Fertility Awareness for Teens (Episode 312)

Full Transcript: Episode 312

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Welcome to the Fertility Friday Podcast, your source for information about the Fertility Awareness Method and All Things Fertility. I’m your host, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. I’m the author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Journal. I’m a certified Fertility Awareness Educator and Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormonal health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I’m outspoken about hormonal birth control and its impact on fertility and overall health, because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process.

I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health, because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys — I know, I know, I’m a busy girl, but I manage to fit it all in. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility, and your overall health. And I’m so excited that you’re here with us today.

I’m so excited to bring today’s episode to you, because today we’re talking about fertility awareness and teenagers — the concept of when it’s appropriate to talk about fertility awareness to teens. Is it appropriate to teach them fertility awareness at all? It’s a topic I get asked about a lot, what my opinion is on the matter, and I know you’ll find this episode interesting. I won’t give away our perspectives right off the bat — I’ll let you jump into the interview and hear all about it.

In today’s interview, I invited my good friend and colleague Chloe Skerlak onto the show. She leads period workshops for teenagers, and she shares her experience, and we really get into the conversation around when it’s appropriate to bring these matters to teenagers. So without further ado, let’s jump into today’s episode.

And I’m really excited to be here today with my friend and colleague Chloe Skerlak. Chloe is wildly passionate about the menstrual cycle. She’s a Justisse Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner and Certified Fertility Awareness Educator, and when she’s not hosting fertility awareness training circles, teaching charting online, or taking photos of cervixes, she facilitates Period Positivity Workshops for parents and preteens, because she believes body literacy is for everyone, at every age.

So in today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about the question of fertility awareness and teens. Should we be telling teens? How much should we be telling them? Should we be telling them at all? I think many of you know the answers to those questions anyway, but that’s what we’ll be talking about today. Welcome to the show, Chloe.

Chloe Skerlak: Yay! Thank you! Oh my gosh, I’m finally on the Fertility Friday podcast — this is like a dream come true. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Lisa: Well, I’m so glad to have you here. I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about this year, and one of the things I always get asked about is fertility awareness and teens. As an educator yourself, I think we spend quite a bit of time dispelling the myth that it’s too much for teens, or too much information, or whatever. So before we get into all of that, maybe just share with us what brought you into fertility awareness, and what inspired you to become a certified educator and do the work you’re doing now.

Chloe: Actually, I think I quote you a lot when I tell people that I started for birth control, but I stayed for the body literacy. It was my introduction — I was on hormonal birth control and it wasn’t working for me, and that’s how I discovered fertility awareness. It’s been eight years in my own practice now, and for me, the natural birth control is just the cherry on top — the actual ice cream is the body literacy you get from charting.

That’s how I started, and specifically with the youth and teens — similar to you, and all FAM educators, I feel like everybody says, “I wish I would have learned younger.” It’s actually since I took the Justisse training, and since I’ve been teaching professionally, it’s always been my dream to teach youth and children, because I know I started off with what I thought were not the right tools or the right information. So it’s exciting that I get to do that now. It just so happened that a mother wanted this for her daughter, and I had the opportunity to teach her and her friends and their children in a hall she’d rented, and she set everything up for me — I just showed up. That’s what propelled the Period Positivity Workshops.

Lisa: That’s awesome. And as a side note, I love that you basically called body literacy ice cream.

Chloe: The dairy-free kind, though — like that really awesome salted caramel cashew milk kind.

Lisa: Right, as long as we’re clear on the kind of ice cream, which is awesome. So I’m just trying to think of where would be a good place to jump in. What I’ve heard over the years, kind of the debate, is: at what point is it appropriate to teach girls about fertility awareness, and should we be promoting this as a birth control method, and at what age? So to jump right into this — what are your thoughts on that idea of at what age should we be educating women about their bodies, about body literacy, about fertility awareness?

Chloe: The way I see it, this kind of conversation — a person’s sexuality isn’t like a phase that starts at puberty, or an age where all of a sudden a light switches and before it was inappropriate and now it’s appropriate. I see it more as a lifespan — something you build on every single day, every single year, every single phase. It’s about sexual literacy and sexuality. I like to tell people you should be teaching them the words for their vulva, or penis, or testicles, or vagina, at the same time you’re teaching them the words for elbow, eyelash, knee, or kidney.

Lisa: Well, and it’s so interesting — I have a background in sexual assault education. I used to go into high schools and educate teenagers about the myths around sexual assault, sexualized violence, and child sexual abuse. We were also involved in training people who worked with children — for example, we’d go into a preschool and train the providers to talk to children about boundaries and health, and one of the very first lessons was: name your body parts.

