Mothertalk Blog Book Tour: Cycle Savvy
One afternoon, I started having pretty bad pains directly over my ovary. I went to the bathroom and this *glob* of stuff came out. It was like a jellyfish. I FREAKED out. I had a friend drive me to the emergency room. I had a pelvic exam done.
What was wrong with me? Oh, I was ovulating.
Now, this story wouldn’t be nearly as embarassing if my “friend” wasn’t really my Staff Sergeant and I hadn’t been 21 and married at the time. It was only later, when reading Toni Weschler’s Taking Charge of Your Fertility that I realized that the jellyfish was actually egg white cervical mucous.
Oh boy, did I feel like an idiot.
When the fine folks over at Mother Talk asked me to review Toni Weschler’s new book Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body, I was really excited. First, because no one ever asks me to review anything, and second because I immediately recognized the name. Looking at the other people who reviewed this book, I see that many of them credit Ms. Weschler with the conception of their child. (indirectly of course!) Unfortunately, Ms. Weschler’s book couldn’t fix my screwed up anatomy, but the things that I know about my fertility (or lack thereof) come from her book.
Cycle Savvy is aimed at girls 14 to 18. It is similar to TCOYF in that it explains how to use your temperatures and other fertility signs to find when you are most fertile.
Wait, what?? Why would you want 14 year old girls to know when they are fertile??
That’s the conflict present in this book. How much knowledge is too much knowledge? If Bug knows that she is fertile, will she try to have the sex then to get pregnant? Will she just avoid the sex the rest of the time?
I think Ms. Weschler does a good job explaining why teenage girls should learn about fertility awarness. She points out the usefulness in knowing when your period is coming, knowing the difference between normal vaginal secretions and an infection, knowing if your bleeding or pain is normal or abnormal. She also says in pretty straight-forward terms that you should not use this information to avoid getting pregnant because of STDs and the fact that only adults in a committed relationship should attempt to use the fertility awareness method to avoid pregnancy.
Of course, I can see parents who would be nervous about giving their child this book because they feel that it is better if their kid didn’t know. In a world where we preach abstinence, should we be teaching young girls how to recognize their fertility signs?
I think so. I think that understanding your body is crucial for women. The more familiar you are with your body and the more invested you become in understanding how it works…the more likely you are to want to protect it and take care of it. I had sex quite early and I can honestly say that at the time I had NO idea what my body was doing, or how to adequately protect myself. I think empowering teenagers to see what their body is capable of is a good thing.
Plus, I think there is a gap in how we teach girls about sex and their bodies. For instance, Bug knows that an egg is released, and if no sperm goes near the egg, then the egg will go out of her body and she will have a period. But she doesn’t understand the timing of it. She doesn’t understand when the egg is released or how ovulation really works. And we have a lot of talks about bodies and reproduction in our house.
Now, do I honestly see Bug taking her temperature every morning? No way. I can’t even get her to put a toothbrush in her mouth every morning. Do I think teenage girls would do it? Probably not. But Bug has seen me with a thermometer in my mouth in the morning and she understands that your temperature goes up after your egg comes out and goes back down when you have your period. She thinks it is cool. Simply having this knowledge would be beneficial to girls.
I’d recommend this book starting around 12 or 13. It’s written a little too above Bug’s head at 10. Parents should also be aware that there are some frank discussions about sex in the book, written as personal accounts from teenage girls. There is a girl who terminated the pregnancy and I believe one who made an adoption plan for her baby. There are girls who regret having sex and those who do not.
Some parts of the book I’ve shared with Bug already. Almost 1/3rd of the book is made up of the appendix and glossary, which has charts and STI information, places to go for more information, etc. The book is pink and has cartoons, quizzes, and little quotations from other teens mixed throughout. Bug doesn’t really like pink, but she said that the girl on the front was “pretty” and wanted me to tell you that “teaching girls about their body is important because your body does weird things but that is OK but you have to get someone to explain it to you or else you will be freaked out.”
