom know this? And they have figured out that the baby saliva communicates what antibodies he or she needs

through the nipple. And then the mother's body analyzes that stuff and goes, oh, we need these new antibodies, 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. So as your breasts are getting larger, they may be sore.

They may be itchy. If you have rapid growth, they may have some stretch marks. Don't need to worry about any of this stuff. They may be not the same size. One breast might grow quicker than the other. That's OK, too. This is all very normal. And Chuck, like you said, also, depending on your race,

you may develop breast buds earlier or later. Again, totally normal. That's right. All right, so Chuck, the breasts are developed. The hormones are raging. And the womb is developing, right? And as the womb is developing and is learning to ovulate, the menstrual cycle guys, you and I,

tend to think of it as basically this one week thing that happens, right? It's actually usually between a 20 and 30 day process. And it's not just the part where you have your menses, which is the part where you're shedding the endometrium from inside the uterus, the lining. It's this whole 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 then when the egg doesn't get fertilized, that endometrium, the lining of the uterus, which has become rich with these blood vessels as part of the 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 the precursor to your first period. You don't need to stress out about it if you find that you're in your room and you're getting ready for bed and 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 uterus. That's right. There are all kinds of discharge, actually. And I did not know that there were all kinds of discharge. Are you referring to that one article we saw? There's a great article on our podcast page that has photos of different types of discharge that says this is normal.

This is normal to see a doctor. This is normal, you know? Yeah, the normal types, light yellow discharge, if you haven't started your period yet. The white, thick discharge is common at the beginning and end of the cycle. 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 candida, which can be brought on by things like taking antibiotics or something like that. Sure, the discharge can be clear and stretchy. That means you are ovulating. That is fertile mucus. Right, that's the good stuff. That's the stuff that lets 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. It can be dark yellow or green, and that could be a problem. And that means there could be an infection, especially like I said, 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, this stuff, it's called cervical mucus, and you're going to be discharging it for basically the rest of your life. 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 signs to it. And if there are, just go see 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 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 different from your actual menses, right? Yes. So with your menses, that is where you're shedding, remember that really blood vessel rich lining that gets developed every month along the inside of your uterus. That allows a fertilized egg to attach to it and really

nourishes it and lets it turn into a fetus and all of that. It's pretty great stuff. But every month you need to shed it and grow some more stuff. So when you shed it, that's what comes out in the form of your menses, 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 a quarter cup at the most.

Yeah, on average. It can last from three to 10 days. Usually the heaviest part of that will be in the second and third day. 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 going to be very in tune with your cycle.

And you know best how you feel and whether or not you think that something's going on. But the first couple will probably freak you out. Yeah. It's totally understandable. Yeah, and there's a long history of period shaming, which is terrible. And there are a lot of people trying to do something about

that now. In particular, in Australia, there's this really cool thing called A Celebration Day for Girls. It was founded in 2000. 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 guidebook about monarchy and the cycle, and said all these shameful, ugly attitudes about monarchy and the period are

obviously going to have a really negative impact 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 or both, and where they teach them about what's going on. And basically saying, this is not something bad 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 into it, it's really amazing stuff. Yeah, it's amazing. So I think our audience is pretty sensitive and up to date and forward thinking. But if there are any dads out there, little brothers who are

making fun of your sister's period or your daughter's period, just stop. Don't even make jokes. Don't make cracks. Just 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 shamed.

That's good stuff, Chuck. You know what it reminds me of? There was this kids in the hall from years and years and years ago where Dave Foley was the boyfriend with the good attitude towards menstruation. Do you remember that one? That's hilarious. That's pretty good.

Was there a counterpart? No. There was a little soliloquy. Oh, OK. Yeah, that's good. I'm sure. I'm positive it's online. One of the things, though, even though men's season

menarche and menstruation should be celebrated and investigated and understood and not poked fun at, is that there are some definite downsides to it. Apparently, there is a poll of women that was carried out by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. And only 8% of women said that they found something positive about menstrual cycle, or about menstruating. Oh, man, that's sad.

They weren't very happy with it, right? And I'm sure one of the big reasons is because it feels awful, like you cramp. And the reason why cramping is associated with it is because that endometrium is being shed. And the way it sheds is your uterus contracts. And it can be uncomfortable, to say the least. Yeah, it can be everywhere from uncomfortable to

debilitating, depending on who you are. There is no single method to relieve cramping. You might try medications, or just rest, or a certain diet or activity. Try anything you can. Ask your girlfriends. Ask your mom. Ask your weird aunt.

And they'll probably have some good advice on how to quell those cramps somewhat. And then finally, along with menstruation, comes pre-minsteral syndrome, PMX, which we should do a show on at some point, I think. I agree wholeheartedly, man. I think there's a lot of weirdness, a lot of misunderstanding around that.

Yeah, I agree. There may be some bloating going on, aches and pains, which you talked about, and moodiness, which can happen. And 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.

