Strollerderby : puberty

Buy Your Teen Daughter’s First Vibrator, Says Oprah’s “Sexpert”

Cole Gamble — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:30:00 GMT

Quick disclosure, sex talk has never been taboo in my house. For my 22-year-old sister’s Christmas present, my dad and stepmom bought her a dildo. As my sister limply grasped the 10-inch tower of giggling, Fire Engine Red rubberized flesh, my dad sincerely said, “You haven’t dated in awhile. We thought you’d need one.”

So, onto the topic of sex talks and your kids. Some people, like Oprah’s gal pal Gayle, think girls get too much sex info these days. O's on-call sex expert, Dr. Laura Berman, (couldn’t we all use an on-call sex expert?) says the more info the better. For example, says Dr. Berman, get that girl a vibrator.

Yeah, this freaks parents out, but Berman asserts it’s important for a girl to understand her own body. When you put it that away, is she wrong?

What defines a girl or a boy?

Miriam Axel-Lute — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:30:00 GMT

Writing about transgendered kids is tough. If you believe sex is biologically set by chromosomes and organs, then even considering the whole notion is silly. If you believe that gender identity is entirely socially constructed, it's hard to understand why some kids raised in households without rigid gender roles—boys allowed to dress up and not like sports, etc.—still develop passionate, intense desires to be the other gender. (Me, I'm thinking hormones. Pesky things.)

The stories in the recent article on transgendered kids in the Minneapolis CityPages should certainly give pause to anyone who thinks these kids are having passing phases that their parents could easily deflect. And they also show the interesting challenge of coming out to potential romantic partners when you have transitioned early enough to pass completely. It's worth a read.

But as whenever we talk about what it means to "feel" like one gender or the other, the article ends up giving credence to conventional gender stereotypes and binaries along the way. It opens, for example, like this: "On her third birthday, Sarah Barnett tore open a package from her grandmother that would delight most girls her age. Gently folded on a pillow of tissue paper lay a frilly, ruffled dress." Sigh. Is it mixing my issues to wish that transgender awareness could manage not to rest on ideas like "girls inherently like frilly dresses?" Isn't the point that cross-dressing isn't enough?

The point of that anecdote, of course, is that her response was not (as my happy-to-be-a-woman childhood self's would have been) "Ew. I hate dresses," but "Why don't you tell Grandma I'm a boy?" Still, it points up how hard it is to talk about this issue without the crutch of "what most girls/boys" would like/prefer.

Photo by anyjazz65.

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Mom Sells Daughter's Soul to a British Tabloid - Figuratively Speaking

JeanneSager — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:06:00 GMT

There are days go by when your kids drive you nuts, no question. But do you ever stop loving them?

If you did, would you tell a British tabloid?

Shelley Price got the burden of eleven years off her chest to the Daily Mail this week, telling the paper she just can't bring herself to love the little girl she had with an ex-boyfriend eleven years ago.

"I know what people will think. Everyone will hate me. I'm the woman who doesn't like her own child. But I'm speaking out because I'm convinced I'm not alone," she told the paper.

I don't actually doubt her words. As a mom who went through a bout of postpartum depression (fixed by good drugs, take that Tom Cruise), I can identify with a mother's apathy. Fortunately, there is nothing but love for my daughter coursing through my veins these days, but I am willing to bet there are mothers whose depression never gets the appropriate treatment. There too are mothers who kill, mothers who abuse, mothers who neglect their children - a sure sign that not every mother is consumed by pure love for their offspring. What's more, there are mothers who perhaps got pregnant and never should - who (dare I say it?) should have gone for an abortion. We're not all made to be parents. Physically, perhaps. But mentally? Emotionally?

Price says she was meant to be a parent. Her proof? She's got nothing but love for her second daughter, two-year-old Poppy.