There will be a lot of parents who shy away from this book because it has such frank discussions about sex. It goes into a lot of details about your body and what the heck it is doing once a month.
I want Bug to understand her body, to be proud of it. To not be ashamed of it. I think the best way to do this is to give information. Teach her to respect her body, not by shaming her, but by giving her knowledge. Let’s face it, I wanted to go find this boy “Ryan” that she was talking about yesterday and smack him around a bit, despite her assurances that they weren’t going to “kiss” or “hold hands” or “have the sex.” But in the end, our girls are going to make decisions for themselves. And as parents, we need to send them out in the world as educated as we can. This book is a great start, and will be on our shelf along with some of the more basic body books for Bug to continue to read as she grows older.
Would you like a chance to read Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body for FREE? I have been given three copies of the book to give away to you fine folks. If you want to win a copy, leave a comment on this post that tells us what you wish you had known about your body.
Make sure I have a way to reach you. Bug will be drawing three random winners who will get their very own copy.
Technorati Tags: fertility, Cycle Savvy, TCOYF, teens
December 21st, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Okay, embarrassing but true. When I got my period, I was living in a house with just my dad. My parents had split when I was six, and my older sister was in college. They, knowing that I really wouldn’t want to ask my dad for feminine protection, gave me a stash.
The Big Day happened. I was cool, I could handle this, I put on a pad. And the bleeding didn’t stop! For DAYS! I completely freaked out, and finally went to my father–my father, a MAN, the horror!–in tears, sure that something was wrong with me. While I’m sure there are still things I need to know about my body, since I gave up on fertility without trying, this is what I wish I’d known when I was a young girl: just how long a period lasts. (I have, of course, since figured that part out.
There’s not a huge chance that our library will buy this book, but I’m still going to recommend it to our YA librarian.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I wish I had known about periods, period. I thought I was dying.
Thanks, mom.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Delurking for this one. My daughter will be turning 14 in January, and I bet she could get a lot of good information from that book. We don’t talk a lot about sex, but we have had some very frank discussions, and she does ask when she has a question, and I try to answer her as completely and honestly as possible.
There are lots of things I wish I had known about my body when I was a young teen. LOTS. My mom left it up to the school sex-ed class to address it all. I guess the most embarrasing thing that happened, though, was that I was convinced in the 5th grade that I was pregnant because I’d kissed a boy. I finally fessed up to some of the girls in my gym class, and one girl who was older (had failed a grade) laughed her butt off at me and asked if I’d had a period. I didn’t even know what she was talking about.
Oh, and one comment about having TMI in the book. I think that if you remove the mystery, you take away some of the “danger/thrill” element. I’d rather have my daughter thinking about sex in clinical terms than in hormonal/sexual/excited terms.
December 21st, 2006 at 8:30 pm
I wish I had known the whole ovulation thing. I had no idea for years why I would have cramps when I wasn’t on my period. I think I was in college when I figured it out only by someone else telling me they had ovulation cramps. My mom told me the bare essentials about sex and I had to figure out the rest from friends and experince- not a good thing. Now I talk to teens about it when opportunity arises in my work so they aren’t in the dark. I agree it takes away the mystery and curiosity that kills the cat! (I am a counselor and have some teen clients.)
December 21st, 2006 at 8:38 pm
When I do have children, that book will find its way into our house. Her book helped me temendously!
