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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Hey, so this is the second part of the puberty discussion that Jess and I were having.
Like we mentioned the first one, we wanted to make sure that we could have a
more complete well-rounded discussion on this topic.
So this is part two of the puberty discussion that we had
It's the uh final portion of it, and so hope you enjoy.
Let us know if you have any questions or comments by sending us an email afterwards or sending us a DM on Instagram
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Okay, we're gonna switch topics a little bit here.
I think you have sort of touched on this a bit, but
there's a bit more nuance in the social media side of things because I think particularly for older kids social media has dramatically changed honestly the way children learn about their bodies and their development.
Mm-hmm.
And I guess I'm wondering how do you see this like digital landscape
'Cause it's so much different from even when we were kids.
Mm-hmm, right?
Learning about these things or not learning, I guess.
How do you think it's reshaped or maybe complicated?
the conversations that parents need to have with their kids about puberty and sex.
Yeah, I think it's kind of what I was saying before, right?
Where okay, maybe it would have been okay to wait until your kids are like eleven to have those conversations back when we were kids because
Well, honestly, even then, the majority of people like men that I've been talking with lately about this are like, Oh yeah, no, I was exposed to porn far before my parents ever talked to me about it.
Yeah, 100%.
So I think even then it just maybe was not as reported.
But the more guys I talk to, like everyone has a story.
Like, oh, it's at my cousin's house, and or it's at my friend's house, or
I saw this here.
Or on the playground even.
It was out yeah, someone was telling me the other day.
Oh, I saw it on the playground at school on like a PSP.
Um
So I I think now we have more information, we know that our children are likely gonna be exposed.
So let's have these conversations a little bit earlier.
Again, it doesn't mean you have to go into the full sex talk super early, but I would still be having the sex talk around.
Ages nine around there because they're exposed earlier than that?
Yeah.
I mean like to me that's like by nine.
I would have had that talk.
But I would still be having
Like for me, for my comfort level with our own child, they'll be having it around age eight.
Yeah.
Because I even know for our own daughter, there's people with tablets on the bus.
Right.
I heard recently about a little boy who saw pornography at school on a school tablet because somehow someone had found a workaround and
And just found it there and they were eight years old.
Yeah.
Oh, I guarantee you kids will be able to find ways around firewalls and it is definitely something that they're
much more intelligent than we give them credit for.
Yeah.
I think most places, like I was looking this up the other day, are suggesting that that talk happens between eight to ten, but I'm saying nine because
just of what MC and what we're hearing about in our practice.
But yeah, again, that's up to you.
You know your child, you know what they're gonna be exposed like, you know where they are, but So I think that's one part of it though.
Like the idea of
sex talk and what we see online.
But I think in particular social media.
Yes.
Like it's hard for me to know, but I'm just thinking in terms of our girls.
There will likely be unrealistic developmental expectations for their body and like the way things look.
Right.
Like they're gonna compare their body to others.
I think that's that
is around that age too and I feel like in general social media, you often see the best.
If I were to
put a picture online of myself, it probably stuck in my gut a little bit and flex and Of course.
You're always seeing the best version of yourself.
Unless you're on my Instagram stories and seeing my face at this.
Well it's intentionally why I don't filter myself.
But anyway.
So I think that
unrealistic expectation about even the way their body develops during puberty too.
Yes.
And and to that I'd say keep your kids off social media as long as you possibly can, especially during puberty
Like of a time of such fragility.
Like we haven't even talked about the emotional changes that happened during the street.
Well, how long does puberty occur?
Like it happens for many years, right?
Like Yeah.
But I like 16
17, you know, like if you can keep them off of it.
And I know again this is like an ideal world, but you're the parent, you're in charge, like you can create that ideal world.
Your kids might be mad at you.
I know that's what we'll be doing
Because your child does not need to be exposed to the best version of all these other people.
Yeah, you definitely get into the comparison game from a
early age and I feel like that would be hard to like that almost be baked into your your brain.
Like your neurons would develop to start comparing yourself to everyone.
Yeah.
And it would be hard to get out of that.
It's already hard enough for a young boy or a young girl to look at their peers in class and compare themselves to what they're wearing, what they look like, all of that.
Like comparison will happen because your child is surrounded by other kids their age all the time.
So to add to that and then look at the best version and often what I'm hearing in teenage girls that we're supporting in our practice is like they're looking at 25-year-olds, you know, on TikTok.