As a parent, and having had many conversations with other friends who are also parents, it’s interesting to me — I’ve talked with other parents who have never told their children the proper names, because to this day they still feel very uncomfortable. From the general body-positivity perspective, sure, but from the sexual-assault-education perspective, you want to give your child the language so that if anything, God forbid, happened, and they didn’t tell you but told another adult instead —

I know this is a tangent, but it’s important — if they told someone else and not you, and said something like, “Grandpa’s playing with my toys,” that was an example I used to use, because there was a family that referred to private parts as “toys.” So if you tell your teacher, “My grandpa’s playing with my toys,” the teacher has no idea what you mean. But if you empower your child with the proper language for their body parts, and they say, “Grandpa’s playing with my penis,” or whatever, then the teacher will know what to do. Anyway, that’s a side note, but I agree with you 100% that at the very least, it starts with just calling our body parts what they are. Exactly.

Chloe: And then depending on what age they are, or what they’re even asking — I was actually talking to a cousin of mine about this last night, and she said it’s really important. She’s a mom with two very young children, and she reminded me that it should really be child-centered. There’s no need to sit your three-year-old down and say, “This is sex, this is how it works, and you’re going to be empowered, and I want you to know this information.” I don’t think that’s very helpful either.

Making it child-centered, speaking at their level, is just as important. So maybe up to age three, you’re talking about body parts. Between four and eight, you’re talking about their bodies, what their bodies do, how they’re healthy, and how to take good care of their penises and vulvas. Then, around nine to thirteen, puberty’s coming, and you start talking about the changes. I also don’t think it’s about having “the sex talk” right from the beginning and loading all of this at once.

In fact, side note — I did that. I made that mistake too, and I’m just learning as I go. As a disclaimer, I don’t have any children yet, and I’m just working through this as much as the next person. When I was a Fertility Awareness Educator in my early twenties, just starting all this, I thought — like everyone else — “I wish I would have known this younger, who can I teach, who’s the first person I can empower so they don’t have to go down the same path I did?”

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t know which — my eldest cousin’s daughter was the first one to reach that age, and I was so excited to introduce her to the world of fertility awareness. She must have been eleven or so, and I wanted it to be really special. Next thing we know, we’re sitting in a Starbucks, in public, right next to the condiment stand, and I’m trying to teach her about estrogen and progesterone and cervixes and vulvas, right next to the guy adding sugar to his coffee. Her face was just mortified. We laugh about it now — it’s great — but I’ve learned a lot about talking to youth about fertility awareness since then.

Lisa: Well, I think that’s such a good point. There are a lot of little pieces of what you said that are really important — there’s no “one talk.” As a parent with two young children, I’m busy — it’s not like I’m going to pull up a chair every Friday and say, “Let’s talk about vaginas.” But every night in our house, we bathe our kids, and from the time they were babies, it just comes up. You create an environment where you’re teaching your children language anyway — you’re teaching them the names for all their body parts.

So it’s about getting in your head that the penis or the vulva is just another body part, and you talk about it the way you would a knee — “this is your knee, this is your penis, this is your testicle, this is your arm.” That’s a great way to start.

And I’d say, when you mentioned kid-centered — what’s interesting is that when you’re having these conversations, it only makes sense to have them at the appropriate age. When you’re around kids long enough, you realize it wouldn’t even work to talk about things outside what’s appropriate for their age. But kid-centered also means there’s no scheduled time for these things — it’s good to have a sense of how you’d like to talk about things, almost a conversation with yourself, because when your kid says something —

Things come up. Like, “so-and-so pulled their pants down at school,” or your kid hears something on TV and asks, “Mommy, what’s a period?” That’s the moment — when it occurs, when your kid asks a question, when they hear something. That’s what kid-centered means: as these things come up, you’re continually having the conversation. And although we’re busy and don’t always have time, if you shut that down because you’re not ready, or it’s not the right time, you’re missing out on those natural, kid-centered —

Chloe: Teachable moments.

Lisa: Teachable moments, exactly. So that’s some great general information — I think it guides the perspective of how to start talking about this, and makes it a little less daunting, because it helps us incorporate these conversations into our day-to-day language.

And then when it comes to actually educating — there are a lot of women listening who have daughters at whatever age, whether they’re babies or pre-puberty or in puberty now, who want to impart this wisdom, kind of like you did with your cousin, on their own children. So when approaching something like that, tell us a little bit about how your workshops work, and what you’ve learned about how to approach teens from that experience.

Chloe: I think the kid-centered part was really important, because reflecting on my experience with my younger cousin — I didn’t realize the Starbucks wasn’t very —

Lisa: In public.

Chloe: Oh my goodness. It’s just — like I said, I’m so glad we can laugh about it now, and I haven’t traumatized her or anything. But with the Period Positivity Workshops, one thing I really love is that I make it a parent-and-preteen experience — I want both of them there, which is really cool, especially because — stop me if I’m going on too many tangents — there’s a study showing more than 50% of children and youth actually want to talk to their parents about this, which blew my mind, because you’d think children want this information from friends or media. But no, deep down they really do want to talk to their parents about it.