December 21st, 2006 at 8:59 pm
[…] December 21 Katie Allison Granju highly recommends Cycle Savvy for girls and their mothers. She writes about her own (non-informative) experience growing up and says: “In contrast, my sister and I have tried to make discussions about our bodies and our daughters’ changing bodies an organic part of our lives. I never want to have ‘the talk’ with my daughter; instead, we’ve been talking about my body, her body, and women’s health in general since she was old enough to, well, talk. Now she’s in middle school and we’re talking more than ever. This new book from Toni Weschler will make a great adjunct to our discussions. It’s a girl-version of Weschler’s famous Taking Charge of Your Fertility, book, which taught me more about the way my body works than any other book, doctor, website or conversation ever had before.” Over at Baggage and Bug, Baggage shares a funny/embarassing story about a discovery she made at 21, and writes: “Should we be teaching young girls how to recognize their fertility signs? I think so. I think that understanding your body is crucial for women. The more familiar you are with your body and the more invested you become in understanding how it works…the more likely you are to want to protect it and take care of it. I had sex quite early and I can honestly say that at the time I had NO idea what my body was doing, or how to adequately protect myself. I think empowering teenagers to see what their body is capable of is a good thing.” She agrees that the book might be a little TMI for her 10-year-old daughter, but she did share part of the book with her already, and her girl had this to say: “Teaching girls about their body is important because your body does weird things but that is OK but you have to get someone to explain it to you or else you will be freaked out.” […]
December 21st, 2006 at 11:50 pm
There is a book I used so much in my classroom that it literally wore out and I had to purchase a new one - It’s called “It’s perfectly normal” by Robie Harris. Our son will be looking through it as soon as he moves in. It’s a perfect opener for almost any talk on sex.
Anyway - what I wish I would have known. That’s easy… I wish I would have known that there were people who were attracted to the same sex. I had no idea, I really thought that I was being punished and needed to be a better person so that the ‘dirty feelings’ would disappear. I prayed every night for God to turn me into a boy so that I could be normal (I was about seven or so). And when adolescents hit I faked it, then fell in love, then hid away from the world for many years, and finally accepted who I was. Now I can proudly say that I’ve been in a relationship with a wonderful woman for 23 years.
December 22nd, 2006 at 12:31 am
Oh, lordy. I wrote a comment on Dawn’s blog about this, so here’s just a repeat: We started trying to get preggers when I was 34 (we knew we didn’t have much time), and the stuff I didn’t know about my body could fill a book…like this one. I learned *so much* from Weschler’s TCOYF, and it really came in handy when my cycles started getting all wonky, because I was able to figure out that it was perimenopause.
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:43 am
I wish I had known that my breasts could hurt during my period and that it wasn’t something scary like cancer. I wish I knew how sex actually worked (I thought the guy had to pee in the girl!) and I wish I had known about things like the chances of getting pregnant without intercourse but with “messy” foreplay. I wish I had known that sometimes you’re going to hurt more, sometimes you’re going to hurt less and all of the symptoms of a period that are normal. I wish I had known what you should worry about and what you shouldn’t.
And I wish I had known that the day you wear white shorts is the day you’ll get your very first period…
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:38 am
Hi Ladies,
I’m Toni Weschler, the author of Taking Charge of Your Fertility and Cycle Savvy. I thought you might appreciate my early years as a teen. When I was in the 8th grade health class, I came about a nanosecond close to asking how the sperm got through the man and woman’s clothes. Thank GOD I was shy enough back then to put my hand down. Crisis averted.
December 22nd, 2006 at 6:49 am
My body? When I was a kid, in about grade four (but I was eight) we had a movie just for girls about the wonder of menstruation, and how it wasn’t a curse and how it didn’t mean you couldn’t do sports or swim and stuff. It meant you were a young woman and the mom and the dad took the girl for a special dinner and gave her a new dress and treated her with respect and admiration. I wanted to be a young lady asap. They never said there would be brown goo, or that it would hurt all night long the first time and all day long, and that I would be nauseous and puke and feel bloated and ashamed and horrid and secret, and the pad would feel like wet dirty diapers. They didn’t say I’d be cramped for three days each month and bleed like a stuck pig and bleed through my clothes. I felt utterly betrayed by my body and the people who taught me it was all flowers and wonders and respect and great. Dang, look! Toni Weschler is commenting just before me! My gosh! hello hello! (btw, I also knew that babies came out of mommies tummies, but no one told me til I read an adult book when I was about 11 or 12 how the boy seed god there. When I was 8 or 9 I read a book where a girl and boy got “all comfortable and feeling good and sleepy” sitting together on the couch alone, and the boy leaped up and said “we have to go now, this is dangerous, this is ‘how it happens’”. and so I thought for three or four years, you could get pregnant being fully clothed, but physically comfy leaning against a boy you liked on the couch. Frightful…. and I even had sex-ed friendly parents!!)