Uh it's pretty hard to know age too, right?
What you're looking at.
So you're comparing yourself to a full grown woman at thirteen and like looking up to that and the dances and the like I don't know, that's like
a pretty bold suggestion, but my suggestion would be just keep them off of it, especially during such a vulnerable and important time of their life.
They don't need that.
And if they are on it, it's highly supervised
Yeah.
That goes back to our screen time episode and we can do a future episode specifically on social media because I feel like that's just a whole other can of worms that we could get into.
I know a social media company has reached out to talk to us about their child protection mether measures, but
Honestly, my thought on any of that is if social media companies gave a shit, they would just not allow anyone under the age of 16.
Yeah.
If they cared, but what they want is consumers on their products.
That's really what it is.
So it's up to the parents to
Yeah, and we we didn't really grow up like I think we had like MSN Messenger.
Um but I would say AOL Messenger.
And like
Uh maybe MySpace is around, I wasn't on it.
But like in that time of our lives, we didn't really have that so much.
You didn't have MySpace?
No, I didn't have my MySpace.
I did.
No
Good for you.
I didn't know how to use it, but you had it.
Yeah, I had it.
Anyway, so we were lucky in that way.
Like it was just starting.
Now
the generation after us, they struggled.
Like if I talk to anyone kind of in that age group, like twenty twenty to like twenty-seven or something like that
They will tell me how detrimental it was to their mental health to have social media at that age.
So it's not like we don't know how it impacts someone.
And uh the majority of people I talk to in that age group, no one's like, oh I wish my parents would have let me have more social media.
That age group, the people that I'm talking to are like, it was so bad
So many people in our class were struggling.
Everyone was comparing themselves to each other.
And so I think we can hear from those stories and learn from that.
And to parents of of kids in that generation, like, how would you know?
Like it was all brand new.
Like social media is not that old
It's quite few.
It was like 2008 or something, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Like something like really quite recent.
So now our generation knows.
So we can do things different for our kid.
And I'm hoping that we'll see a wave of more protection for for children.
I think it will take a while.
I don't think it'll be fully done with our generation of parents.
I think it'll probably be the next one.
People always ask me like
What do you think your kids will do differently?
Child's No, our child's generation will do differently than our generation in the previous ones.
I think it'll have a lot to do with like screens and social media and stuff like that.
Honestly I was seeing which generation was it
I think the one after us.
What is it after us?
More millennials and then Gen Z?
Is that what it is?
I don't know.
Anyways.
Apparently the generation after us is even drinking far less alcohol.
I think we'll see a lot of that.
Because people will be like, what do you think the reparenting, you know, that our kids will have to do?
I think it'll be a lot about social media, like posting pictures and stuff of kids online.
Like they'll probably not do that.
I think that they'll give social media to their kids like way later.
I think we're kind of in like that bridging.
generation right now.
I don't know.
That's just my take, but possibly.
Okay, so let's just assume that someone listening, their child, is currently on social media and they're seeing these pictures of
Maybe twenty five year old women and they're a girl and they're looking at that or for a boys they're looking at someone who's older than them as well
How do you think a parent should have that discussion if their child is already on social media?
I think again, calm, quiet moments.
So just remember that.
Those are the best times to have discussions, not heat of the moments.
Talking about your child about what are they seeing online?
Very shame free.
Know that if your child has access to a device, they're gonna search for that kind of stuff.
They're curious.
Like
And I always say to parents, like if if you found out that your child was like searching porn or searching naked pictures or looking at 25-year-olds dancing on TikTok.
don't get them in trouble because that is what they're wired to do.
They're wired to be curious and they have this machine.
It's like a kid in a candy store that allows them to be so curious.
And it's only natural that that's what they're gonna do.
So if you shame them for it and you get mad at them for it
They're not going to come to you with what they've seen and it's going to create this rupture.
So as always, be very curious with them.
What did you see?
How did it make you feel?
Okay, I think we should have a discussion about social media
And here's how I'm feeling and here's why.
And see how your child responds.
They're probably gonna be
pissed off at you.
Like if they've had social media or untethered access to the internet and you're taking that away from them, they're probably going to be mad.
Yeah, I would be.
Yeah, I would be too.
I'm sure.
My parents
Again, something that they did very well.
They had a lot of structure around our TV time and everything like that.
TV time screens, family computer.
So you can make some small changes and let your child be pissed off with you about it.
