The Netmums Podcast - S10 Ep7: You Grow Girl! ... with Dr Zoe Williams.

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Growing up, GP and telly doctor Zoe Williams knew what it was like to feel like the odd one out. So, she's written "You Grow Girl", the ultimate growing-up guide for girls aged 9+ who want to feel empowered, informed and positive about becoming the very best version of themselves. We chat to Dr Zoe about how to talk to tweens about their bodies and puberty, and have a little reminisce about More magazine's 'Position of the Fortnight' and Judy Blume's 'Forever' while we're at it!

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollage. And me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... We bought an epilator, a silk appeal epilator for £15 from the local newspaper, from a neighbour, disinfected it well, and then we got my auntie Lorraine, my Jamaican auntie came round, and with my permission, they pinned me down and epilated my legs, like just the lower parts of my legs. But before all of that, this episode of the Netmamas podcast is brought to you by Aldi. Wendy, I've got a question for you. What's your guilty parenting pleasure? Oh, I'd probably say it's gobbling up cold fish fingers from my kids' plates

after they've abandoned dinner in favour of watching the telly. I do that too. I reckon my guilty pleasure is sneaking out and escaping my children to have a lovely browse of my local Aldi alone. I am so with you. What I love about Aldi is they have an excellent range of great value products. They even have an award-winning baby and toddler range, which includes weaning essentials, nappies and wipes. It's funny you should say that because another friend told me that she switched to Aldi Mamiya and it's giving her big savings. Yes, plus with Netmums and Aldi, new parents can get a pack of newborn nappies absolutely free. So log on to our site and let your friends know about this awesome opportunity with Netmums and Aldi. Right, don't tell my family, but I'm sneaking off to Aldi right now.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a blimmin' good job that this is a parenting podcast, I can tell you, because it's been a week. It's been a week as a parent. I've got a small one who's puking. I've got a big one who's moaning. I'm just done. I'm really done. And my husband's away, and I want to give a shout out to all of the other parents out there

who have had just about a gutful this week already. Alison, you've had a bit of a week. Tell us. You've been fretting. We've had a bit of a week, yeah.'ve been fretting we've had a bit of a week yeah I've been fretting because as we're recording this it's the time of year when us parents find out about primary school places um my four-year-old twins we don't live too far from primary school but yeah it was still a bit of a worry so when that email came through the other day confirming

that we have got places it was like oh the relief um yeah we've got places they're going to school i think the relief is just they're going to school i've got some time i've got some peace now our lovely guest today is in the joys of toddlerhood tell us a little bit about the lady looking at us on the screen. She is, yeah, she's not quite a primary school play stage yet, but our guest today is a regular face on the telly. Dr Zoe Williams is an NHS doctor and is one of the resident GPs on ITVs this morning. And she's also written a book, You Grow Girl, the complete no worries guide to growing up, which is the ultimate growing up guide for girls age nine plus who want to feel empowered,

informed and positive about becoming the very best version of themselves. I don't know about nine year olds, but I feel like I could do with some of that advice myself. As mentioned, Zoe is a mum to a toddler. So how she's found time to join us today, I don't know. Welcome to the podcast, Zoe. Oh, thank you, ladies. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be talking on a parent podcast because I feel like I'm in good company, you understand. So your little boy is two, is that right? He'll be two next month.

Two next month. So regular listeners will know that the toddler stage was my pinch point of parenting. I coined the phrase with friends, hashtag twatty toddlers, because toddlers, they don't do it for me. Toddlers, they're just twats. Tell me, how are you finding the toddler stage? Some people love toddlers hate babies some think

babies are just squishy and delicious and toddlers are just annoying tell me what do you think toddlers well I I found the baby stage really hard actually the especially the newborn baby stage and I think it was I was expecting all this sort of joy and there was some of that, but I found it really hard. I felt like I had a lot of anxiety. I feel like now in the toddler stage, it's just a whole new set of challenges. My anxiety is definitely less because I don't feel like he's going to die every second. Whilst actually the reality is he does try to kill himself almost every second. But can I just say how comforting it is that a GP, a doctor, has just said to us, Alison, that she was worried that her baby was going to die all the time because the rest of us do that too.