One of the best pieces of feedback I’ve gotten, one of the most common comments, is that the workshop was great, but the magical moment was the car ride home — suddenly, the couple of hours I’d had with them opened the door: “Look, this is something that’s okay to talk about, and I’m an approachable parent, you can talk to me about anything.” Even just giving them words they can use, or piquing their interest with questions they maybe hadn’t thought of before — it’s the car ride home that parents keep telling me is the most magical moment, when they realize, “Oh, cool, I didn’t know how to open the door, how to begin the conversation, especially about periods and the menstrual cycle.”

Because there’s a lot of great stuff out there about sexual health, consent, and safety, but not a lot of people really know anything about their own menstrual cycle. I have to set aside half an hour in my workshops just to talk to the parents about their own stuff.

Lisa: Yeah, of course.

Chloe: Because they finish and they’re like, “wait, what?”

Lisa: Yeah.

Chloe: They’re learning just as much. So how can we expect parents to teach their children when they don’t even know? One of the first tips I have, when parents ask me how to make their daughter’s period a more positive experience than theirs was, is: how is your period for you now? Whatever you’re modeling, they’re going to pick up on. So you start with yourself — check in with how you feel about your menstrual cycle, your periods, and what you want to pass on to the little ones. That reflection, I think, is a really important part.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. I think there’s a couple of things I think of as a parent. Before I was a parent, I had this idea that I’d go into parenthood, read all the books first, and know everything — that’s just not how it works. Whether it’s potty training, sleep, discipline, or guidance, you might think there’s going to be one conversation or one opportunity to talk about something, but this is a person.

It made me think of your experience with your cousin’s daughter — even though you did it imperfectly, and you laugh about it, in that interaction, however awkward, you taught her that you’re someone she can talk to about this stuff. Children are typically forgiving — it doesn’t matter if you do it “wrong.” So there’s something to be said for that, and for what you said about the workshops opening the door for parents: instead of worrying about being perfect, you can just bring it up, talk about it in whatever way makes sense.

You’re the parent, you probably know your child better than anyone. And even if it didn’t go the way you thought, even if afterward you think, “I could have approached that differently” — just by talking about it, being open and accepting and warm about it, you can open the door without doing it perfectly. I definitely took that from what you said. And to tie that back to when it’s an appropriate time to talk to kids about this — being an askable, approachable parent starts way early on.

Chloe: And you get to foster that as your child grows, as you move through their lifespan. That’s something I love — I get to say that my Period Positivity Workshop does that. But it’s just one thing, right? Every conversation you have with your children is an opportunity to foster that and help you become that askable, approachable parent.

Lisa: Well, and I think also — because you mentioned that when you’re doing the workshops, most of the parents don’t know as much about their own cycle. I think anyone in this field who does fertility awareness education knows that all the time — there are very few people on earth who know so much about their cycles unless they’ve been exposed to this knowledge somehow.

You don’t have to have specialized knowledge to talk to your children. It could be as simple as sharing what your first period was like, what you wish it had been like, what you’d have done differently — even if the response is, “why are you telling me this, Mom?” Still, however you do it, it matters.

Chloe: I’ve changed a bit and learned something along the way. For example, at first the workshop was too long, and I lost their attention near the end — one piece of feedback I got was that by the end, a kid was pulling at their parent’s sleeve saying, “stop asking questions.” That’s actually why I added an extra half hour, where I introduce different period products and let the kids interact with them on their own, on the floor. That gives them time to absorb what we talked about, while I hang out with the parents, so the kids don’t have to sit through all the follow-up questions. Their attention spans just aren’t built for that.

Another thing I’ve learned is that, especially with kids, the more interaction the better. I found a great resource online — cards you can print and laminate — we call them “menstrual math,” a nickname one of the parents gave them at one of my first workshops. We use these cards to calculate the length of the menstrual cycle, how cycle length changes and why, and how to use that to predict when a period is coming. The more interactive I make the workshops, the more the kids enjoy it.

Oh, what else have I learned — you’ll love this one — another game I love to play, something I picked up from you, is using something red, like cranberry juice or Gatorade, poured into a cup to show how much we bleed during one cycle. It was the most adorable thing — I think it was my second or third workshop, and I had a tiny seven-year-old who was just great. They all had a cup, and I asked them, between three and seven days, how much do you think you’ll bleed? I gave them each their own cranberry juice in a plastic cup, and this one girl is pouring it right to the brim.

A moment later I said something like, “so, we bleed out of our vaginas,” and you should have seen this poor little girl’s face — she’s like, “what?!” And I’m telling her, “so much blood,” while she’s pouring this cranberry juice to the brim of her cup. It was so funny — I was shaking my head like, I’m so glad you’re here right now, I’m so glad you get to hear from me that you’re going to bleed and it’s not going to be that much, and it’s actually going to be great. Anyway, it was so funny, the look on that girl’s face. I like doing a lot of interactive stuff like that — that’s how I keep them engaged, and every time I do it, it changes and I get a little better.