Which makes this story all the more cruel. Price has spoken out about her plight just as eleven-year-old Catherine is hitting puberty, a time when a pre-teen's life is already in upheaval. Adding the knowledge that her mother doesn't love her, and the whole world knows took the burden off of Shelley Price and put it squarely on the shoulders of her hormonal tween daughter. Throw in her mother's assertion that she loves her younger daughter, and gone too is the comfort that "maybe her mother wasn't made to love" or "maybe her mother has a condition of some sort." There is simply no rationalizing the facts away. The likely option a child will turn to is "there must be something wrong with me," when it's very clear to adults that the fault lies with Shelley Price.

As a parent, it is our job to protect our children. Period. From the day a child is delivered (or adopted), they become our main priority. But Shelley Price has put her own discomfort first, and by opening up "for other mothers," she has sounded the death knell for her daughter's innocence.

Perhaps this child could already tell her mother didn't love her (old-fashioned sibling rivalry, if nothing else, would likely have brought that to light). Now her mother has removed all doubt. For children, who depend on their parents not only as their first line of defense but as a stumbling block, there's always that knowledge that their parents are the sole source of unconditional love.

A little girl has lost that, and her mother gets to feel better about herself because she's "done a service" to other mothers. Shelley Price says she's now going to work to improve her relationship with her eldest daughter. "'I can't change the past, but I'm hoping we can make our relationship better. I want to put it right, but perhaps it's too late for that."

She's sold her daughter's soul, and she can't get that back.

Source: The Daily Mail has removed the original story, but the piece is still available in full at We Kid You Not

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When Your Girl Is a Boy (Or Vice Versa)

Miriam Axel-Lute — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:15:00 GMT

We've all known (or been) boys obsessed with princesses and makeup or tomboys who would rather wipe an axle with a dress than wear it. Most of us who were raised with Free to Be You and Me and feminist moms (and even a bunch of us who weren't) go out of our way to let our non-gender-stereotype conforming kids explore whatever interests they want and express themselves as they see fit.

This is hard enough, given other parents' need to constantly harp on about what boys and girls do and like in front of our kids (something I've ranted about here). But what about when it's not enough? What if you have a kid who feels wrong in their body, insists on the other pronoun, and is generally miserable unless actually acknowledged as the other gender? By many accounts there are some kids for whom general freedom from prescribed gender roles doesn't cut it.

The authors of the newly released The Transgender Child, which deals with with "gender variance from birth through college," argue that a child's gender identity is generally a "permanent part of who they are," whether it matches biology or not. They wrote the book to help parents and professional find their way through the mine field of implications of that.

I know one family going through this, and even for the most liberal parents, it's hard. Changing your notion of who your child is midstream is no piece of cake. A transgendered child may need, ironically, to conform more tightly to stereotypes about their preferred gender in order to get a diagnosis of gender identity disorder. (But you can't really feel you're a girl if you like cars!

Even harder, if a diagnosis is given, then there are some big decisions to be made. The best time to medically transition to the other gender is pre-puberty: it works much better and allows you to pass as your preferred gender as an adult much better. No pesky unwanted facial hair or breasts to get rid of. But the prospect of letting a child so young make such a big decision is extremely uncomfortable. (Though apparently some folks are experimenting with puberty delaying drugs that could allow the decision to be put off. Puberty at 25 anyone?)

What do you think? Have you gone through this? What would you do if it were your kid?

Pregcellent: Eat Well, Period. Prenatal Diet Influences Puberty Onset

Kelly Mills — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:34:00 GMT

Just when the pregnant ladies thought they got enough flack about what they ingest during gestation. Now check this out: Researchers say a mother's prenatal diet can influence the early onset of puberty. Sheesh, I was chalking it up to non-organic milk and Bratz dolls. You mean my nutritional choices during the most hormonally insane period of my life are to blame for my daughter's precocious eye-rolling?

Well, in case you were wondering, it's a high-fat diet that the researchers tie to the age of your offsprings' puberty. And of course we are talking about girls going through early puberty, because no one seems to care if boys sprout a little peach fuzz early and start spending hours in their rooms with blacklight posters at an early age. The folks who studied this say prenatal diet may have more influence on menstruation happening young than early childhood nutrition. Of course, the study was on rats, so we can always hold out hope for an species reprieve from regular pregnancy Ben & Jerry's transgressions.