Yeah, I thought that was a normal people thing, not a GP thing. I think being a GP, in some ways, it makes it easier. You know, when he got on well well I knew what medication to give him and and I was sort of able to at one point I mean he got COVID and he was quite poorly but I was able to properly assess his heart rate and breathing rate and capillary refill time I had all those skills to like assess him really well but also it does having that awareness and that knowledge of all the horrible things you know your brain does sometimes go to worst case scenario and I think for me the anxiety was perhaps less about

the well about the physical things but also about I don't know when he used to cry I would literally leap off the sofa run upstairs and be there in five seconds if it was Stuart's turn to go up I'd sit there trying to be calming like why are you not charging up the stairs because I think I had this like inherent fear that if we weren't there immediately he'd feel like we'd left him or left him on his own and yeah I was a bit crazy in the early days a little a little bit but I think you know that's very very normal and now he's a toddler and he is actually trying to I mean he just jumped off the table the other day randomly and managed to land quite well. And the fourth time he hurt himself and he says,

road, car, and then runs into the road. So I think now, you know, he's dangerous. He's really dangerous, but I'm somehow more relaxed. It's weird, isn't it? It's interesting hearing you talk about the difference between you and your partner's kind of attitude towards him I wonder whether that kind of anxious checking on your baby thing is that kind of like an inbuilt mum thing I don't know I think it is I've in order to sort of rationalize all of this which is what my brain tends to do I've done a lot of thinking about I guess our ancestors and you know a lot of thinking about, I guess, our ancestors and, you know, a couple of hundred years ago, when we did have very much defined roles as mothers and fathers, and the mother's role was to keep the baby safe and nurture and protect, whereas the father's role was more to

provide. And obviously, the world has completely changed, but our genetics that are imprinted haven't. And I think that's perhaps why as women, we tend to worry much more and be more concerned. And, you know, dads come in and sort of swing them around the head and throw them around and they're fine with it. And I think there is some research that show that actually same-sex couples, when it's same-sex couples and when it's two male parents, they do start to take on more of that maternal, sometimes one of them or both of them will take on more of those sort of maternal characteristics, which is really, really interesting that our sort of brains can change depending on the role that we perceive that we have. So how do you and your partner Stuart juggle and split things? Obviously you're

worrying about it, he's totally chilled but in terms of the practical things do you sort of split jobs like bedtime, mealtimes or do you just kind of do it depending on who's around? We're pretty much, pretty much 50. I think it's never 50-50. It's as close to 50-50 as I think it can be. So every day is different in our house. So Mondays we're both in work. So usually he does the nursery drop off and then his nursery teacher actually brings him home from nursery and does dinner, bath and bedtime. And we pay her to do that

because we don't have any family around us for support. So it is just the two of us. So she helps us on a Monday. And I think because we don't have that family support around us we're fine we've we've kind of we've got it sorted but if anything goes wrong if he has a temperature then it all falls apart and you know that's when I just dread anything going wrong and there was one day we were both out of town and I just had this real surge of fear that anxiety like It was really awful, almost a panic attack thinking, what if he gets unwell? What are we going to do? Neither of us can get there.

And that's when you resort to bringing the next door neighbour and saying, help. So Zoe, you've spoken before about how you received some judgment about your parenting on social media. Does that stress you out or have you learned to take it all in your stride? How do you manage it? It doesn't stress me out. I think because of the job that I do and the things and the topics that I talk about on This Morning and on my social platforms around health, I think I had to, and I've been doing that for around 10 years now, I think I had to learn, come up with a strategy quite early on as to how I was going to deal with criticism, because it's inevitable that, you know, not everybody is going to agree with the NHS advice or what I'm saying, or especially when it comes to topics like vaccinations and I'm not just talking COVID vaccinations but childhood vaccinations so so I kind of had to early on think about well how am I going to manage this um and there's and