But stay in communication with them
But it's actually okay sometimes if your child's mad.
And I think this is one of those scenarios where that's okay.
Okay.
I think the way I would handle it, let's say with our girls, let's let's just say
The twelve they have so access to social media.
We've already given it to them, which will not happen.
But in the off chance that we do that, I think the main thing that I would discuss with them is that what you are seeing likely
the majority of the time is pictures that are not real.
They have filters added to them.
Especially with AI now.
I think whether or not they're on social, that's a really good idea.
Yeah.
Like what they're seeing is not real life.
And I think we as parents, as adults, can sometimes get in that trap of seeing pictures or videos posted online and think that that's that's real.
that that person actually did those things and it's as picturesque as what they're showing when the actual reality is they're showing only the very, very best.
Because I w
Well, we were even talking about I'm creating a photo album from last year right now.
And I selected the photos that I liked the best and I think I still had fourteen hundred
photos that I have to choose from and pair down to like however many a hundred yeah photos for our photo album.
So of that whole year I chose only a portion of
like a small portion of all the photos and videos that we took.
Yeah.
And it was still fourteen hundred photos.
So just imagine that's what people are doing online.
They're taking the thousands of photos they're they've taken.
They're paring it down to the 10.
I think you're seeing perfection basically online.
And that's not real.
I think something that helped me a lot as a kid because even before social media
I mean I remember there'd be things like standing in front of Licenza and like looking at the girls and be like, why don't my boobs look like that?
You know?
Like things like that.
Very normal.
In some class or something they showed a video of things being airbrushed, like a a picture of just like a normal woman and how it was like airbrushed.
And I think that that helped me understand, even at an early age, that What you mean like in Photoshop?
Yeah, in Photoshop
Yeah, that a lot of these images I would see in magazines and in the mall and wherever.
Like they're images are everywhere, whether you're not.
on social media or not, your child's still gonna see it.
I think that video specifically, I can remember watching it, helped me understand that I'm not always seeing reality.
So having those conversations with your kids, especially as they're going through puberty, I think will be really important.
Yeah, because it's such a like it's a time of so much bodily development.
Oh yeah.
So I can imagine I remember it being very confusing.
Right, and now we have so much more imagery content coming at us.
Like we did at that time too.
But
We have even more now, especially with social media and YouTube and whatever, all these different things that we're getting bombarded with.
So it's I think that
uh discussion of what is real?
The philosophical question of what is real.
And like again, to be a broken record on every single podcast episode.
the best thing that we can do is nurture the relationship we have with our child, especially during this time of life.
Well I think you could say every time because it helps at that time of life too.
During this time of life and we'll get into this in a different episode we're gonna record
Your children will have this desire to go towards their peers, right?
That's a natural desire that happens around the puberty age.
They start to become more socially oriented.
They want to hang out with their peers.
The peers become fun.
That becomes like the big thing in their life.
And parents, unless we're intentional, can kind of be left to the side.
And if we're left to the side and we let our children just hang out with friends all the time and do things with their their peers and kind of focus on that, we can be lost as the source of wisdom.
And they can start turning to their peers.
And so I think yes, in every season of life, obviously parents are the most important to our kids and we wanna be that figure to them.
But especially you're gonna have to be intentional during puberty because their desire, their natural innate desire is going to be t
turn towards their peers.
It's good and important.
They should have friendships.
And if you just let that happen and you're not consistently tuning in with them, having those bedtime conversations, going for a long drive and making sure you're intentional about your conversation, the peers might
become the trusted advisors.
And I think we want it to, there's wisdom in remaining our child's trusted advisor, especially as they enter into
puberty in the teen years.
So sorry, you're saying that they have like a desire to turn toward friendships and peers around puberty?
Yeah.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, it it's one of the stages of development that is important.
Like they start to seek friends.
But that's linked with puberty specifically
I mean it happens at that same age, yeah.
So I I would say yes.
And I would say that's like so common across the board.
Like we see them turn towards wanting to be accepted and and
peers and if they don't have that solid rock, that solid foundation to come back to that relationship with you, that seeking acceptance and the desire to be with peers will change their personality
You know, because they'll be like, oh, well, if I do this then I'm accepted.
If I look this way, then I'm accepted.
If I you know, and they're trying to figure themselves out.
It's an age of a lot of confusion
So they need that solid rock to come back to so that they can be reminded of who they are and know that they're always loved no matter what and know that you are the wise advisor that they can turn to.