Should Parents Delay Puberty for Transgender Children?

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

In the aftermath of media hype about pregnant transgender man Thomas Beattie—much of which threatened to return the “freak” label to the trans community—NPR has run a fascinating story that explains gender identity disorder from the viewpoint of a family living through it.

According to Danielle and Robert (last names were omitted), from the time their son was two-years-old, he insisted on dressing like a girl. From the time he was old enough to talk, he told his parents, “I’m a girl.” Throughout elementary school, he frequently had temper outbursts so severe that his parents sought psychiatric help. Finally, at age 10, he was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, a label that came as a relief to his parents, who could finally stop asking themselves, “What have we done to make this child so unhappy?” And, sure enough, as soon as Danielle and Robert allowed their son to live as a girl, the fights and the tantrums stopped.

The gender identity disorder diagnosis also allowed Danielle and Robert to consider options that were not available only four years ago. By taking monthly injections of medication that stops the body from releasing sex hormones, transgender children are able to postpone puberty, while continuing to grow taller. Then, at around age 16, they may decide to transition to the opposite gender by taking either estrogen or testosterone. By the time they are fully developed adults, they are physically almost indistinguishable from the gender with which they identify.

It probably won’t come as a shock that this is a very controversial program. Not only does taking estrogen or testosterone before puberty cause infertility, but some specialists believe that children cannot know with certainty whether or not they want to live as the opposite sex.

But Danielle and Robert do not see this as a choice for their child, now called Violet. In response to people who say Violet is too young to know that he wants to be a girl, Robert says, “Well, when did you know you were a girl? When did I know I was a boy? I knew my whole life, I can’t tell you exactly when, but it wasn’t like I was 10 and realized, ‘Oh gee, I must be a boy!’”

I know many liberal-minded people who do not “believe in” being transgender—that is, they do not believe there is a biological basis for the desire to live as the opposite sex. What do you folks think of Danielle and Robert’s story?

Image: prunellavulgaris.wordpress.com

The Poison Bottle: Canada and Walmart Take BPA Off Market

Cole Gamble — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Canada’s proposed ban on plastic baby bottles with the chemical BPA, Walmart stores have announced they look to have such bottles free from their stores by next year.

Playtex, manufacturer of baby bottles, has also jumped aboard the anti-BPA bandwagon, announcing the company will discontinue BPA products by years end.

BPA, or bisphenol A, is a common plastic component found in dental sealants, baby bottles, the liners of food cans, CDs and DVDs, eyeglasses, water bottles and hundreds of household goods. If you are not familiar with the possible dangers of BPA, check out Amy’s or Madeline's post. Among the concerns over BPA addressed in a recent report from the U.S. government's National Toxicology Program are changes in behavior and the brain, early puberty and possibly precancerous changes in the prostate and breast.

While the National Toxicology Program’s findings have found the evidence of BPA damage in animal tests to be “limited” this report states the possible effects on humans “cannot be dismissed.”

Evidence of BPA’s dangers has been around for a while, but this is the first major government initiative to get them out of circulation. How about you, have you been BPA free for a while or is this all news to you?

On a complete unrealted note, take a look at thebaby picture in this post. Are those infant's ears pierced? Who does that?

Photo: www.growingkids.co.uk

Why Tweens are Too Young for a Brazilian Wax

Madeline Holler — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:34:00 GMT

Jeez, I can think of a million reasons, the first of which: is there anything to wax?

The other 999,999 reasons … come on. I know we’re sexualizing girls at younger and younger ages, but 10? Waxing her pubes?

Apparently, you're never too young for this Australian website, read by girls aged 9 to 14. In an article about Brazilian waxing, they try hard to make the case:

So why does it appeal. Nobody really likes hair in their private regions and this removes it.

In another article (yes, more than one on the site), there's this description of what exactly happens. The good news is, I feel like this might deter all but the most goaded young kids.