You might. Yeah, and again, dads, little brothers, big brothers. Go stand outside. 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. Yeah, go clean dog poop up in the yard or something.

That's right. And you think about yourself for a little while. All right, well, 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. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker

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Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

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And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

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I'm not sure if I'd buy it. No, man, I think she's, she doesn't lie to us. She lies. She's a publicist. Oh, yeah, the publicist 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.

No, no, a lot of them were like, you really hurt my feelings. Really? Especially ones that 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 publicists. Which you probably should have front-loaded, because some people haven't made it through that episode. Oh, well.

All right, let's talk about Acne. We've been over Acne a bunch, so I don't 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 you're going to get Acne, little girl. Yeah, well, one of the reasons why is because you're now

producing hair follicles. And your hair follicles produce sebum. And sebum is a substance that mixes with all sorts 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 and you get an infection, and that's it. And it's going to happen.

But it won't happen to you as much as it does to boys. That's right. So much for not getting into what Acne is. That was fast, man. I was like that old FedEx guy. So this is a tough time in your life. Your body's changing. You're going to feel weird.

You might be cramping. You might feel physically odd, emotionally odd, hormonally off. And then on top of that, you're going to add Acne. It's cruel and unusual punishment is what that is. And Tom actually wrote the male puberty and female puberty articles. And in both of them, he says, just wash your face.

And we said that in the male puberty episode. And we heard from some people, they were like, yeah, that's great that that works for some people. It doesn't work for everybody. No. 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.

Yep, absolutely. I got lucky. Some people aren't as lucky. I was not lucky. Did you have bad Acne? Oh, yeah. Not on my face. I had back knee.

Oh, right. But even still, I get zits and you don't. Drives me crazy. Yeah. Well, it drives Emily crazy just because she wants to pop them. Yeah, you and me like to do that too. She doesn'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. Go boys alone. If you are a young girl, one thing we 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 year's ago, where someone was asking about her skin looking so great still. Oh, I think you told me this. Really? I don't know how you know this.

It might have been in the acne episode. Oh, yeah, OK. But she said, 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. That's crazy. And she's like, that's why I have such great skin. That and all the lacy scarves that I wear.

That helps, I guess. Protects her from bugs. Exactly. So we've covered pretty much everything physiological. This is all the stuff that's going to happen to you, physically. Psychologically, there's going to 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 kicks it off, really gets things going. But it is true that you have to deal with little brothers

and boys who don't understand and jerk dads. And even a nice supportive mom is going to seem like a monster to you. 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. And 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 imbued a lot more trust and

responsibility in 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. Agreed.

So at a time like this, the best thing that you can do is turn to Judy Blume. Yeah, man. Amen. She'll set you straight. She certainly will. You're going to be really self-aware for the first time. You're just happy-go-lucky days as a little girl are going

to be long gone. And you're going to be really aware of your appearance. Probably going to be worried about your appearance 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 and looking in the mirror and going, what in the world is happening here? Yeah, right.

Look at my face. I just grew a quarter inch while I was standing here. Exactly. This is when your daughter is going to start looking at her belief system and challenging yours and saying, like I said earlier about you big hypocrite, that's when your daughter's going to become a vegan and yell at you for buying a dog from a pet store and become aware of all these social

injustices and are like, how in the world can you guys act like that? You're supposed to be my teachers. It's called working. Yeah. Put food on the table. That's all that matters. So yeah, they're going to be challenging you.

And they're going to be erratic and moody. And it's just going to be a big circus. And there's no avoiding it. You just got to get through it. Yeah. And again, keeping the lines of communication as open as possible and not chasing your parents out of your room when they come and try to talk to you because they seem concerned,

it's a really good move. And if you're a parent, it'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 with pushing boundaries and figuring out where the edges are. But that can very easily and very quickly change into really problematic, deviant behavior.

These are the choices I was telling you about earlier, kids, that 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 thing. And if you're a parent and you're noticing that your kid might not be making the good choices, you have to address that.

That's right. And again, I think 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. Hate to break it to you. Kids are going to find a way. They're going to sneak out. They're going to do what they want to do.

So if you stay their buddy in as much as you can and keep those lines open, you're going to be ahead of the game. Your daughter's going to start caring about fashion and clothing a little more. And boys going to go boy crazy? Might go a little boy crazy, but she's going to be looking around saying, where do I fit in? Am I going to follow the trends?

Or am I going to have my own style and just be my own person and wear these weird clothes I might get made fun of? Well supposedly weird is where it's at these days with the kids, did you know that? Sure. So then wear normal clothes. Right.

And be like. Just like a young Republican. Yeah, exactly. Some potential pitfalls here as your body is changing because of society's obsession with the female form and getting bombarded every day with how thin you have to be and how perfect your body has to be. 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 not good at expressing yourself, you have no outlet to doing like self-cutting and these bad things behind closed doors. All of that is very sad, scary stuff. But all of it can be overcome.

And it is all very much treatable as long as you talk to your parents about it. Yeah. 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.

