What drew you to that corner of the field? And what does that specialty actually do day to day?

Yes.

So my first exposure to the specialty was as a medical student.

I was about to match into obstetrics and gynecology and was doing one of those like electives that's outpatient.

And I decided I would do adolescent medicine.

I really love the adolescent patient.

I hadn't had a lot of exposure to adolescent patients.

When a patient is sitting across from you, what do you teach them about advocating for themselves?

Mm.

And walking by faith, if you knew the whole path, ain't walking by faith, right [laughs]? It's just not.

Um, and so these life transitions, especially in this season where there is elevation, elevation comes with a greater risk from falling, right? The, the greatest risk of failure is the m- the thing that's the most successful.

I wanna ask you, Dr. Sharos, what does purpose mean to you today?

Mm.

Purpose for me is the impact I can have while being obedient to the calling God has given me.

Um, people look at you and they have so many things they want to do with you and your gifts and skills.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Um, and so when parents are bringing their child in, typically that child begrudgingly being dragged in, for me to see if they're sexually active, there's so much shame in that room.

And so I have to say, there is no test for that, and it breaks my heart in some ways because we can't even appropriately criminalize people that harm young girls, right? Because we can't prove that there's a break in that hymen specific to that, so I definitely can't prove it in a consensual sense for your daughter.

But more importantly, if you are worried about her being sexually active, what does protection really look like? It looks like conversation.

It looks like talking about, like, birth control.

Mm.

Because they are, don't feel comfortable potentially having conversations around the topics that they would want to have conversations around.

And so it's not the same thing as, like, bathing your kid.

... you're now in the world differently.

Completely differently.

Completely differently.

Now, the world sees our girls different when they're on the other side of puberty because their bodies are changing.

But I would argue that parents, while they need to show up a little bit differently, it is really important, especially for young Black girls, who have a different burden of adultification bias, to continue to let them be the girl that they are.

Let them live in their childhood.

Stop giving them the burdens of womanhood without the benefits.

i360.

But I've just said to myself, "That's normal." So I'm wondering, [laughs] I'm wondering how common it is for people to just, like, write off things as normal like we were talking about.

Far too common.

So to your point about, like, tampon insertion, one, one of my most popular videos, I mean, it has millions of views on YouTube, is a, like, minute and 30 second tampon insertion tutorial video using a vulva puppet that I purchased from Etsy that is, like, anatomically correct, and I freaking love it.

Um, and so many people comment on a daily basis, and this is, like, a few years old, "Thank you so much.

I got one in.

Oh my gosh." Like, and, and the notes are just beautiful.

I also got a message from a mom on Instagram that said, "Hey, I've got, you know, a pre-teen dancer who really wants to wear a tampon because the pads are too bulky for her uniform, but I was never taught to wear a tampon.

How does it differentiate from other cycle tracking apps?

... to get to that point.

And you said it perfectly.

It starts way earlier than most parents realize, and when parents are like, "I don't know why my daughter hid her period from me for a year.

I don't know why she was so worried," right? "About telling me this," and I tell them every time, the person who taught her how you were going to respond was you.And it wasn't always to everything they did.

It's how you responded to their peers, how you responded to women walking around, how, how you talked about your own body, how you said, "Oh, I don't...

I look so sloppy today," or, "If only I was thinner," or, "That girl shouldn't be walking around with her tampon," or finding out someone started their period and saying, "No, you know, that's terrible." Like, those subtle responses.

It is not just respect for your child.

Yes.

But I will say that, um, you know, most people when I say, "Did anybody ever talk to you about getting your period, or talk to you about what puberty was," or, you know, "Did you go to your mom or a parent once you did get your period?" Everybody raises their hands to, "Nobody talked to me," and nobody raises their hand to, "Somebody talked to me," right? Um, so what, what did your mom actually say to you? And the second part of that is, did that actually impact how you then got on the journey, let's say, instead of law, to go into medicine?

So my mom, um, in the moment said, "Yes, you've started your period." And then the kind of focus shifted, because we were headed to the pool.

And so I think it's really interesting that when you're thinking about, like, a young teen, tween, you know, my focus was on the activities of that day.

I didn't care what this meant for my life.

I didn't care about potential for pregnancy, cramp.

None of that was at the forefront of my mind.

I was like, "So what are we going to do so I can go swimming?" [laughs] Um, and so, and so she just quickly talked with me about how to use a tampon, and so I used a tampon with my very first period the very first time, and it was fine.

Okay.

Yeah.

They have changed drastically, and the political climate that we are in is one that is showing, um, and trending towards efforts that limit that discussion more and more and push it later and later.

And so that's going to negatively affect those folks that get their periods early, that start puberty earlier, that look like us, that are brown and Black girls who tend to start before their white counterparts.

And so what we're seeing is a shift that is going to disproportionately affect a certain group of people, which is already a problem.

But we also are seeing that if parents don't do it, as you mentioned so beautifully earlier, it's going to get done, and that opportunity, um, and the ways in which it can get done today are so, so much more sinister-

Yeah.

Um, I want the people that have been forgotten in these conversations, the ones who felt like they were not sure or not, um, the right fit, to feel like they are the right fit, to feel empowered to show up.

I want there to be more conversation around puberty and periods.