I’ve been searching for an evidence-based book or podcast that addresses menopause AND puberty when they’re happening at the same time within a family. It doesn’t seem to exist.
Not pictured: A bra that remains comfortable all day
It turns out that it’s pretty hard to find resources that cover both puberty and menopause—and their interactions—from an evidence-based perspective, let alone detail common family dynamics when they co-occur under one roof (mother-daughter thermostat wars, anyone?).
Personal climate zones
Menopause and puberty often overlap within households.
When’s menopause? People with uteruses experience hormonal symptoms linked to menopause for 4 to 7 years, and we can’t predict exactly when. Public education about menopause is almost nonexistent, but those who’ve sought out evidence-based information know to expect this sometime between our early 40s and our mid 50s.
And how old are parents with their kids start puberty? U.S. mothers in the 2010s became mothers between ages 23 and 30, on average. In data from the early 2020s, kids with uteruses got their first period between ages 11.5 and 12, on average. So, it’s quite common for people who became parents around 30 to have their menopause transition alongside their kids’ puberty transition.
Who’s going to craft the resource that connects these dots?
There are wonderful books and podcasts about puberty and other wonderful books and podcasts about menopause (see Google Sheet here).
But most resources treat menopause and puberty as unrelated phenomena
Puberty books focus on the child, and menopause resources center women as individuals—or, if they’re more inclusive, people with uteruses as individuals. However, except for one-liners in menopause books about the challenges of responding to teens’ shifting hormones while your own are not so stable, none describe the family system where both may co-occur and interact.
For example, let’s say your tween’s mood just took a sudden turn from cheerful to furious, but your frustration triggers a hot flush. The puberty books advise patience with your teen, and the menopause books recommend that you take action to cool yourself off. But what might a menopause-with-puberty book tell you?
How can you be responsive to your tween’s feelings while also caring for your own needs? How can you communicate effectively with your tween beforehand so they can understand why you’re not as responsive as usual? Considering biological, psychological, and social components, are there intervention or prevention strategies that could support you both? I have, as the kids say, so many questions.
Cher’s hitting menopause any day now
The GenXers and Elder Millennials approaching menopause deserve a 21st-century approach to biospsychosocial phenomena. This feels like a gap worth filling. Publishers, researchers, family therapists—are you listening? There's a whole generation of families that could use a menopause-with-puberty approach.
(How) have puberty and menopause collided in your home?
Writing Conditions Report
I drafted this post while my twins wrestled at my feet, yelling, “I poop out your butt!” and then suddenly turning somber and reflecting, “You know, you lose cells all the time.”