I often advise other TV doctors or colleagues when they get criticism and I think often that there's two things I do the first thing I do is have a look at if there's a thousand comments and 995 of them are positive and saying thank you for sharing that that's helpful and five are really really vulgar you know I've had things like you're trying to kill children you're a murderer all sort of like crazy stuff just remember in your brain that that's that's a very tiny percentage and actually you're doing a lot of good um and the other thing I try and remember is, you know, often people say, especially very, very cruel things. I try and just have some empathy and sympathy for them and not take it personally, not let it hurt me. You know, this is a complete stranger. If I were to meet

them in the street, would they say this? Absolutely not. And what's happened in their day what are they going through for them to feel the need to release such anger um and fury and try and feel a bit of sympathy for them and those are the two things that I've done so when it came to getting a bit of um criticism for my parenting choices because think what however you parent whatever you do somebody's going to criticize if you're sharing it on social media you know somebody's going to think differently um I just use those same principles I just thought you know what people are entitled to their opinion that's absolutely fine if that's how you want to parent but I'm quite happy with the choices and decisions that I'm making I feel like I'm bringing up my child the way I want to I'm doing a good job and uh and it's safe. So you've talked

about how growing up, you had a few bumps in the road with some missed school due to some health issues and occasionally feeling like you were the odd one out because you were the only black girl in the school. So you know what it's like to not have a brilliant time growing up? Is that what prompted your book? Yeah. So, I mean, I feel like those preteen years, sort of from the ages of nine to 13, for girls, it's always been the same. For all of us women, we've been through it and it's a really difficult time. Even for those that have an easy time, it's a difficult time. And I feel like it's so much harder now for lots of reasons with social media. And I think one of the big changes is that when we were young, you know, we had limited resources to find answers to

our questions. If we wanted to know about self-pleasure, or if we wanted to know about how you insert a tampon, or we wanted to know about sex, you know, we could ask our parents, we could try and find a book in the library. Or as I shared in the book, I have these little overshare moments. I used to sort of read the leaflet in my mum's tampon box over and over and over again, because I was obsessed with learning how to insert a tampon. But now it's different because they can go online and they can find good resources, you know, if they go to NHS websites, for example, but also they can find good resources, you know, if they go to NHS websites, for example, but also they can find really dodgy resources.

And, you know, the way that I think young girls can, anybody can access things like porn. It's just there, it's available. And what is that, you know, what are they there for them believing? So in this book, I felt that there was a gap in the market. Whilst there are great books out there for puberty, I don't really think there was one that's suitable for modern times. And I think also I don't think there was one that's completely honest about a lot of stuff that whilst we might think, well, it's not. Is it really suitable for a girl aged nine to 13 to be reading a book that talks a little bit briefly about things like self-pleasure and sex.

It's like, well, I think it is because those questions come up and they're going to find that information from somewhere. So in this book, it's safe, it's reliable, it's factually correct, it's scientifically correct. And the way I've written the book, it's kind of like me as a friend, as a bit of a guide helping them.

So it's a book that can be cover to cover, but also a book they can come back to a later day you know when things come up and a lot of it's about confidence empowerment self-care and loving yourself and the body that you're in yeah like you say it does feel like we've come on such a long way since we were all growing up and at that age doesn't it what kind of advice did you get growing up and where did you go for advice apart from the tampon instruction leaflets I'm just gonna butt in it was Judy Bloom's Forever for me yes I remember that back remember that are you too young Dr Zoe do you remember that book I don't know that one oh Ralph Ralph anyone listen they're all too young Alison there's a book by uh an american author um she was called judy bloom and she was a very um forward author she did a book all about starting periods

and but they were fiction and forever was about your first encounter with the male sex and it there were there were some well-thumbed copies in my school well-thumbed especially one page in particular do you recall I do recall Judy Blume but it's a very vague memory but oh good one there's a big film coming out about one of her books are you there god it's me Margaret which is all about starting periods and boobs. And yeah, it's definitely worth checking out. Those things are covered in the book, but I've kind of gone one step further with, with periods. You know, I talk, I talk about the four P's, um, so puberty, periods, pregnancy, and perimenopause. And, you know, in the book, I do talk a little bit about menopause because