Lisa: I think one of the concerns around having conversations like this — I’m not sure if it’s just our culture, but we’re just so uncomfortable with it. It’s ironic, because there are all these sexualized images of women everywhere, all the time, this huge underground sexual-slavery-type problem in our culture — but as adults, we’re still very uncomfortable talking about this stuff. So one concern that comes up is: if I talk to my children about sex and periods and cycles, are they going to run out and have sex right away?

I’m guessing parents who come to a Period Positivity Workshop are obviously already open to it, but what are some of the topics you focus on for that age group, and how do you navigate that? I’m assuming most, if not all, of these girls at this age aren’t yet sexually active.

Chloe: I have a few interesting things to say about that. First, a funny story — when you said that, it reminded me of something that happened at one of my workshops. I was drawing, near the beginning, doing anatomy and physiology, and I was drawing a picture of a vulva. I even started adding legs, so there’d be reference points — like she was spread-eagle, and I was doing my best to draw this vulva. At the end of the workshop, one of the moms came up to me and said that when I started drawing that vulva, she immediately became really uncomfortable and thought, “what is she doing, why is she drawing that, that’s not appropriate.”

But she explained that she caught herself in that reaction, and realized this is just a normal part of a woman’s body — we can draw vulvas, show different shapes, sizes, and colors, and teach our kids. She said catching herself in that reaction showed her how important it was that she and her daughter were there, talking about this. So again, it goes back to those sexualized images — women’s legs spread open, the vulva showing, as if it has to be “the sexy thing” — when really we’re just trying to have a conversation about sexual health, our own bodies, how they work and look.

So to segue into your question about what I talk about and how I navigate it — number one, I don’t talk about sex in the Period Positivity Workshop. If it came up naturally and someone had a question, I’d be happy to address it. Going back to that child-centered approach — if it comes up, it comes up. They want to know, so they want to know — I’m not going to tell them “that’s not for you to know now,” because that just extinguishes their curiosity, and that’s not what we want.

But I’ll answer your question with another funny story I read recently, since I don’t have children myself — I was doing some of my own research, and one of the things I found is that one of the first questions a four-year-old usually asks is, “where do babies come from?” And parents freak out, thinking, “oh no, they want to know about sex, I have to explain the penis and vagina and pleasure and masturbation and orgasms and contraception.” But really, at four years old, kids are just starting to learn about space, time, and location — they literally just want to know, “where did I come from, Mom? Where did I come from, Dad?” A simple, child-centered answer is: from a woman’s body, from a special place called the uterus, or womb. And then they’re like, “oh, great.”

It’s the same thing when I’m talking to seven-, eight-, nine-, ten-, even up to eleven-year-olds in my Period Positivity Workshops — they often aren’t asking me questions about sex, because that’s just not where they are, they don’t care. It’s funny you ask, because my regular work is centered around group or one-on-one programs with women who are sexually active and want to avoid or achieve pregnancy, so up until now my conversations about fertility awareness have mostly been about sex.

But when I was really concerned about how I’d navigate that in the Period Positivity Workshops, it turned out to be so simple. When we talk about ovulation, I don’t talk about how sperm and egg can meet, or get into penises and ejaculation — it’s very simple: we menstruate because two weeks earlier, we ovulated. Ovulation is when an egg leaves the ovary — and in fact, you were an egg in your grandmother’s body, when she was carrying your mother. That’s the extent of the conversation, and that’s what they want to know. Then we talk about the menstrual cycle — what it means, how to put in a tampon, that kind of thing. I haven’t found that sex even comes up when I’m talking to seven- to eleven-year-olds.

Lisa: Yeah, no, it does. It’s important. I think this is why — from a fertility awareness educator standpoint, and let me know if you concur — when I get this question a lot, “do you think it’s appropriate to talk to teenagers, how soon should we tell them,” it’s like, if we tell them, then they’ll know there are days in their cycle they can’t get pregnant, and then, “the cat’s out of the bag, every teenage girl who learns about it is going to get pregnant.” That kind of catastrophizing is just foolishness. My automatic response is, that’s ridiculous — why would it be too much to tell a teenager?

The way I look at it — if you’re talking to a teenager about fertility awareness, you can start with the practical aspects. It’s important for teenage girls and boys, but in this context, girls, to understand their cervical fluid, so they know what’s normal and healthy, what it’s supposed to look like — and so if they ever had a UTI, a bladder infection, or a yeast infection, they’d know that’s not normal for them. We can focus on those practical things. And if you can identify your cervical mucus and when it goes away, you can predict your period — what teenage girl wouldn’t want to know that? That’s one of the most freeing things.