But if they don't know that, they will go to their peers and they'll get information elsewhere
And so that's why I really want to emphasize that, especially during puberty.
Yeah.
Hey friends.
So at pickup last week, our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, Thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me, so Jess.
If you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent education for years.
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unspeakable.
Safe touch, and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff, like tickling that goes too far, and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak up.
sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturefirst.
com slash body safety and to save 10% use the code
robot unicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
They're
Seems to be kind of a big focus on the puberty talk or the sex talk, whatever.
But you've been mentioning that it's an ongoing discussion and that's important because as the
especially as they get closer to that age of puberty, they will turn to their peers.
But can you walk us through what this actually looks like?
So both with your clients and in our family and how
Parents can recognize the natural moments to build in these conversations and be that trusted advisor for their children.
So I realize it's not just about
showing that you're the smartest on this topic.
It's about always being f there for them.
But then how do you build in these natural moments to have
the conversations about puberty.
I see what you're saying.
So I know you say right now, at least at this age, our oldest loves to have conversations in the car and at bedtime.
Maybe that will always be the case, but I sort of doubt as she gets older that will be what she wants to do.
She may want to read
Instead in bed and so I think this idea of the little like the tiny moments where you can have these conversations, like even if you're just think like you're just on your phone scrolling, right?
And your child's like, Oh what are you looking at?
And you're like, Oh, I'm looking at the news or something like that.
And then that's a great opportunity to have a bigger conversation.
Like, hey, there's like tons of stuff that you can see on a phone.
Like how much how many different things do you think you can search up on a phone?
You know, and then they might say a couple things like, yeah, there's so many like
cool things that you can look up on a phone, like you can read the news.
You can look up how to 3D print something.
You can look up all these things.
But there is some things that you can see on a phone that are unsafe.
Like have you ever heard of things that are unsafe?
And then have the conversation, right?
That's like a natural small moment where you can have a conversation.
It's not like they're asking you the question, but you're sitting side by side looking at something on your phone and you can kind of segue into that.
And maybe it's five minutes
See, that doesn't sound all that natural to me.
I don't know.
Sitting there next to our daughter, our oldest, scrolling on my phone, that takes a a lot of forethought.
I don't think it's just you're sitting there.
on your phone scrolling, your daughter comes up to you or your child comes up to you and you're like, did you know you can look up bad things on your phone?
What bad things do you think there are on like
Oh so to me maybe that's like because I'm always thinking about it, I'm like, oh perfect, this is a great opportunity to segue into this.
I think for you that is the case.
Yeah.
But I
I don't know that that's the case for most parents.
Right.
So maybe if you know you want to have these conversations, kind of have it in the back of your mind that maybe you're waiting for an opportunity where you could segue that in.
So if you're like, okay, I haven't had the unsafe pictures discussion, I know I want to segue that in at some point, maybe you're like waiting for an opportunity to have that.
Or even like the bra conversation, right?
In the puberty toolkit, we talk about like finding your first bra.
So maybe your child is like folding laundry with you sometime and oh like you're folding a bra.
Huh, let's talk about that, you know.
Do you have to fold a bra?
I mean you can, yeah.
Okay
Things Scott needs to learn.
I mean, not really.
Sometimes you can like stack them too.
I don't know.
But you can have a bra in the laundry, right?
And like talk about that.
And like, oh, you know, tell them stories of when you were a kid.
I remember the first time that I started growing boobs, like, man, that was kind of different and unexpected.
I wonder how you'll feel when that happens to you
Then all of a sudden you're having that discussion, right?
Just finding the little moments where maybe that can come.
I think in terms of the sex talk, I I do think we could do a whole other episode just on that
A lot of the teachings that are suggested for kids is to talk about reproduction in nature
and animals and stuff like that first to kind of open up the discussion that reproduction and and sex is a very natural normal thing that happens like all throughout the world and all throughout
nature and animals and I I think that can be helpful for kids too to know that like it's not just adults and yeah grown-ups that do it.
It's it's all over nature.
So
I mean you could be driving past a farm and maybe have a discussion.
I don't know.
You witness something local farm.
We live in a rural area, so there's lots of farms.
So farms are like
Hey, maybe.
It's a little easier to have that discussion where we live.
That's why I made the joke.
It might be scarring, but.