I hear so many women who are experiencing symptoms of perimenopause, menopause for the first time, and they have no idea, they've never thought about it, they don't know about it. And it thinks that osteoporosis, you know, I treat lots of ladies who have osteoporosis. And actually, it's in our teenage years, that we're able to do, lay down good, good, strong bones. And so I talk about that in the book as well. And in periods, I talk about the thoughts. So I've shared this. I've got one copy. I've only got one copy here. And I was with some of my friends this weekend. And I took it and showed it to them. And they were reading it. And there

was a lot of things in there that I was saying, I didn't know this. I didn't know that that was the anatomy of the clitoris. I didn't know that actually the external parts of our genitalia were the vulva, not the vagina. And that there are four phases to our menstrual cycle. And one of the things I really like in the book is I talk about, you know, periods starting when periods go wrong, heavy periods, painful periods, but also about the normal menstrual cycle and how it has four different phases and how each phase has kind of got its pitfalls but also its superpowers so that girls can think right I can hack my cycle you know if I'm an athlete the second week of my mental cycle is when I'm most likely to get a personal best the first week is when my pain threshold is lower

and therefore that's why I get headaches the fourth week that's when I feel really low in mood but knowing actually this is only going to last a week and this is the reason why I can be really empowering. So, yeah, just going that one step further. But yeah, back to your question about where did I get my information from? I mean, my mum was always somebody who wanted to be very proactive at telling me stuff. I didn't necessarily want to receive the information from her, but she didn't hold back. You know, she was always naked in front of us and, you know, she'd always be showing me, these are my stretch marks. And this is what I got when I had you. I'd see her putting in a tampon when I was in the bath. And so, you know, I think that was really helpful that she was very open and I knew I could ask her anything, but I didn't

really want to hear it from her. So I probably did often try to find it out on my own secretly. So in things like books or leaflets or I remember Always Ultra, that was around the time that they first came into existence. And they used to send out these little packs for months and months and months. You could ring up, I think. I think you had to ring up then and give them your address and they'd send you like a starter pack so I have about 20 like starter packs I was a bit obsessed I started my period just a bit later than most of my friends so I was kind of a bit obsessed with being prepared but then I think I think really for a lot of the questions that I had a lot of the things I wanted to find out me and my friends would discuss it and try and figure it out for ourselves but we didn't really have a good source of information i think that is very true position of the fortnight

and yeah was that which magazine was that more magazine zoe i used to work on more magazine so it was part of the team who would come up with position of the fortnight which is one of my claims to fame yeah so that was just so exciting. Like, oh my God, you can have sex in this position. Cowgirl, wow, that sounds funny. Way before, you know, I was even interested in actually having sex, I wanted to know about it. Yeah, all of that stuff was so important.

But yeah, I guess teenagers today don't have magazines like we had back in the day, even more so while there's such a massive need for books like yours but also because as you say it's gone the other way they've gone from us kind of trying to get the information from the tampon pack to them being having every bit of information at their fingertips but not always the right information and not always safe information. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And it's impossible for, I mean, my child's little, as we've talked about, but my friends who have older children, it's impossible to know exactly where they're going online.