December 23rd, 2006 at 1:07 am
um, i wish i hadn’t been so stubborn and had actually listened to my mom when she wanted to talk with me about bodies and sex. i got the basics, but i think i missed some of the finer points when i was humming with my fingers in my ears. i was so painfully shy.
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:38 am
What a wonderful thing that Toni has written a book geared for teens. I thought your review was well thought out and well articulated. I only have a son right now, and he’s only 2, but I’m hoping to have a daughter one day and that is a book that I would definitely have on the shelf for her; heck I’m interested in reading it right now, and will probably end up buying it sometime soon. I don’t think there is a problem with sex being discussed frankly and openly with a young teenager. Let’s face facts, the information is out there and it’s going to get to her one way or the other. it would be nice if that weren’t the case, but I feel that it is. Children learn young about sex from older brothers or sisters or from TV and they can’t wait to share that information, or more often mis-information to their peer group. I would much rather my daughter, if I am lucky enough to have one, and my son learn about sex and their bodies from me or my husband, and that they are getting the correct information.
Whew…it’s tiring up here on this soap box. I guess I’m more passionate about this topic than I thought. Sorry for the discourse…
I think it would have been great if I had been given information about my body when I was younger. Finding out when I did was a great help when I tried to get pregnant, but so many times when I was a teenager I would have the “jellyfish” experience and then be terrified that there was something terribly wrong with me. My mother is absolutely wonderful, the best mother a child could ask for, but I’m adopted and my mother was quite a bit older than the norm when she and my father adopted me; they were 45, and she was from a generation that didn’t talk about things like ovulation or even periods. My mother charmingly refers to your period as “the curse” and then refused to say anything else. Needless to say, I’m really lucky I didn’t get pregnant or an STD when I was in high school. I started having sex very young, I was 14, and to be honest I remember VERY little about it. If I had felt more empowered and sure of my own body and what it did, it might not have changed any of the choices I made, but I would have made those choices fully informed.
Thanks for reading my short novel…if you made it this far…I didn’t mean to go on and on, I just couldn’t stop.
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:47 am
Unfortunately I didn’t know too much about my body or my cycle until I was in my late 20’s and trying to conceive. I read TCOYF and was just amazed that my mom, Planned Parenthood or my OB hadn’t told me these things! My daughters will definately be getting a copy of this book when they are older (they’re only 2 now) and hopefully be more aware & in control their own bodies. If I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have spent my early twenties on BCP’s with nasty side effects, I would have just paid attention to what my body was telling me naturally.
December 23rd, 2006 at 6:17 am
i wish someone had warned me i could start menstruating much earlier than the norm (i was 9, and though i sorta knew what it was and all, it was way earlier than expected). and the whole goo thing, too. i always thought i was sick or something.
i couldn’t believe how no one ever told me any of this stuff - cycles and ways of knowing and timing. all i ever learned was how in a 28 day cycle you’d ovulate around day 14 - but given as i had totally irregular cycles (pcos) that did me a fat lot of good.
i’d definitely want to share this kind of info with my daughter. and yet i’d be a bit scared of my SIL’s reaction if i gave the book to my 19-year-old niece.
January 2nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I wish I had known that I did not have any weird vaginal infection which appeared some days each month, I was just having normal eggwhite mucus… I only found out this was normal and good when I was in my 20s… Previously I had asked my mother, who suggested it could be an infection, and then got ashamed of it. I was so relieved and happy to see that my cycles make sense!
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 am
I wish I’d known I had a cervix. *snicker*
January 13th, 2007 at 6:23 am
maybe with yahoo messenger
January 19th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
For all those TTC’ing out there, let me tell you about our experience. We were years trying for a baby with no luck, then we tried this fertility monitor and we were pregnant within a few months. It may not work for everyone, but it did work for us.