When I was a teenager, I read YM magazine all the time, and they had that section — did you read it too? — the most embarrassing things that could ever happen, and it was always periods: someone saw my tampon, oh my gosh, I bled, and so on. We could talk for a whole hour about period shaming, and why it would be the end of the world for your period to show — but at that age, it just is what it is. Having the ability to look to your own body for that information, to know your period is coming so you can be ready — that’s important, even if it’s a bit beyond what you’d teach seven- and eleven-year-olds. But learning around eleven or twelve, before your period comes, depending on when you get your menarche — these are important pieces of information every teenage girl has a right to know.

Chloe: I love that you said that — embarrassment and shame are learned feelings. For example, when we talk about period shame, why we hide our tampon up our sleeve, why we sneak off to the bathroom — that’s a learned behavior. They’re learning that they need to be embarrassed and ashamed about these things. So it goes back to checking yourself first — are you the one teaching them to hide these things, to use code names for their genitals? It all ties back to that.

But I love that you brought up why fertility awareness matters for teens and youth, because for both of us as fertility awareness educators, we probably both hear all the time, “why should they learn fertility awareness, they’re not sexually active?” It goes back to all the reasons your listeners have heard, over and over, why fertility awareness matters beyond just avoiding or achieving pregnancy. You’ve hit on a bunch of good ones — learning that menstruation isn’t dirty, doesn’t have to be hidden or shameful, just better understanding how their body works. To address what you said — we’re all so afraid that talking about this information will make them want to do it more, when it’s scientifically proven, over and over, that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to make the best decisions for yourself. So — educate. Let’s talk about it more.

Lisa: I love what you said about the first step being to think about your own experience and revisit that, because a lot of us maybe don’t. Part of why my group programs are so successful is that — where else do you get to sit down and talk about your periods, your cycle, and the experiences you’ve had sexually, related to choosing birth control and negotiating that with a partner? These are conversations and experiences we often have as women but don’t really talk about, even with close girlfriends, unless it’s in passing.

I’m sure there are plenty of listeners who haven’t had these great conversations — I bet we’ve sparked a few with this podcast. It’s really worth thinking about: what was your first experience like? How did you feel about periods at that age? How would you have felt if everyone was talking about it, or everybody knew? I’ve heard experiences where the whole family is excited to embrace the period positively, but the teenager doesn’t want that attention — she doesn’t want everyone to know, doesn’t want you to tell dad, whatever the case may be. So it’s an important, complicated conversation — but at the end of the day, I think it has to be had, and it should be had.

So I had a few other thoughts about talking to teens. One question I get quite a bit — I make a distinction between body literacy and general understanding. Teaching a girl about her cervical fluid in the general sense, so she understands what it is; teaching her about her cycle, so she knows what’s normal; teaching her about her period — there’s a difference between that and teaching fertility awareness as a method. I think knowing that distinction is really helpful for people who are skeptical about teaching girls this information. First and foremost, if we teach a girl general information about her cycle, we’re not teaching her a method of birth control — relax, these two things are separate.

So what do you think about that? And leading into the next question: when would it be appropriate to teach young women about fertility awareness as a method of birth control?

Chloe: Oh, what a great question. What a great question. First of all, I love what you said about fertility awareness and body literacy — the terms body literacy, fertility awareness, and fertility awareness method get interchanged and used as synonyms, when they’re not. I love that you brought that up. Fertility awareness is the practice of observing and charting your body’s signs of fertility, and body literacy is the knowledge you gain from that practice. Then, of course, the fertility awareness method is the method of birth control you use to avoid pregnancy — and don’t get me started on all the myths about that, we won’t go there.

Making sure those phrases, and their differences, are clear, I think is super important. It goes back to what you were saying — in the Period Positivity Workshop, exactly what I’m covering is the fertility awareness aspect, not the fertility awareness method.

The benefits people gain from body literacy are so important, and we’ve already touched on a few of them — why learning fertility awareness as a youth or teen, even as a seven-year-old, is so important. That leads into your next question: when is it important to talk about the fertility awareness method as a form of birth control?

Lisa: I loved your answer about kid-centered — you do it when they ask, or when they need it. But here’s the beautiful thing: we’ve been talking about being approachable parents, about sexuality and sexual health as something you grow through across a lifespan, not a moment or a phase you have to hit. So using the language they’ve already learned to talk about fertility awareness — how much easier does that make it to transition into the conversation around fertility awareness as a birth control method? Because they’ve already learned it.

It’s like when we take on new clients — the first hour is just spent talking about anatomy and physiology they should have learned in sex ed. I can’t even begin to talk about how to prevent pregnancy with the fertility awareness method without talking about fertility awareness and your body first — we need to get on the same page. So one thing I love about teaching fertility awareness to younger people is that you’re giving them the tools, giving them the language, which makes that later transition to talking about the method as birth control so much easier.

Chloe: I was having a lot of cousins — I love that I’m shouting them all out on this podcast — and another cousin of mine asked me a question about masturbation and her younger daughter. She was really nervous about how to talk about masturbation with her — does this mean I have to talk about mutual masturbation, or sexual intercourse, or oral sex, what does that even mean? Again — child-centered, keep it simple, direct answers: what do you know about masturbation?