Although there are ways to try and have some parental control, it's impossible to know exactly what they're going online, although there are ways to try and have some parental control, it's impossible to know exactly what they're looking at. And the first time I saw porn, I think I was only about 12 or 13. And there was one boy in our class, whose parents were at work all day, and he lived around the corner from school. And he'd managed to somehow get hold of this porn tape. So we'd all go around to his house, there'd be like 15 of us in his living room at lunchtime watching this same porn tape over and over and over again so you know i start to think well that's what sex is supposed to be like and that's what penises look like and that's what vulvas look like um and you know it is it is worrying i think that children can access any information online that can, you know, sort of tamper with their ideas of what

reality is. Now, Wendy and I both have girls. Mine's 12, Wendy's is 11. And it can be tricky for us to know how to chat to them. Like you were saying, Zoe, when you were that age, you didn't want to necessarily get information from your mum. My little girl, she cringes whenever I bring up anything body related. She's like, oh my goodness, so cringe. What advice do you have for chatting to girls about their bodies? I think it's really important that they know that that door is open for them to have a conversation at any time. I think it is really really when your parents bring it up um so a few tips would be if you know if you feel that there's a conversation that needs to be had um giving a warning shot first of all so say for example I don't know you've spotted

that there's breast buds or you know you want to bring up the conversation about the bra for the first time um I think sort of giving a little bit of a warning shot saying oh you know you want to bring up the conversation about a bra for the first time um i think sort of giving a little bit of a warning shot saying oh you know tomorrow we're going here and i'm thinking when we're in the car we'll have a bit of time to have a chat about things like bras and crop tops and i'm wondering if your friends have started so giving a warning shot beforehand so they you're not kind of surprising them with it then i think having a conversation in a car is a really good place because it's less intense there's a bit of music on in the background you can look out the window no eye contact and

it's okay if there are pauses I think over the dinner table directly it can be quite pressured whereas you know next day in the car saying oh remember I said we could talk a bit about bras and then try and be open let them lead say you know what what you're what you're thinking about that and let them lead with it if they shut it down they're just like mom no don't want to talk about it it's too awkward just say fine that's okay um but you can bring it up at any time and maybe i'll bring it up again in a couple of weeks and here's dr zoe's book that's all like this is my parenting from here on in here i quote here's dr zoe's book off your pop but i think also asking them is is there someone else that you'd rather have this conversation

with you know maybe if there's one of your friends or you know a cousin or an older an older relative um then you know asking to say would you find it easier to have this conversation with somebody else and you might be able to get one of your mates to do it um there's a couple of a couple of people i know through working in tv actually who homeschool and they've sort of said when it comes to this education bit would you mind helping out it was sort of in lockdown would you do like a bit of a zoom call lesson i'll do the lesson plan just because they don't want to hear it from me. And, you know, so sometimes maybe if there's somebody in the family or a friend that they feel more comfortable with, then you can hand it over to them or do it together and make it a lesson.

That's all very well if you're their friend. I'm just thinking of my group of friends. Can you imagine ringing up your mate and saying mate saying right today you're doing pubes please off you go I think for me if I if my mum would have asked me that it would have been my cousin Claudette who was about 12 years older than me and she used to babysit for us and she was just hilarious she was just really really funny and I could just imagine her of um coming into babysitting saying right your mum's made me talk to you about your mum said I've got to talk to you about your boobs today so uh let's just get it done with and I'd have felt comfortable doing that with her more than my mum I think. Yeah the other thing that

feels different about your book is that you cover very openly sexuality blended families and mental health which are all things that wouldn't have been covered in a book when we were younger and they all feel really important topics for our kids today. Yeah yeah I mean I think when I was writing the book and I worked with my editor really carefully at the beginning to define what the chapters would be and I wanted to make sure that I included all the things that I feel really passionately about so you know there are things when we talk about managing periods it's not just tampons and towels we talk about various other ways as well so period pants and moon cups but also we talk about period poverty and what if one in 10 girls um have financial difficulties which mean that they

find it difficult to access um products for for their period so there's support for how to go about that talk about food insecurity because that's something that i experienced growing up you know we we really struggled financially at certain times um so tips and tricks for food insecurity and and prejudice you know whether you feel that you're being subjected to it or just that understanding. So we talk a little bit about about racism and how, you know, I try to talk about it in a way that everybody can understand that. Racism has got a really, you know, it's a negative thing. It's a bad thing. But actually, we all have prejudices. We all come into this world and we have lived experiences. That means that we will view people who we don't understand and who are different to us in a different way.