Wax is smeared onto the mons, the cloth is pressed into place...then they turn the music up loud...rrripppp. It's quite normal for the waxer to throw your legs over their shoulder, or ask you to moon them so they can get the strays. The waxer then goes over your red bits with a pair of tweezers to pluck out recalcitrant strands.

Why does “pluck out recalcitrant strands” make me cross my legs?

One Australian writer, appalled by the notion that some celebrate getting rid of the just-grown hairs of adolescence, gives us a rundown of how things are going in the land of kiddie hair removal. (And you say marketers aren't savvy.)

As a cosmetic pharmaceutical company, Nair is obliged to reinvent normal bodily functions as problems with handy product solutions. And the Australian arm of the company has claimed its target audience is slightly older, in an attempt to distance itself from the US campaign, which involves phrases such as "Pretty isn't a look. It's a feeling," "Nair will leave your skin smooth and totally touchable!" and this pearler from Stacey Feldman, vice-president for marketing at Nair's parent company, Church & Dwight: "When a girl removes hair for the first time, it's a life-changing moment."

Life-changing, indeed! Now, about teaching girls the proper names for body parts, better add “mons” to the list so the little tykes know exactly what they're getting in to.

3-Year-Olds Getting Their Periods?

Madeline Holler — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:27:00 GMT

Here’s something you thought you’d never have to deal with: your 3-year-old going through puberty. Yet it’s a little more common than you think (though, mercifully, still pretty rare).

And it looks like something that doctors might overlook at the well-baby check ups. Somehow, the mothers in this story figured out that their daughters -- their preschoolers! -- we're thiiiiiis close to getting their periods, and then spent a good bit of time and energy convincing their pediatricians.

The average age of puberty for both boys and girls has lowered by two years over the past century.

From the Daily Mail: "In fact, a recent study showed that British girls today start their periods at an average age of ten years and three months, compared to 11 years nine months for their mothers and 12 years for their grandmothers."

But for an untold number, it's happening much earlier than that -- like around 8 years old. And still earlier for a tiny number of those -- at 3. Wow!

Called precocious puberty, endocrinologists don't know why some girls reach this very special time in their young lives at a very alarmingly time in their really young lives. But it can have lasting damages, not just physically -- bones aging rapidly, for example, but also emotionally. Kind of tough coaching a 3-year-old through the changes when she isn't all that facile with language, huh?

Even with the older ones -- like the 8-year-olds, it can be confusing and isolating, some women who developed early as girls say in the article. Plus, they're often much taller, have to use deodorant, get acne (or for boys, grow facial hair) or suffer from cramps when nobody else does.

The good news is that once early onset puberty is diagnosed, it can be controlled with medication, allowing time to catch up with the body and slowing the effects of the early onset puberty.

Momsquak talks about it briefly and trots out the hormones-in-meat theory, but comes to no conclusions. Still, makes you think. Makes you cross your fingers and think.

Photo: Daily Mail

Supportive Homelife During Preschool Means Girls Hit Puberty Later

Kelly Mills — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:32:00 GMT

If you'd like the Barbie dolls to be the only young things in the house sporting boobs any time soon, I guess it's time to work on being supportive and happy and economically good, because researchers say your parental investment during the preschool years will make a difference. According to a new study, girls who grow up in households with marital conflict, depressed dads, and less supportive parenting hit puberty earlier than peers in stable, supportive homes. The idea is that early childhood experiences can influence sexual maturation rates in girls, and early puberty has been linked with mood disorders, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and reproductive system cancers. It has also been tied to earlier instances of eye rolling and the phrase, "Oh my gawd, you are ruining my life!"

There's other factors involved in the age of onset of the hormonal roller coaster. "Children whose mothers had started puberty later (a genetic factor), whose families were better off when the children were in preschool, whose mothers gave them more support when they were in preschool and who had lower Body Mass Index when they were in third grade developed secondary sexual characteristics later than their peers." Crap, I don't even remember when I hit puberty. Yesterday, I think? I should mention that some of the results of this study come from mother-daughter reports of development, never my favorite method, but oh well. And to think, all this time I've been worried about getting organic milk when I should have been trying to be more loving and well-off. It figures.

