Q: THIS IS SO AWKWARD has expanded from a bestselling book to a podcast as well as your company, Less Awkward, which is the first company aimed at making puberty more comfortable—how has working across different media platforms influenced your messaging and approach? How do you tailor your content across different media formats?

This is something we think a lot about on many levels. First, while many people assume we’re just talking to parents, we actually have tons of people in our audience who are not parents, but educators, healthcare providers, coaches, mentors, family members, and other trusted adults. We want our messaging to be inclusive of all those people because tweens and teens need as many informed adults in their corner as possible.

Secondly, while much of our audience is made up of adults working to learn how to be the best guides and sources of information for kids, we also have a lot of young people who read, watch, and listen to our content. We want to make sure our style allows them to feel like they have a place with us as well. We are incredibly conscious of not being cringey or trying too hard to be cool for the kids; we also don’t want to turn them off if they find our content too serious or dry. So for example, there are certain videos we post on both Instagram and TikTok because they work across audiences, and others that just get posted on IG reels because young people would not relate to them. Or there are videos we use in our health + sex ed school curriculum that might not perform well on social, but really hit in a middle school classroom!

Q: What are some of the challenges and advantages of discussing such a sensitive topic like puberty in a public space, whether in books, podcasts, or live speaking engagements?

Our goal is to get as much science-based, accurate, and non-alarmist information to as many people as possible. So we are extremely deliberate about how we talk about topics. On the one hand, it’s a maddening reality that we can be (and sometimes are!) censored for using anatomically correct language for body parts – some educators even get kicked off social media platforms for teaching about things like pornography or sex. So, unfortunately we have to tread carefully. On the other hand, by being really thoughtful and sensitive to different levels of comfort with this content, it allows us to reach a wider variety of people, including those for whom a more in-your-face approach might feel like too much. It’s super important to remember that everyone brings their own histories and their own baggage into conversations about puberty and sexuality – our approach aims to make as many people feel as comfortable as possible.

Q: Podcasts are incredibly popular for building community—how has THIS IS SO AWKWARD helped you connect with a broader audience, and what have you learned from your listeners?

We have an extremely devoted listenership, partially because we talk about topics that literally no other podcasts cover in the way that we do. Our listeners also tell us that they come back again and again because they feel like we’re two friends sitting with them at their kitchen table. They appreciate that Cara and I bring our own chemistry and relationship into the show, and they love when we share our own personal challenges, failures, and victories. The trick with our community is that raising kids this age can feel very lonely – the stakes are higher, the issues are more private – so we try to help people feel less alone during this stage.

Q: How have social media and digital platforms helped shape the conversation around puberty, and how do you engage with your audience through these channels?

Social media and digital platforms are part of almost everything we do to educate and engage our audience. Our Instagram and TikTok accounts deliver bite-sized information to the public, which in turn are used in our school-based health and sex ed curriculum on the digital platform Learndash. The same videos are used in our private Less Awkward membership community which lives on a digital platform called Circle. And everything we do trains our AI chatbot, the Awkward Bot. Our goal is to leverage the positive power of media and technology to inform and empower our audience.

Q: As authors and media figures, how do you balance being informative with creating content that is entertaining and engaging for both parents and teens?

We experiment with this all of the time! We created awesome animated characters—a talking zit, a talking boob, singing tampons etc.—that we thought would be massive but didn’t take off at all on social media. But it turns out, they resonate loudly in our curriculum for middle school kids. And the stuff we didn’t think would land—one of us talking to camera about a specific science-based or social/emotional topic—actually performs really well on social. Here’s one thing that works across all platforms: when we talk about anything related to male anatomy or physiology (think: penises, wet dreams, or erections), the engagement is through the roof!

Q: How do you decide what topics to cover on your podcast or in your writing? Do you draw more from current events, listener feedback, or personal experiences?

We try to strike a balance between all these different streams because on the one hand, we want the podcast to feel evergreen, but on the other hand, there are always new studies and current events that deeply affect or reflect the lives of tweens and teens. So we try to “yes and” the situation. We are always looking to incorporate listener questions into our work—our assumption is that if one person is asking the question, there are hundreds or even thousands of people struggling with the same issue. And finally, we interject our personal experiences but do so with intentionality and always with the permission of our families. We want people to feel that we are in the trenches with them (which is true!), not looking from above with judgment (also true!!).

Q: Media around parenting can sometimes be overwhelming—how do you differentiate your content in a crowded space to make it approachable and authentic?

We are SO conscious of not adding to the cacophony of parenting advice. We are very deliberate in speaking up or putting out content only when it is truly additive—generally, this means when we have a unique angle or perspective. Because Cara is a pediatrician, our content is science-based and offers a different take than many of the other voices out there. People are starving for accurate health information, so we give a lot of it. On top of that, we use humor very deliberately to put our audience at ease when engaging on tricky topics. There is a place for earnestness, but laughter and fun are also such an important ingredient for speaking parents.

Q: How do you see the conversation around puberty evolving in the future, especially with increased attention to gender inclusivity and body positivity?

Honestly, we’re a week out from the 2024 presidential election and we just have no idea where things are going to go. On the positive side, today’s young people have grown up with gender inclusivity and body positivity as integral parts of their lives. They are fluent and comfortable with it in ways our generation could only hope to be. On the other hand, the politicization of these issues has polarized our culture in a way that may only get worse with our country so divided. We hope that what we offer in our school curriculum, in our parent membership, with our podcast and our books, are a wide variety of ways into these important conversations. We want to give people and institutions many, many approaches to engage on topics that might feel uncomfortable or foreign, but that they know need to be covered. 

Join us for a virtual event on Nov. 12 with Cara and Vanessa here!