I’m gonna be honest with you, here: I don’t know the first thing about balls or ball maintenance. As life played out, my kid doesn’t have them. But I would have been in trouble if things were different! Is that your situation? Allow Vanessa Kroll Bennett and Cara Natterson to sort you out.

They write: “As a culture, we’re socialized only to talk about male body changes in general and specifically ‘balls’ (AKA testicles) as the punchline of a joke, rather than something worth having a serious conversation about. And as anyone who has ever gotten hit in the balls knows, they are worth having a very serious conversation about.” So let’s do it! Ball 101, here we come.

— Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor

“Bath time was so much fun when my kids were younger,” writes Holly Garcia. “There were bubbles galore and fruity, fresh scents. It was also pretty low-stakes. Bathing was more about having a routine, winding down at night and getting rogue marker marks off their faces. It wasn’t really about making sure they didn’t stink. But all that’s changed now. Because bless these tweens, but their puberty funk is strong… and hella smelly.” Here’s how she’s handling it.