Testify: Being a Tween in the Locker Room Is a Little Bit of Hell

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:03:00 GMT

Years ago, I sat at lunch with a big group of women I worked with at the time. Our ages spanned the generations and one woman, a mother of a girl entering middle school, told us a story about how the other girls in the class were giving her 12-year old daughter a very hard time. We all shook our heads in a collective, compassionate "Say it, sister!" All of us remembered what a tough, tough time being twelve was.

It is the age of horror when the mean girls start to dig in and the nice girls run back to their closets to cry and play Barbies (not that I'd - ahem - remember that at all). It is the time when some kids when some still think the opposite sex is disgusting and others are well...you had at least a vague idea of what those kids were doing. When all those hormones and emotions and prank calls and boy-girl parties and junior-sized bras are mixed together in an academic setting, things can get terrifying and quick.

Finally, someone with some sympathy for middle school angst and anxiety is stepping up and saying, "Enough with the nakedness!" Elizabeth Woodruff, a clinical instructor of kinesiology at University of Alabama says that feelings of body inadequacy and the possibility of hazing on teams and in locker rooms are preventing many tweens from participating in PE, especially if they have to change or shower in front of classmates. Woodruff says parents need to seriously address this tween terror so that kids are free to take part in sports and gym class without fear. Removing just one more bit of hell from 12-year old existence? I say Amen! and Hallelujah! for my pubescent brothers and sisters.

Study: Teen Moodiness is Due to.....Hormones (Duh!)

Karen Murphy — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:06:00 GMT

Well this certainly explains a lot. Not that we didn't already know that teenagers are often moody, and at times for no apparent reason, and that it's been explained away for years as having to do with hormones. But here's a closer look. At least, it explains a lot for teenage mice. Apparently, though, a hormone called THP (also called allopregnanolone) that normally has a calming effect on adults and young children, has the opposite effect on teenagers. Uh, teenage mice, that is. The THP is released in the body several minutes after a stressful event, and normally has a tranquilizing effect (I think I need more of this), but in adolecsence, there are more receptors present that accept the hormone in brain cells, and as a result there is an anxious rather than calming effect when the THP moves into place in the brain.

In other words, what is calming for adults and younger children drives teenagers nuts. Hmm. I think I see that. Not that this information changes anything, but it does help to understand what is going on.

Childhood Obesity Might Cause Early Puberty

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:54:00 GMT

A recent study shows that overweight children may reach puberty earlier than children with a more healthy physique. No kidding. They studied over 350 girls for several years at the University of Michigan's Mott Children's Hospital discovered that girls that were overweight as early as three years old and still continued to gain weight started developing breasts as early as nine years old.

Breasts at nine? I didn't get mine until college. Okay, I'll be honest. I didn't get mine until I was 31 and breastfeeding. Is it too dark to wish that I had hit puberty earlier?

In all seriousness, reaching puberty earlier is a bad thing. Not only has it shown an increase in reproductive cancers and obesity in adulthood, early puberty often also leads to earlier sexual activity and alcohol use. There is even an increase in the likelihood of psychiatric disorders. And I thought the worst thing that would come of it was other kids making fun of you. Scary, huh?

Puberty, Fifties Style

Patti — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:09:00 GMT

Man, I love the olden days. You must check out this vintage film, "Molly Grows Up" (available in several formats), with its classic take on menstruation. It's surprisingly modern in some of its approach, although full of outdated gems like "don't swim the first few days of your period or you'll catch a chill", "wear your prettiest dress", and a pass at the old "women are meant to be mothers" line of thinking.

Try not to be distracted by Molly's awesome Craftsman house and her family's kick-ass mid-century coffee table. Instead, pop some corn, sit back, and let Molly's mother and the school nurse (she's got to be Lauren Bacall's homelier older sister, it's an uncanny resemblance) tell you how it is in Periodsville, 1953 (hint: go easy on the square dancing).

If you're in the mood for a double feature, watch the 1957 companion piece, "As Boys Grow", where a jovial coach explains puberty to his team ("say, I had a wet dream last night!").