The one thing I wanted her to know when we started talking about this is: how great is it if you get to talk to her about pleasure and self-pleasure now, when she’s not even thinking about — could you imagine? — her little one was maybe nine at the time, and putting a penis in her vagina isn’t an appealing thought to her at all. Which, on the topic of when this is appropriate — if they say “gross” or “are you kidding,” that’s a pretty good indication they’re not ready for it. And you can always say, if you find something gross or yucky, you don’t ever have to do anything you find gross — which is another great teachable moment.

But getting back to what I’m trying to say — talking about masturbation and pleasure now, giving her that perspective and language, how much easier and more beautiful is it going to be when she’s older, and you want to shift the conversation to pleasuring — not just your own body, but what that looks like when two people pleasure each other. That’s beautiful, and it’s something that gets left out of sex education altogether — it’s very fear-based, abstinence-only.

Oh my goodness, I went on huge tangents, stop me if I’m jumping off too much — but this actually gets to the root of why I’m even in this work in the first place. When I discovered masturbation, I can’t remember how old I was, but I was mortified — I thought I was doing something awful, and I had to pray to God to forgive me for it. And I’m saying this on your podcast, but I felt like the more I masturbated, the bigger my clitoris got, and that it was turning into a penis — that was my curse, like how they say men get hairy palms when they masturbate. I thought it was my punishment. But nobody had ever told me what my clitoris even was, and here I am thinking I’m growing a mini penis. So the lack of education — and my mom hates it when I say this, because she’s like, “you’re making me sound like a bad mom, Chloe” — and no, she wasn’t a bad mom, I just don’t know if she realized she had to teach me my clitoris wasn’t turning into a mini penis. Maybe I didn’t feel comfortable talking to her about it. Either way, my own sexual education, and how I felt about my own body and pleasure, started off rocky.

Lisa: Well, I’d say so many of us — women, men, all people — the way our culture has handled pleasure has basically been not handling it at all. One of my girlfriends and I were having a conversation once — I don’t remember exactly what about, but she brought up that sex education for boys teaches them about orgasm, because sex ed for boys covers wet dreams, erections, what to do about them. I think those are taught for practical reasons — because when you’re a teenage boy having erections in the middle of class, they’re trying to prepare you for it.

But with girls, we’re taught it’s straight about pregnancy — there’s no discussion of pleasure at all, it just goes straight to “you could get pregnant,” and the subtext is your life would be over. So even that contrast — the concept of orgasm comes up for boys, but not for girls. I think that’s the big secret about sex adults are trying to hide from teenagers: that it feels good. Nobody tells anyone that touching your genitals feels good. Because when you talk about sex from a purely logical standpoint — penis, vagina, whatever — to a young woman, it sounds like, “why would you do that, that doesn’t make any sense, that sounds uncomfortable and strange.” That’s why it’s important to have open conversations, even though I’m sure this makes a lot of people listening uncomfortable — this is the part of sex ed that’s missing: the part about pleasure, and for girls specifically, that it’s supposed to feel good. It’s just about having a conversation about pleasure, and all of that.

Going back to when you should talk about the birth-control aspect of fertility awareness — because I’ve been asked this over the years too, and the way it’s often framed to me is, “do you think fertility awareness is appropriate birth control for teenagers?” I think condoms are appropriate birth control for teenagers — I don’t think it’s appropriate to promote unprotected sex for teenagers. I grew up going to Catholic school, and it was basically, “if you have sex, you’ll get AIDS and die,” because I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, and AIDS was all anyone talked about. So the whole condom thing was all the rage — always use a condom to protect against STIs, and also think about protecting against pregnancy.

I grew up in a time when condoms were presented as protecting against both STIs and pregnancy, but somehow we’ve shifted to talking much less about STIs and putting all the focus on preventing pregnancy. I think when you’re having a conversation about safe sex — protecting against STIs and preventing pregnancy — it’s completely appropriate to talk about fertility-awareness-based methods, how the menstrual cycle works, and how, as a woman, you’re not fertile all the time. There are ways to combine condoms with understanding your cycle so you don’t get pregnant, as part of a conversation about all the different options for preventing both pregnancy and STI exposure. So I feel there’s a place to talk about fertility awareness as a way to give anyone — but especially teenagers — a complete set of information about managing this whole sex-and-pregnancy question.

Chloe: Yeah, I love that, I completely agree. In fact, when I first started talking about fertility awareness as a method of birth control for younger people, one of the biggest arguments I’d get was, “well, that doesn’t prevent STIs.” And I’m like, yeah — well, neither does the pill! Or the patch, the IUD, the shot, even the diaphragm.