You know, you're watching uh Discovery Channel.
Discovery channel.
Are they gonna show that on there?
I these are not actual suggestions.
I'm just I'm just being a butt right now.
But um that can be a way.
Like when you're describing it, right?
Just to to ease it a little bit.
It's like
This is actually very natural.
It happens all over all over the world.
Anyway, finding the tiny moments and sometimes they won't be there.
And sometimes you just have to have that conversation at bedtime in the car, you know.
But if you can, like you said, I'm very good at doing that.
I'm very good at like finding these little opportunities.
Yeah.
And oh, they were at their cousin's house and their cousin was watching YouTube, right?
So then on the way home we're driving and I'm like, hey
Do you know like sometimes you can see things on YouTube that don't make you feel very good and right and then you have that conversation.
But if folks want more on that, we can we can do another podcast episode on that.
Okay, this is my final question for today.
So then you can be rid of me after this.
As a therapist and even being
My wife.
You have worked with plenty of people who feel like they're giving from an empty well
So let's say with our children, I'm a father of three daughters.
I've never experienced any of what they're gonna be going through.
I didn't even learn about it.
So you talk about pads and
What was the one mind blowing thing?
There's like a special bin or whatever in a women's washroom by the toilet or something like that that you can put pads and tampons in?
Yep.
Yeah, so that's something I will literally there's no way for me to know that information.
So I feel like I'm in a position and I have a feeling a lot of parents
Honestly, even if we had a boy, I don't know that I would know what to even discuss or teach them.
So it feels like I am giving from an empty well.
I have no nothing to actually give because
There's nothing there.
Yeah.
And I'm sure mothers of sons would feel the same way, potentially.
Yeah.
So how do you guide parents through educating their children about
puberty and the experiences they're gonna have when like I've never personally navigated through having a period or I don't know that there's these little bins beside the toilet in a women's washroom.
How can I f make them even feel comfortable to
come to me to have any of these discussions when they're likely gonna know dad knows nothing about this.
So how have you questioned back to you historically if there's been something you haven't known that you need to know or you need to learn?
How have you gone about learning about that thing?
Well, I mean I always yeah, you know how I do that.
I am one to be like, I don't know the answer to this question right now.
Let's look it up right now.
Or
Let's have a discussion.
I have to look this up and understand it better before I have the conversation with you.
Yeah.
But I think it's a t I don't know, it's a two-part question for me because first they have to be comfortable enough to even ask me
Right like what what if you're gone and one of our girls has a burning question about something related to puberty, but they don't even feel comfortable enough to come to me.
Right?
Like they know you are the expert on that and they would feel more comfortable
Yeah.
Which I could see.
And I think that makes sense.
Or they might just be so uncomfortable with even asking about it in general that they won't come to maybe either of us.
So I have a few things that can help you with this.
First, I do think that there is an ownership on us as parents to try and learn it.
I think historically it's been enough to be like
you know, I'm a dad, so I don't know.
Or I'm a mom, so I don't know.
And like the parent of the same sex has been the one teaching that information, right?
But I do think that there's so much resources out there and and there's a lot that can be learned.
So I think as parents, if we can take that time to just learn what we can.
I think even like part of why we made the puberty toolkit and like we have it in there is like parents read it first, like educate yourself first and then use these resources with your kids.
So I think that's one thing.
I think another thing is when you're having these conversations with your kids, like include the other partner in them
Right.
So I think historically, like, let's say moms to daughters, like it's just the mom having that conversation with the daughter, so then the daughter thinks, Well, I can only go to mom.
But I could bring you into that conversation and be like, hey, dad, you know, clearly dad has not ever had a period before.
He doesn't know this stuff, or like he has not experienced it himself, but he wants to be there for you.
So if you ever have a
question you can ask him too and even if he doesn't know right away he'll find out the answer and he'll get back to you right so I think even
be honest with what you don't know or what you haven't experienced to your child.
If I had a son, I would do the same thing, right?
Like, I don't know.
I've I've never had an erection before, but I do want to be here for you if you ever have a situation that feels uncomfortable or let's say
you're talking to your son about wet dreams, right?
And you're a mom and you've never experienced a wet dream before, but you do want your son to be able to come to you to say what's happened, then you can clean it up and stuff together
Right.
So you can be honest about what you don't know and what you haven't experienced and still be that leader that they go to.
And I think it's like anything.