So how we can kindly overcome that and actually turn it into a positive and be curious about people and how we can call out prejudice or bullying when we see it how we all have a responsibility whether we're the bully the person being bullied or the person witnessing it you know we all have a responsibility to do something about that um but I think what I tried to thread throughout the book is is this idea of kindness and actually if somebody is a bully there's probably a reason why and if we can sort of look with a bit like when I was saying when I get trolled on Instagram I try and just be empathetic and think with kindness I think well actually it's probably because of what that person's going through um so yeah so hopefully I think what people will take away from it you know it's a puberty book but puberty is not just about bodily changes it's

about emotional changes it's about relationship changes but also for girls in particular at this age it's about staying safe it's being safe online um body image and you know a lot of the book is about there are sort of tips and tricks and little challenges in there to try and help empower and give confidence so an example would be um i i was a gladiator back 10 just well it's more than that now 2008 2009 I ended up being a gladiator on on the show I was amazon and and I was someone even at that time in my life I wasn't that confident I'm still not that confident but I found that standing and pulling a particular pose um for the cameras which I had to do sort of made me feel confident so there's one little challenge in there which is I challenge girls to come up with their own gladiator name and come up

with their own gladiator pose and I suggest one where you know you push your chest slightly forward put your hands on your hips stand with your feet slightly apart because there is scientific evidence to say the way that we hold ourselves can actually make us feel more confident so then I say you know if you're feeling like you're lacking confidence if you've got to stand up and give a talk at school or you know somebody's what you can do in your mind is remind yourself of your gladiator name maybe not stand with your hands on your hip but shift shift your body slightly in that direction to remind yourself and just embody that gladiator person and and give yourself confidence in the moment so there's loads of like takeaway tips and tricks and challenges in there

that I really hope will be helpful I've actually heard as a TED talk about doing that like if you have a job interview obviously this is more for grown-ups but like nip to the loo do the hands on hips stance before the interview and actually it does help so for our kids telling them to nip to the loos in schools and sound like that if they need to too absolutely and then the other the other little bit um the other little challenge is we all have an inner critic and I think you know as grown-ups we kind of are aware that we have this negative voice inside our heads that can sometimes disempower us and tell us that we're not good enough and make us fearful. But I think young people don't really comprehend that,

don't understand that. So I challenge them to create this little troll, like draw a little troll that's their little inner troll. And be kind to it because it's there to protect you. At the end of the day, it's there to protect you from situations where you might end up in danger or you might embarrass yourself. But it's a little bit over the top and overreacts a lot of the day it's there to protect you from situations where you might end up in danger or you might embarrass yourself but it's a little bit over the top and reacts overreacts a lot of the time so so it's about this is about having um mantras sort of you know yeah my mantra when I was growing up was always I had to tell myself yes I can I still do sometimes sit on the sofa on tv and I feel nervous I just go yes I can yes I can yes I can yes I can and then I feel better so it's about saying to that little troll thank you for showing up and trying to protect me today

but you know what I've got this yes I can and then visualize yourself just sipping its mouth closed and um you know keeping it close to you to protect you but you can overpower it at any time because I think I think that's the thing young people need. I've learned as I've got older, lots of sort of psychological techniques. I've had cognitive behavioral therapy and I've learned all of this, but I've tried to come up with like little games, activities and tips and tricks

that young people can utilize to get the same benefit. Forget young people. I need to go and draw a troll. This is good stuff. I'm just going to draw a troll this is this is good stuff I'm in teenage and tweenie girls they get a bit of a bad rap don't they you know everyone says to you when you've got a I don't know if you've had this Alison but if you've got like an eight nine year old they're like oh it's coming it's coming and it's just, and it's just you wait. But what are the best things about teenage girls, Zoe? I mean, I feel like I should divert that question back to you.

