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As a adolescent daughter who went through puberty without a beget, I distinctly remember how little I knew and how ailing prepare I sincerely was. I started my time period at educate one day, finding blood on what I had assumed was a routine trip to the toilet. I, at least, knew enough to know what this was, but I remember shaking at the sight. none of my friends had started their periods even, and it had never occurred to me I might be indeed close to starting .
I remember walking into my classroom, still shaking, as I announced to my teacher that I needed to go to the nurse. “ Are you okay ? ” she asked .
“ Yeah, um… I think I just started my period, ” I replied, far excessively forte in a classroom full of tweens.
I was besides dazed to stop myself from blurting it out .
The nurse was very kind and got me situated with a diggings. And when my dad picked me up that evening, he did his best in taking me to the shop to get the supplies I would need. He besides got me into a gynecologist fairly quickly—albeit a male doctor I didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate know and wasn ’ t precisely comfortable with—to answer any questions I may have had .
He did the very best he could in a site he wasn ’ thymine at all prepare to handle. But ever since my daughter was first placed into my arms, I have been determined to usher her into puberty with more information and back than I had .
My first base pace, of course, was to malcolm stock up on books that could help explain the changes her body would finally go through to her. When she was young, we relied on “ Amazing You ” by Gail Saltz. Reading it to her took some getting used to—the description of a stretchable vagina was specially hard for me to get through without laughing ( because I obviously even have the adulthood of a adolescent ). But it turned out to be an amazing resource during her early years .
recently, however, I started to feel like it was time to step up our education. So I went out and bought the one script I ’ five hundred hear indeed a lot about over the years : “ The Care and Keeping of You ” by Valorie Schaefer .
As with “ Amazing You, ” I sat toss off to read this book by myself first before sharing it with my daughter. And I have to admit, I was immediately unsettled by what I saw .
One of the inaugural things that stood out to me was how the book ( interpretation issue 1, recommended for girls 8 to 10 years old ) spoke about crushes on boys as though those crushes are an inevitability .
I was decidedly the daughter crushing on boys from a young long time. But my daughter doesn ’ thyroxine seem to be there yet, and I ’ thousand not inevitably comfortable with a koran implying she should be .
I ’ m besides not comfortable with a record about pre-teen sex assuming all young girls will have crushes on boys, when we know that simply international relations and security network ’ t the font. Some may not develop crushes until much later in life, or always at all, and enough will experience same-sex crushes .
“ The Care and Keeping of You ” doesn ’ triiodothyronine even pretend to acknowledge those possibilities, though, or the rate of sexual attractions that might occur .
I was even more bothered by how the book addressed consistency issues, though. much like the subject of crushes, the writer seemed to assume that all girls will go through periods of disliking their bodies and thinking they are fleshy.
I don ’ t know if that ’ randomness true or not, but as a young female child who developed a pretty substantial eating perturb in her adolescent years, I know I have worked my butt off to raise a little female child who is full of consistency positivity. And possibly that will change in the years to come, but what I know for surely is that right now she has never expressed anything even close to thinking her soundbox international relations and security network ’ t perfect .
I don ’ metric ton want to hand her a bible that tries to convince her hating her body is convention .
In general, the unharmed book felt outdated, heteronormative, and not at all body positive to me. And when I started looking through the reviews, I realized I wasn ’ t the only one .
I know this was the puberty book of our genesis, but seaport ’ t we come further than this since most of us were kids ? I had to believe there was something better out there .
And you know what ? There was. After consulting with sex educators ( particularly those with a body-positive focus ), I discovered “ Celebrate Your Body ” by Sonya Renee Taylor .
This book ( now a # 1 best seller ) provided all the information I had purchased “ The Care and Keeping of You ” for, without the heteronormativity and body shame .
Its focus on self-care was about being healthy, not losing ( or maintaining ) weight .
It had sections on social media and choosing friends who treat you well .
And it addressed quixotic feelings in a room that didn ’ metric ton palpate forced or assume that everyone would have those feelings by a certain long time .
“ The Care and Keeping of You ” is basically the lapp claim book most of us grew up with, and that ’ s precisely the problem—it hasn ’ thymine changed at all, even as our sympathy of the pre-teen and adolescent experience has .
Parents just keep buying it for their daughters because it ’ s the only resource they know. But now you know better—and you can do better for your daughters by buying them a resource that won ’ thyroxine put them into a box .
just don ’ thyroxine forget to be there to read it with them, and answer any questions they may have, while you ’ re at it.