Like you're better off saying
I haven't experienced this, so I can't say what it's gonna be like for you, but I can be here to support you.
You know, that's kinda like anything in life that you haven't experienced being open about it.
Something we did that I personally think will be a hit in the toolkit, and you can do you don't need to have the toolkit to do this.
We had like these um pages that you can cut out
And so kids can write questions that they feel uncomfortable asking you in person.
They can write it down and put it somewhere that they know you'll see.
So that if like let's say they want to ask you a question about sex or about something that they feel awkward about, they can write it down and like place it on your pillow or something like that.
So that there's that separation
so that they don't have to ask you to your face if they feel really awkward, but they do want to ask you the question.
Yeah.
Almost like a question box that you might have at school, right?
And then you can come back to to your child and answer it
So if you think your child might be like, they might have a lot of questions, but they're like, especially for our sensitive kids, I think they might feel even more awkward to have these conversations.
So you can tell them about the question cards and let them know, hey, anytime, doesn't matter, you can write a question, place it on my pillow or my dresser or whatever.
And I will get back to you and answer it and it will be not awkward.
I won't make you feel silly about it.
I I think that can help as well.
Does that answer your question?
Or do you still feel like it might be uncomfortable for them?
No.
You know what I'm gonna tonight I'm actually gonna ask her oldest if she would ever come to me with those kinds of questions.
Yeah.
Because I think her default is to go to you.
I think even with friendship issues, she's definitely
gravitated towards me.
But I also ask her more often.
You think so?
Well, I don't know.
I ask her daily.
Do you?
About those Well, not about like puberty related stuff, but friendship related stuff.
I do talk to her.
pretty regularly about.
But again, it's a difference in experience.
She knows that I've had a different experience grow growing up with friends.
So it's not comparable.
Have you ever said the words to her like, hey, I know I haven't ever had friends, you know, that were girls and maybe drama was happening, but if
There's ever anything that comes up, I still want you to feel like you can come and talk to me.
Have you ever said that to her?
Uh not in those words, but yeah, I've said things along those lines.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
And she will talk about that.
But I just think
First of all, I have not had anything even remotely close to the experience that girls have going through puberty.
So that's the first thing.
And like, I don't know why this was mind-blowing, but the fact that there was this special garbage can or I feel like that shook your world because you're like, there's so much I don't know.
Yeah.
I feel like that one time I w I realized I really don't know what I don't know.
And I don't know that any amount of searching would have told me that that exists.
Like I wouldn't have been able to tell them, hey
Like, what happens if you die tragically and I have to take care of three daughters and I have to bring them through this and explain?
I'll be honest.
I mean that's morbid, but that's part of why I like doing the podcast and why I was really highly motivated to make this puberty toolkit because
Because you don't trust me to have the conversations with the kids.
Well it's not that I don't trust you.
I'm pretty sure we added that garbage can to that toolkit, by the way.
Did you?
Yeah.
Oh nice.
Because I want something left.
It sounds morbid.
But I get inspired to create content like podcasts or toolkits or courses because I want that information to be out there.
And
I will say of all the things that you could research and learn about, puberty is still an area where there is room for more information out there.
It's still improvement for sure.
We've been doing tons of research looking at all sorts of stuff
And there's still room, definitely, for more.
So hopefully we can continue to create more if that is what people are looking for, which I think they are.
So there's that.
There's the fact that I don't know what I don't know.
Yeah.
And I'm not there's certain things that I may just never
Never know because I'm not about to walk into a women's washroom and see oh what do we got going on in here and like what what things and like what is this for going on in here
Flip open the garbage can.
I mean Yeah, maybe.
But there's also you're saying the onus is on the parents, us to educate ourselves.
That also I think could probably
That feels a little bit overwhelming because I feel like already having to learn a thousand other things to teach our kids.
Yeah.
So this is just yet another one that I have to add to the list.
Yeah, add that to the mental load of being a parent.
Well and you know why it's so hard for you to know these things.
It's because there's still even as adults, I mean I think our friends tend to have more open conversations.
Maybe because I like to instigate the open conversations.
But even as adults, it's not something you're necessarily sitting around and talking with with your friends, but maybe you should.
Right?
Actually you were saying that we should do that.
And I was thinking I'm going out for drinks and dinner with a buddy of mine tonight.
I'm Bring it up.
I am going to bring out the thing.
Because he's probably teaching his own daughter about that.
They're the same age.
Yep
I know.