Lisa: Yeah, and I think that’s why I like having these conversations — just to be practical, to get out of our own way about how we tend to think about these things, and our fears around talking to teens and young people about this. Even though I’m a fertility awareness educator, a lot of people are surprised when I say I don’t think everyone should use fertility awareness — I don’t think it’s appropriate for every single person at every point in their life, because it’s not. There are women who’ll gravitate to this for a portion of their reproductive life, or at certain times, and at the end of the day, you can’t force anyone to use fertility awareness.

You could be the most pro-FAM mom on earth, host your own period party in your house, and your teenage daughter could still decide to go on the pill for a while, because that’s what she feels is best for her at that time. We’re not forcing fertility awareness on anybody — I just think it’s important to have it as part of the conversation. I did an interview this morning, and the woman interviewing me said she didn’t learn about fertility awareness until she was an adult, and she wished she’d known it was an option — not necessarily because she’d have chosen it at sixteen or eighteen, but because once you know it’s an option, at some point in your life you might choose it, because it may be right for you at that time.

Chloe: And I’m completely on the same page — when I talk about the fertility awareness method, I frame it as just one of the options you have. I never try to convince every single person to ditch the pill and switch. I’m just saying, hey, it’s also an option. The people who come to us to learn fertility awareness aren’t the people who love the pill and are having a great experience with it — they’re the people having bad experiences who want something different. So — yeah, let me show you something different, there are other options out there.

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, to kind of close this out, I feel like we covered a lot — I think this was a really informative and interesting conversation. So, where do the boys fit in — the boys and the dads?

I mean, ironically — the girl who talks about vulvas all day long, every day — I’ve got two boys! And it comes up here and there, of course, they’re well-informed about their own anatomy. Oh, this makes me think back to what you were saying about where babies come from — that question has come up all kinds of times. At the time of this recording, my sons are seven and four, so — yeah, you grew in Mommy’s uterus, you came from Mommy’s egg and Daddy’s sperm, they had to get together and make you, blah, blah, blah. So it comes up, and it’s appropriate.

And if you actually tried, as a parent — if you actually tried to hold a seven-year-old’s attention for fifteen minutes describing sex and all this information that isn’t appropriate for their age, they’d just roll their eyes and walk off, just FYI! [laughter] Like, “okay, I get it, Mom, stop.” [laughter]

But yeah, so how do the boys fit into this? What do we do? Because I think a lot of people assume we tell the girls this, and tell the boys something else — but I think there should be — I don’t know, what do you think?

Chloe: I think that despite what kind of plumbing you have going on, despite what anatomy or genitals you have, it’s always beneficial to understand how everybody works.

Lisa: Yeah, right, simple. Love it. Simple.

Chloe: This thought is just coming up right now, but even the way we separate boys and girls — like when I was growing up and we had sex ed, it was girls in this room, boys in that room. It’s almost the same kind of messaging we give when we’re — that’s one of the reasons why, when I first started running these workshops, I called them a workshop for mothers and daughters. By the time I ran it a second time, I’d changed it to “parent and preteen,” because that’s a value I hold — that no matter what sex or gender you are, you should have access to this information.

Lisa: Yeah, I love that. And when you posed the question of what it would look like if a father came instead, I thought it would be the exact same — that’s what I was picturing. I’m like, no, it would just be the same, the difference being that the father — depending on gender identity, etc. — a bio-male father wouldn’t have the experience of having his first period to share with his daughter, or reflect on that. But largely, it would be exactly the same.

I did have a thought I wanted your take on, when you were talking about combining the workshops. This is so funny, it’s really bringing back memories — I’m picturing my junior high right now, the room they took us into, where — actually it was one of my classmates’ moms who did this — she pulled out a bunch of different pads, and we were in that room, and the boys were separate. I’m fully transported back to circa 1990-whatever.

So my question out of that is — when I thought about it, I was like, well, if you had the boys in there, I feel like there’d be so much giggling, because at the end of the day a preteen boy just isn’t that mature, it is what it is. So I could totally see teachers being like, “look, you don’t know my classroom, that wouldn’t work, we separate them for a reason.” But then I thought, they still need that information — how different would it have been in my school if we’d just had pads and tampons on the table, talked about what they’re for, and made it clear we don’t get to shame girls or make fun of them, because this is as normal as going poo — and then everyone laughs.

But then I thought, what if we separated the class into smaller groups, not by gender, but just by size, since that would be more practical for the teacher to get their point across? That’s literally the train of thought I went through while you were talking.

Chloe: That’s great, I love that idea. [laughing] I was really trying to figure this out too — I do see the point of separating, but more for the size, because a smaller, more manageable group helps. This comes from experience teaching — I’ve spent many, many hours, sometimes doing five presentations in a day. It was so interesting — when we’d present to junior high, the baby teens, the class times were forty-five minutes, so we’d always have to modify the presentation, and at that forty-five-minute mark they’re all climbing the walls, ready to run off. But high schoolers have a longer attention span — we could do a full ninety-minute presentation for them.