It seems like if you learn to express your emotions through something like that, it's tough to shed that. Apparently like 50% or 60% of people who self-cut as adults all started at puberty. Oh, I'm sure. So that's not a healthy way to express yourself or to get the rage out or whatever it is that you're doing that for. So again, you have to be smart during this time, too.

Your daughter might be experimenting with masturbation early on and thinking about sexy things. It's all very normal. Even at a very, very young age, there are 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. I've seen it with my own two eyes.

Mr. Binky, no. I don't want to embarrass anyone in my family. But I've seen it happen. You should probably stop there. And for a parent, if you've never seen that, it can be very disconcerting. But it's all super normal. And you don't have to worry about it.

No, but that said, you are 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, no. They know it feels good, and they're messing around. And don't shame them.

Don't make them feel like they're dirty. You're doing something bad. If it, everything I read just says, just sort of wait it out. And it should eventually pass, basically. That's what it goes. It'll pass. Yeah, or maybe if you interrupt or like interrupt or to go do something fun, play a game.

Or I even saw one advice column. Burst into the room dressed as a scary clown. That'll stop it quick. One advice thing I saw said to sometimes, if it's happening in front, like you're all sitting around watching TV and you see it's happening, then say, would you like to go to your room and have a little private time? And then they'll come back 10 minutes later and be with the

family again. Where did you see that advice? It was on a parenting site. What do you think? It's bad advice? No, I'm just surprised. I thought you were doling that out yourself. No, of course not.

I've never dealt with this. But I went to a lot of, because I couldn't find any medical advice except from parenting sites. Yeah, the only stuff I saw was that it's normal. It didn't go any further than that. Yeah, basically the root of it all was don't shame them. And just let them do their thing. I mean, it makes sense.

Sure. 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 as health coaches after this. I have a feeling we did pretty good here, but also the feeling we're going to hear from some people. They're like, you know you shouldn't say this these days.

Yeah, I've been tense the entire episode because of that. Well, we tried to get it just right. We did, but also, I mean, we're imparting some information here. Heady, heavy, important information. I want to get it right, you know? Yeah, but you can't be at the leading edge of every word. Yes, we can.

You know? Yes, we can. All right, so female puberty rituals. There is a great history, especially pre-20th century, of seclusion at the beginning of monarchy. Yeah. 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 secluded away from everyone else. And I looked it up 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're secluded with their moms and their aunts and they really say, all right, well, now we've got to start teaching you all these things. And the other one was just superstition relating to

blood as ancient as it gets. Or fearing women who are going through their menstrual cycle for supernatural reasons. Apparently, I like this one, the Urubu Kapoor in Brazil, their tribe in Brazil. They, when a girl goes through monarchy, they cut her hair. And then she can marry once it grows back to shoulder length. It's kind of interesting.

It's almost like a preternatural understanding of the development that the body still has yet to go through before she can marry. Yeah, that's a good point. In Ghana, there are villages that, for a few weeks, they separate the girl from the village and then they give her instruction, which we were talking about, which is a good thing, on social mores and sex ed and courtship.

And then they have a big celebration, which is really nice when they're married. That is nice. Yeah, same with the Jewish community as of the 20th century with the advent of bat mitzvahs, which is like a bar mitzvah for girls. Yeah. But they didn't have them before the 20th century.

Yeah, and I looked into other rituals and things. And almost every one of them I saw were sort of along the same lines, which is seclude them for a little while, teach them about things, and then throw a big party. Did you see the Apache one, the Morning Star Dance? No. When an Apache girl goes through monarchy, she's secluded from the rest of the village for four days, goes

through this basically a period of fasting, getting very little sleep. And on the fourth day, while she's already basically starving and sleep deprived, she does a dance from sundown to sun up. Are you kidding me? And there's a really neat National Geographic video about it where this girl is so excited.

Because this marks the transition to womanhood for her. But she learns a lot about herself, her tribe, her history during this period, because she's hanging out with her mom and her grandmother. And just being taught all this stuff. Interesting. Yeah, sounds pretty cool.

I saw some South American tribe, I think, that files the teeth into fangs. Why? Monarchy. Monarchy. Yep. 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. If you want to know more about female puberty, you can type those words into your favorite search engine. It'll bring up all sorts of stuff. You could also type it into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com.

And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener mail. Hey, guys. I just tweeted at you. 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, in

my humble opinion, was one of the best you've ever done. A lot of people liked that one. Yeah. 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.

In 2015, this should not be an extraordinary thing, yet it was indeed. 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 the lobbyists for a nonprofit, by the way, that works against domestic violence.

So bravo, three cheers, and well done. And that is from Noel Dupuis. Thanks a lot, Noel. Yeah, that's really nice of you. We tried. We do our best. Yeah. We do our best.

S subtly making it about us. We didn't do that. Not this time. If you want to get in touch with us to give us kudos or say you guys suck or whatever reason, 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 syskpodcast.

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