What are the best things about your tweens? It's just the way they attack everything for me. They just attack everything with gusto. That's what I like. I love the fact, and we've already talked about this, Wendy, you almost get to relive parts of your own teen years. So I've been watching Twilight and The Hunger Games with my 12-year-old. And it's just really lovely to kind of relive that through her eyes.

And they're old enough to kind of do fun stuff with you. So that's really good. I think mostly my experience is working with girls this age in school. So I've done a lot of work going into schools um in disadvantaged areas and working with girls and encouraging them to do physical activity but also doing workshops with them to build confidence and I think the thing I love about them is that they are they're so smart I think we underestimate just how smart how intelligent and they're absolute sponges like they can just soak up information in a way that that we can't I think often the thing in a school setting anyway which

is where my experience is often the thing that is lacking is they deserve to be just given a little bit more autonomy and empowerment because actually when they're given that they'll do sensible things with it and I'll give you an example we were working with a group of girls in a school in quite a deprived area in Essex and we did this physical activity workshop with them and and it was a deprived area but this incredible school that had the most amazing gym and we were working with the girls who um disengaged from physical activity and chose not to do PE and didn't want to participate in PE um and at the end of the session um we said to them you know what would it take for you to be in that gym and

using that gym because you've said that it's a great gym you said you like it and you said you'd actually like to use it well they said well if if the if there could be one day after school that it was girls only then we'd stick around and we'd use it so their PE teacher was sat there right in front of them so I looked at their PE teacher and she said well which day they said they looked at each other they went Thursday the peer teacher went done and that was it so they made this pact that they were going to use the gym every Thursday after school they were going to encourage their friends or the girls to come and use it as well and it would be a girls girls only session and you know that was just simply just handing over a little bit of power to them and that's what came from it so I think we sometimes underestimate that girls

sort of in this age group sort of nine plus up to teens they're super smart and um they're they're absolute spongers absorbing information and what they can then do to transform that information into positive action perhaps sometimes we don't give them the opportunity to do that yeah that's so true now I saw a conversation on Facebook the other day. It was a mum of a nine-year-old girl and she was asking about shaving her legs and the mum was unsure what advice to give her. And I think back to when my daughter was having that conversation with me, and I felt like I should be saying to her, you don't need to shave your legs, boys don't shave them, you know, equality and and all that but then another part of me was like I remember what it was like to have hairy legs and

feel self-conscious about it so how do we get that balance of what we think we should be telling our daughters and the reality of what we think it's looking to be like for them this is where I think they deserve to be able they deserve to receive the information so that they can make an informed choice. And I think that means them having the whole range of options for that scenario explained to them. Everything from, well, actually, you know, some people don't shave their legs. That's absolutely fine. There's no reason to shave your legs except for cosmetic purposes. But then a lot of people do. And if you want to, then these are the various different ways we can think about hair removal and there are some pros and cons to each one so if you shave your legs that's sort of the quickest easiest cheapest

way probably but the hairs are likely to come back thicker and darker over time so it might not be the best reason for that and then there's waxing but know, that can be very expensive if you're going to do it professionally or very messy and can be quite painful. There's an epilator, you know, so on and so forth. What happened to me, my mum used to always, so my mum was white, my dad's black. So she always, and she had quite fair skin and dark hair. So she used to go and get her legs waxed and I used to go with her and she used to always say to me whatever you do whatever you do whatever you do never shave your legs when you want to get when you want to shave your legs come to me and we'll find a way to deal with it um so I got to the stage where I wanted to and um so in the end what we did we bought an epilator a silk appeal epilator for 15 pounds from the local newspaper from a neighbour, disinfected it well.

And then we got my auntie Lorraine, my Jamaican auntie came round and with my permission, they pinned me down and epilated my legs, just the lower parts of my legs. They barely ever grew back. So the second time they did it, it was much easier because half of them didn't grow back. And then the third time and then I mean, now I shave my legs about once every two months they barely grew back so then I thought right I'm going to epilate my armpits as well and my bikini line when I got a bit older and wanted to do those and I did and eventually the hairs barely grew back now I've been and had lasering which I think you know lasering is the ultimate hair removal. But it's quite expensive, but actually works out probably about the same price as having professional waxing. And bearing in mind, it's a more permanent solution.