But even so, there’s a ton of immaturity. I don’t think it really matters, though — you still need to give the information, you just have to find a way to deliver it and call it out. When they laugh, say, “yeah, it is funny, it’s super uncomfortable, we’re laughing because we’re uncomfortable” — and just keep going. And that’s okay.

I was flipping through a library for books to talk about this kind of stuff, and one of the titles I loved was “Sex Is a Funny Word.” Yeah, it is! Okay, what else is also a funny word? I mean, who came up with that — these words could have been anything else.

Lisa: Oh, Chloe — well, to kind of wrap up our discussion today, for the listener who’s followed us through this whole conversation, and is really intrigued and maybe thinking about how they can bring this knowledge to their own family, their daughters, cousins, sisters, whoever’s in their life — what, if anything, would you want to leave them with?

Chloe: Mostly, I feel really strongly about doing your own work first, and being an approachable person, an approachable parent — and how you foster that through their whole lifespan, not through one moment. A really big message I want to end with is that fertility awareness is a life skill that should be practiced well before it has to be used to achieve or avoid pregnancy. And that talking openly about sexual health and body literacy is the best way to raise your children with a body-loving, health-centered, value-focused, empowered view of their own sexuality and the sexuality of others.

Lisa: Well, isn’t that amazing? Thank you.

Chloe: Yes, and go — everybody go and change the world now. Thank you.

Lisa: Awesome, Chloe. It’s been a pleasure having you — thank you so much for coming on, this has been just so great, and I’m really excited to share this with everybody. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and what you do?

Chloe: You just Google Chloe Skerlak and I’ll come up. S-K-E-R-L-A-K.

Lisa: I wouldn’t know how to spell Skerlak if I didn’t know you.

Chloe: Yeah, Chloe — it’s C-H, it’s not Chloe Kardashian! C-H-L-O-E, and Skerlak is S-K-E-R-L-A-K dot com. You’ll find my website, and on Instagram you’ll find pictures of my cervical mucus, and on Facebook you’ll find my latest favorite article. I love to be connected. Thanks so much for having me on the show — I’ve been following you forever, and I’m so honored to call you a friend and a colleague. It’s a dream come true to be on your podcast. So thank you, thank you so much.

Lisa: You’re so sweet, Chloe. We’ve known each other for a while, so I’m really happy to have you on the show. We’ll link your website and information about your Period Positivity Workshops on the show notes page. And thank you again for coming on the show.

Lisa: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/312.

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Chloe today — it was such a treat to have her on the show, and to have the opportunity to talk about the possibility of introducing fertility awareness to teenagers. Is it right? Is it not? Does it make sense? From my perspective, after a long time thinking about this and imagining how different the world would be if we introduced the concept of body literacy, fertility awareness, and cycle tracking at a young age — I can really only see the benefits, because information is power.

Learning about this amazing part of ourselves as women — the menstrual cycle, ovulation, and how it plays into not only our fertility but our creativity and energy, and how that can shift throughout our cycle — understanding and leaning into that can give us a deeper connection with ourselves, and a deeper understanding of who we are as humans.

I love the example of imagining if we taught young girls this before their first period, so they could start to understand mucus, potentially see it, and know their first period is coming so they aren’t surprised by it. I feel this is completely possible — a small number of women on the planet have had that experience, because their mothers or caregivers shared this information with them. I really see this as a positive, amazing opportunity to educate the next generation of girls.

For those of you who’ve been listening for a while, you’ll know I have two boys, so I don’t get to impart this on a daughter — but of course my sons will have all of this knowledge and information, because I can’t help myself. This is part of the vision of empowerment through knowledge and education about our bodies. It’s interesting, because when you teach fertility awareness — I’m teaching you how to track your own cycle — once you learn how to track your cycle and interpret its signs, your body takes over the teaching and begins teaching you. This is like a door opening to a whole other way of getting to know yourself, and at the end of it, you have this incredible, deep connection to your body that’s unique to you.

What I’ve found comes out of this is a huge sense of empowerment that can carry you throughout your whole life. Any time you have a health issue, it reinforces that empowerment. If you’ve been charting your cycles for a long time and notice something’s off, you know it’s unusual for you, because you’ve been tracking. So if a healthcare provider tells you it’s nothing, you know that’s not true, because you have the information — you’re so connected to your body, you’ve been tracking your cycles, and you know what’s normal for you. That knowledge helps empower you, helps you advocate for yourself and stay true to yourself, and get to the point where you realize you know more about your body than any health professional ever will, because you live in your body. So I see this as something so much greater than just charting, because I see how it can affect lives.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed our conversation — you can tell I was really excited about it. I’m thrilled you joined us today. Thank you so much for being part of the Fertility Friday community, and for sharing this episode with your friends. If you know somebody who’d benefit from today’s episode, make sure to share it with them. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/312.

And with that, I’ll let you go have an amazing week or weekend, whenever you’re listening to this. And, of course, as always — until next time, be well and happy charting.