Uh or maybe he's not and we can have a discussion about why not, you know?
Yeah, bring it up.
Bring it up.
He listens to this too.
He would love that
But maybe I was thinking that as you were talking, I'm like, it's such a shameful thing.
If you have other parents in your life, you go to a parent group, it's like why aren't we talking about how to talk to our kids about these things
There's wisdom that you can even learn from talking to other women.
But we have so much shame of like, oh, I'm not gonna tell Scott about my experience like with having a period, right?
But
how would you learn without me unless you were learning from other women who have been through it.
And that takes us being open and making this not such a shameful part of life that we want to hide from everyone, right?
I mean, I've gone on rants about periods before, I feel like
Happens to a woman every single month, impacts her mood, impacts her hormones, impacts everything.
No one ever talks about it.
Like that's a problem
So I don't want that for our kids.
I want them to feel comfortable talking about it, comfortable talking about it with us.
I want it to be able to be a dinner table conversation if it needs to be.
And I think through that you'll end up getting more comfortable.
You'll have to.
Well again, it's not so like I said before, it's not the fact that I feel uncomfortable with it.
It's the fact that I have never learned any of these things.
And now I would say the expectation is kind of that I have to know this.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
And it's overwhelming.
But I'm almost I'm almost learning at the same time.
Like yeah, I do know a bit more than the kids do
Mm-hmm.
But I'm almost learning at the same time because it was never something we were taught in school.
Yeah.
I was taught minimally about myself
And what boys go through.
So it just seems like it's a big expectation to have.
Yeah.
And I think
particularly I don't think I would have a problem talking to if we had a boy talking to a boy about it but it's the fact that I'm talking to the opposite.
I'm talking to three girls
Mm-hmm.
And I have to explain something that I just know I legitimately know very little or nothing about.
And that is where it's okay to lean on me
Right?
And have the conversations with them.
Yeah, but I have the privilege of having you, and in particular, having you, someone who is educated.
in having these discussions.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I was just thinking about a story that I heard from a girl who didn't have a mom growing up, so her dad was left to all the conversations.
But her dad would recruit her aunt to have a lot of the conversations with her.
Mm.
And she really Yeah, I would probably do something like that.
Right.
So I've I was thinking that too, like if you don't have that person in your life, whether it's the dad or a mom or something like that, who can relate to the experiences.
Maybe there's a trusted someone else in that child's life who can come in alongside of you.
So you're still the parent who is involved.
It's not like you're passing the whole conversation off.
But for that relatable aspect, maybe there's an auntie or an uncle or someone who could come in and have that conversation.
I I respect what you're saying in terms of you wouldn't want to be the only one.
Right.
And yeah, that relatability piece I think is important
Yeah.
It's not the end all.
I respect what you're saying, because I think if I wasn't around, I would still want you to bring in, let's say, you know, my sister-in-law to come and and talk to the girls about it.
Still like telling the girls that you want to be part of it, the conversation and learning and you would.
Yeah, it's not that I don't want to be a part of it.
It's just first of all, I have not had it.
Yeah.
So I I don't know that learning online it will still never give me the ability to explain the experience that they're going
Yeah.
I respect what you're saying.
Yeah, I I understand that.
And I think if that's the case for you, you don't have a partner of the same
gender as your child, maybe there is someone else that can come in and have those conversations alongside of you.
Yeah.
So that your your child can talk to someone who's been through it as well and can ask the questions to someone who's experienced it
I think that's an important note.
Okay.
That's all the questions I had for this.
Hopefully you like this new, slightly new format that we're uh we're doing this in.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I mean you were tricky questions today, but
That's good.
I spent a lot of time coming up with these questions.
I personally feel like having the questions to go off of to have the discussion makes a lot of sense.
And I think we're able to get deeper into the topic and
I hope that folks appreciated it.
I know it's a big topic, but I think there was lots of takeaways.
So I'm excited to get the feedback for sure.
Yeah.
Thanks for uh listening in and hope you enjoyed it.
If you have questions, send an email to us or send us a DM on Instagram.
We're always open to having more of this discussion because
Like I said, there's so much that I don't know, so we can continue having this so that I'm better prepared.
And just to know when this episode airs, we are also going to be talking about it on Instagram.
Yeah, right.
So this would be a great time if you have more questions to come and follow Nurture First as well because we're gonna be chatting about this all week.
Thanks for listening.
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