So, yeah, to answer your question, I think, you know, girls are smart. And I was put off shaving my legs because my mum terrified me that I'd end up you know with really really hairy thick hairy legs um so so in the in the book we talk about that so talk about all the options including doing nothing um and the pros and cons of each so that then they can make their own decision and and whatever the outcomes of that are long term you know they're in you know it's their choice and they knew so if they do decide to shave and then their legs get really hairy you know I think it's much more except it's much easier to it's like when we do you know if we do surgery and medicine that's why we do a consent form because sometimes there are risks but if you knew about that risk and you consented and you had awareness

before it's much easier psychologically to deal with. I think what's the lesson here is for the parent almost because I find it hard as a mum to sometimes let her make those choices knowing that she's making the wrong choice and giving them the autonomy to make that wrong choice and own it is a really tricky thing to do as a parent of a child of that age. It's a bit different when they're two and you know they need to eat something and they don't want to. And the battle's a bit different. Do you find that autonomy hard, Alison? I do think it's funny, actually. I think I'm a bit unusual because I feel quite strongly that she should have strong body autonomy. I've had conversations with my mum friends who've got kids the same age. Like if my daughter doesn't want to shower one day or wash

her hair and she ends up with really greasy hair, I'm a bit like, just let her get on with it because it's her body. I do encourage her and I do say, do you think you might want to wash your hair today? But if she refuses, I'm not going to march her into the shower. Whereas some of my mum friends are like, no, no, no, it's really really important to be clean and they'll have kind of arguments with their kids get them in the shower get them to wash their hair I don't know like where do you stand on that Zoe is there a line where you need to step in and force your kids to shower well to some extent it depends on the child doesn't it you know there are some children who who you know and I'm not here to tell anyone how to parent and and it's so unique

and it really does depend on your child but I think actually one of my initial response to that is if your daughter doesn't shower on that particular day and doesn't wash her hair and her hair's a bit greasy and maybe she's got a bit of BO and then she goes to school that day and somebody comments then she's learned that lesson for herself and it's done probably from then on forward you never have that battle again because she's going to think actually life is just easier if i do shower and same with brushing your teeth isn't it you know i remember i was battling with my mum about brushing my teeth i never wanted to brush them so she said one day she said find out brush your teeth then and all day my mouth felt disgusting and I thought from

now on forwards I will always brush my teeth so I think letting children make mistakes and being there to pick them up and support them and explain when it's something like not washing your hair it's not going to kill them it's not a major issue they'll get over it you're almost building them up and preparing them for when they have decisions a little bit later on where making the wrong decision has more significant consequences so so I would say in in general I think yeah help helping supporting them through their mistakes rather than stopping them from making mistakes will have some benefits because at some point we all have to learn from our mistakes and we all have to that's how we. Could you come and move in with me? Just could you come and move in? I feel like I would be a better mum if you were just there.

I mean, I'm not a parenting expert. And one day I'll have a teenager and I might do it all differently because there's no right or wrong. So I guess I'm really coming at this. But you talk talk Zoe you sound better at it than me I'm gonna fight you for her Wendy now Zoe if you could go back and tell 10 year old Zoe one piece of advice what would it be oh I think it would be to look in the mirror and treat yourself with at least as much kindness as you treat the people, the other people in your life that you love. The most important relationship you'll ever have with anyone is with yourself. And you deserve to treat yourself with the same love and respect that you do your best friends and your parents, because I definitely didn't. And I think, yeah yeah that's probably the most valuable life lesson I could have taught 10 year old me well thank you so much for joining us today

it's been so great to chat to you thank you so much for having me ladies and I love your podcast we've loved having you on thank you very much bye